Also, financial assistance for students with marginal performance may be discontinued. The PhD program is a research-oriented degree program. The PhD program focuses on original research by the student, but also requires course work to prepare for the research. Doctoral students proceed from course work to candidacy for the degree, and finally to defense of the thesis. Each student has a thesis supervisor who oversees the student's research.
Candidacy is obtained upon the successful completion of the qualifying examination.
A full-time student making good progress is expected to be able to complete the PhD degree in four years. The first two years of the programs will normally be devoted to coursework, leading to the major field examination and a research paper. After that, the student will begin to write the thesis research. The normal period for completing the PhD degree in full-time mode is four years . Program Requirements 1.