PhD Program

Year 1: Students should be enrolled full time (9 credit hours). Students should begin determining which faculty they will select as their dissertation advisor. Students must meet with the Associate Dean to discuss their plan of study in their second semester and submit it to the Graduate Program Office. A hold will be placed preventing registration until this is submitted. In the first year, students spend more time on courses in preparation for the qualifying exam, but must also meet research obligations as required by their advisor. At the end of the first year, all full-time students must take the qualifying exam. Part time students, with the approval of the Associate Dean, may delay taking qualifying exam until all core courses are completed.

Qualifying Exam: All students are given 2 opportunities to pass the qualifying exam. This is an oral exam based on material in the following courses:

1. OSE 5115-Interference and Diffraction
2. OSE 5312-Light Matter Interaction
3. OSE 6111-Optical Wave Propagation
4. OSE 6211-Imaging and Optical Systems

See additional information on the Qualifying Exam here.

Students are required to take the Qualifying Exam at the first opportunity after all of the above listed courses have been taken. Those students failing on the first attempt must retake the exam at the very next attempt. Failure to take the exam at the required time will be regarded as equivalent to a failure of the exam.

The exam is waived for students earning an average GPA of 3.5 or higher in the four core courses. Students must have a minimum GPA of 3.0 in the four core courses to take the exam.

Year 2: Second year students are usually expected to devote a large fraction of their time to research, while typically also taking about 6 hours of formal coursework per semester. After completing the core requirements, students should take their candidacy exam by the end of the second year. Prior to scheduling a candidacy exam, the PhD dissertation advisory committee should be formed. Once committee members are selected from the approved graduate faculty, the student is responsible for completing the “Request to Form PhD Advisory Committee” form and submit it to the Graduate Program Office. The Associate Dean must approve all dissertation committees.

Year 3: By the third year, a PhD student should be primarily involved with dissertation research and substantially done with courses except for upper level courses that are taught infrequently. Within one year of passing the candidacy exam, the dissertation proposal should be written and examined by the dissertation advisory committee. The student must ensure that the “Report of Dissertation Proposal Examination” form is submitted to the Graduate Program Office once the proposal examination is complete.

Subsequent Years: After passing the dissertation proposal, students should be entirely engaged in their research. Students must arrange annual progress meetings with their dissertation advisory committees. Students must complete a mandatory annual review with their advisor each subsequent year to document their progress towards dissertation defense and graduation. A hold will be placed on the student’s account preventing enrollment if an annual review is not completed.

Dissertation Defense & Graduation: In the semester the student intends to graduate, an Intent to Graduate must be filed online in myUCF.

The announcement of dissertation defense is due to the Graduate Program Office at least 2 weeks prior to the scheduled oral defense date. After the ITG and announcement are submitted, students must follow the deadlines listed in the academic calendar for dissertation requirements.

After the defense, an exit interview must be scheduled. Please visit the Graduate Program Office to schedule this.