Every graduate student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering must follow a program approved by a faculty adviser in the department. The adviser assigned to the student upon admission may be changed, subject to the approval of the new adviser.
Additional details are in the department's Graduate Student Advising Manual.
The department admits students into the Ph.D. program directly. A guiding principle behind the department's requirements for the Ph.D. degree is that performance in research, as distinct from course work, should be the primary criterion for assessing the student's progress. In addition, the department requires satisfactory completion of the Ph.D. departmental examination and the University Graduate Board oral examination, preparation of a preliminary research proposal, a departmental seminar presentation, and an oral dissertation defense. The departmental examination is offered twice yearly. Each faculty member prepares a set of questions, and the student must select and complete the sets of questions of three faculty members.