The milestones along the way to the Ph.D. are described in detail below. The course requirements, examinations, and 690 Project should be completed by the end of the second year, and all requirements for admission to candidacy must be completed by the end of the third year. The Dissertation and Defense must be completed no later than the end of the sixth year. Exceptions to these rules require approval of the Director of Graduate Studies, the Faculty, and/or the Graduate School.
Students are required to pass twelve courses, satisfying the following constraints:
In order to keep the Faculty appraised of research progress, each student must give a public talk on the progress of his or her research at least twice a year, beginning in the second year of study. These talks are known as Official Graduate Student Talks (OGST's). Each year one of these talks is given in a Department-sponsored forum and is called the Departmental OGST. All faculty and students are encouraged to attend Departmental OGST's. The other talk, called the local OGST, is scheduled by the student's Supervisory Committee.
The Departmental OGST must be scheduled in the fall, before the student registers. The student must announce the talk in the departmental newsgroup, yale.cs.department at least a week in advance. The announcement should be repeated as the date draws near. All OGST announcements should indicate the student's year of study and the current 690 Project Advisor or Thesis Advisor. Students who have been admitted to candidacy should also list their reading committee and expected date of completion.
For second year students, the local OGST must be given in the fall term and the Departmental OGST in the spring term. The student's term and the Departmental OGST in the spring term. The student's Supervisory Committee may allow the latter to be the 690 presentation as well.
In the year in which a student plans to defend his or her thesis, the Departmental OGST must still be scheduled in the fall as usual. However, it will be cancelled if the student has successfully defended prior to the scheduled date.
Each student must pass a Comprehensive Examination in each of the areas of Artificial Intelligence, Programming Languages and Systems, Scientific Computing, and Theory of Computing. At least two Exams must be passed by the end of the student's first year, and all four must be passed by the end of the second year. The Comprehensive Exams are administered each year in early May.
The purpose of each Exam is to verify basic competence in the corresponding research area. If a student's educational background in a particular area is inadequate, he or she can take a course in that area to get up to speed. In addition, at the beginning of the year, the Faculty will make available to all students a list of readings in each area, familiarity with which is sufficient to pass the corresponding Comprehensive Exam. By studying these materials, the student can decide whether to take courses or just take the Exam.
The student must submit a written report on his or her 690 Project to his or her Supervisory Committee, which grades it for (a) quality of the work, (b) quality of the technical writing, and (c) quality of the English. The grade and a one-page abstract must be transmitted to the Director of Graduate Studies.
Please note that the course grades for CS 690 and CS 691 are not the same as the grade for the 690 Report. The Advisor files a grade of ``SAT'' or ``UNSAT'' for CS 690 and CS 691, indicating whether the student is making satisfactory progress toward completing the research and the report on it. If not, the Supervisory Committee and Faculty should be notified.
The student must pass an Area Examination by the end of the second year. The purpose of the Area Exam is to demonstrate proficiency in scholarship over a subject area that includes the area of the 690 Project, but is broader. The Exam is formulated and administered by the student's Supervisory Committee. The Committee will decide whether the same exam should be given simultaneously to a cohort of students, as opposed to giving each student his or her own Exam.
The Exam typically includes either or both of the following:
A regular Departmental faculty member must agree to direct the student's Dissertation (thereby certifying that the student is capable of doing original research). Meeting this requirement does not automatically follow from the student's receiving a grade of HONORS or HIGH PASS on the 690 Project. A student is generally expected to do research in an area of mutual interest with a faculty member. The Department cannot be expected to supervise dissertations in areas not represented by the Faculty. The Thesis Advisor must be chosen by the beginning of the third year.
A Thesis Prospectus must be filed with the Director of Graduate Studies and the Graduate School, this being a written summary (about 3 or 4 pages long) of the nature and scope of the thesis research and a tentative title of the Dissertation. The Prospectus must also include a proposed Committee of Readers (see below) and be signed by the Advisor.
