Requirements

General Examination

Recorded Presentation – Slides

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The General Exam is the second milestone in the Ph.D. program.

The student must:

1. Write a written report in the form of a thesis proposal with the instructions given in a “charge.”
2. Give an oral presentation on that work in the “General Exam.”

The General Exam demonstrates that the student is ready to perform or has already performed doctoral-level research in a specific area. The goal is to confirm that a student has the skills needed to complete their PhD, including:

• Reading and understanding research papers
• Writing clearly about research
• Speaking about research
• Evaluating the work of others and their own work
• Conducting original and creative research

Deadlines and Time Limits

• Students and faculty are strongly encouraged to schedule the general exam at least a year before the student’s planned graduation date. This allows students time to make major changes, as recommended by the committee, like adding a section, scaling back a component, or other substantial changes to the research trajectory.
  Delaying the exam to less than one year before the final exam makes it significantly less useful because the committee is no longer well-positioned to use their expertise to help improve the thesis plan. As such, late generals exams can lead to longer time in the program by under-utilizing the committee’s expertise and fresh perspectives.
• The general exam must be defended and the committee’s decision received no later than the last day of finals week in a given quarter.
• A student is disallowed by the Graduate School from taking the general exam and the final exam in the same quarter.

Before Scheduling the General Exam

Complete Required Coursework

• 5 Breadth Courses (required from 3 of 4 groups, one waiver allowed, in-progress courses allowed)

Form a Doctoral Committee

Students form a Doctoral Supervisory Committee by emailing the Grad Advising team with the names of their committee members and roles. Please include the email addresses for any external members in your email.

The Graduate School has their own policies about Doctoral Supervisory Committees with which the Allen School policies are aligned. The Allen School also has specific committee composition requirements.

A doctoral committee for Generals consists of:

• One Chair (CSE faculty or adjunct)
• One additional CSE faculty member (can also co-chair)
• One additional committee member (external members permitted)
• One GSR (required by the Graduate School).

Please review the handbook page on Committee Composition for more information.

Confirm Exam Date and Time

• Work with the committee to choose a date and time early.
• Reserve a room (optional)
• Set up a video conferencing link (required for all presentations).
• Confirm that the committee, including the GSR, will be available to:
  • Attend the exam.
  • Approve the Committee Signature Form via email following the exam

Other Pre-requisites

Some research groups have additional pre-requisites before beginning the exam. For instance, some groups require a “Reading Exam” where the student provides an in-depth literature review prior to being approved to take the General Exam. Check with your committee Chair to see if there are pre-requisite requirements for your research group.

Schedule the General Exam

Once the student and their committee agree on a date and time for the exam:

• The student schedules the exam using MyGradProgram (doctoral exams tab), including entering the date, time, and location. Include the video conferencing link in the location field along with the room.
• The student sends calendar invitations to the committee and reminds them via email a few days before the exam.

You cannot schedule or take a final exam in any quarter (including Summer) without being enrolled, no exceptions.

Students may opt out of having their exam announced to the Allen School community or appearing on the grad calendar by checking the “opt-out” box in MyCSE immediately after scheduling their exam. All exams are required to be advertised to the Allen School faculty.

If a student needs to update the date, time, location, or title of an exam, please email grad-advising@cs.washington.edu as MyGrad Program will not let students change this themselves.

The student should send calendar invitations as early as possible and remind committee members of the date and details a few days before the exam.

General Exam Format

The General Exam consists of three parts: receiving the charge, writing the report, and giving an oral presentation on the work. 

Receive the charge

The charge is sent by the committee Chair and contains instructions for producing a written report in the format of a thesis proposal. The Chair is required to email the charge to grad-advising@cs, the student and each faculty member on the Supervisory Committee.

The charge details the requirements for the written report. These requirements are determined by the Chair, but should include:

• A brief summary of the contents of the thesis, ideally in the form of a thesis statement
• A discussion of related research
• A summary of the proposed major research results and/or chapters of the dissertation
• Any additional sections at the Chair’s discretion

Both the paper and talk should, at least briefly, include all of the above bullet points, however the Chair can require that the student focus on one specific aspect, e.g. related work. 

The Chair has the option of including additional specifications for the report such as:

• Whether or not the student’s prior work, including co-authored work, can be included
• Any deadline for completing the written report.
• Unless otherwise directed by the Chair, the student must send the written report to all committee members one week prior to the exam.

Write the report

The written report should reflect the instructions that the student was given in the charge. The report should be written with appropriate citations. Most reports have fewer than 20 pages, but the length of the work is left up to the discretion of the Chair.

Some discussion of the contents of the report with your advisor and colleagues is permitted, but the actual writing of the report shall be done independently of the advisor and colleagues. 

Give the oral presentation

The oral presentation should give an overview of the student’s written report. Students may want to rehearse the presentation in advance with colleagues. The oral portion of the General Exam typically lasts 90 minutes. It begins with a 40-minute long presentation by the student. The presentation is open to faculty and students, who may ask questions.

After the public portion, a closed session follows—this is limited to the student’s committee members and possibly other faculty. The purpose is to evaluate the student’s readiness and ability to conduct independent research.

University policy requires that at least four committee members attend the exam:

• The committee Chair
• The Graduate School Representative (GSR)
• At least two additional committee members

Possible Outcomes

1. Pass
   The student successfully completed the general examination and advances to candidacy.
2. Reexam
   The student must be reexamined after a further period of study. Requires rescheduling the final exam with the Graduate School.
3. Fail
   The student has not passed. In this case:
   • A student that fails the general examination will be immediately moved to Final Academic Alert. Failing a second time results in being dropped from the program for failure to sustain satisfactory progress (Grad School Policy 3.7.5).

After the exam, the Committee Signature Form is signed by the examining committee, a copy is placed in the academic file, and the results are conveyed to the Graduate School.

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