The Faculty will vote to admit the student to Candidacy when all of the requirements described above have been satisfied: Course Requirements, Comprehensive Examinations, 690 Project and Report, Area Examination, Thesis Advisor, and Thesis Prospectus. It is expected that a student will be admitted to Candidacy by the end of the third year. If the requirements have not been satisfied by the beginning of the fourth year, the student will be asked to withdraw.
The most important part of the Ph.D. program is research training, culminating in the writing of a Dissertation. The Dissertation should be concluded no later than the end of the student's sixth year. The Dissertation demonstrates the student's ability to perform original research. Thus, it must demonstrate technical mastery of the subject and must contain conclusions that modify or enlarge what has previously been known. Because Yale is a University, dedicated to the dissemination of knowledge, all results of research, including the Dissertation, must be made public. Access may not be restricted for any reason, commercial or governmental.
The student must give an oral Defense of the thesis research when the student's Committee is satisfied that the work is complete and the student has a complete draft of the Dissertation ready to submit to the Graduate School. To ensure the latter one copy of the Dissertation must be given to the Departmental Registrar and made available to the Department Faculty at least one week before the Defense takes place.
The Defense consists of a one-hour public presentation of the results followed by a 15-minute question and discussion period, which is open to the entire Department and its guests. The Faculty and outside Readers then conduct an oral examination in closed session.
In order to give all interested faculty the opportunity to attend, the Defense must take place when classes are in session (i.e., not during vacation periods) and at times reserved for this purpose. They must be scheduled with the Director of Graduate Studies and announced to the Faculty at least one month in advance. Students are strongly advised to begin the scheduling process several months before they expect to have a complete draft of their Dissertation.
The Dissertation should be submitted to the Graduate School as soon as the Thesis Defense has been passed and any final corrections to the Dissertation have been made. This must be completed within one month of passing the Defense, or the student must defend again. A copy of the final draft must also be given to the Departmental Registrar. After the Dissertation is submitted, copies are sent to the members of the Reading Committee (see below), who each read the thesis and complete a Reader's Report form. When all Reader's Reports are in, they are made available to the Faculty, who then vote to recommend the degree at a special faculty meeting. The recommendation is then forwarded along with the Reader's Reports to the Graduate School, which reviews the recommendation. Finally, the entire Graduate Faculty votes to approve the degree.
In order to allow time for these steps to be completed in a timely fashion, the Graduate School requires that the Dissertation be submitted by September 15 for a November degree and by March 15 for May degree. While these deadlines have not always been strictly enforced in the past, the Department and the Graduate School will feel under no obligation to complete the degree approval process in time for graduation if they are missed, and the actual award of the degree may be delayed six months as a result.
The Dissertation must be read by a Committee of four Readers which is a distinct entity from the Supervisory Committee (although it normally overlaps with it). Three Readers must be Internal and one must be External. An Internal Reader may be any faculty-level person with a close affiliation to the Yale Department of Computer Science, including regular faculty, visiting faculty, research scientists, and associate research scientists. An External Reader may be any qualified person who is not closely affiliated with the Yale Department of Computer Science. In addition, the Reading Committee must conform to the following rules:
For the purposes of these regulations, ``close affiliation'' status is conferred by any extended visit in the Department or any kind of Departmental appointment or title, including affiliate and adjunct titles. Occasional short-term visits or research collaborations do not constitute close affiliation. Once conferred, the status of ``close affiliation'' persists for a period of two years after the affiliation terminates. Thus, a faculty member who takes a position elsewhere may continue to serve as an Internal Reader for two years after leaving and may not serve as an External Reader during that same period. The above notwithstanding, the Reading Committee must always include at least one current regular ladder faculty member in the Yale Computer Science Department. In addition, if the Advisor leaves Yale, the Graduate School may require that a current Yale faculty member serve as Acting Advisor.
The rules concerning the composition of the Reading Committee must be satisfied when the Committee is first formed, at the time of the Thesis Defense, and at any time that the Committee is changed.