NORTH CAROLINA AGRICULTURAL AND TECHNICAL STATE UNIVERSITY
College of Engineering
Electrical Engineering Ph.D. Program in the area of Computers

Note: This is a preliminary plan subject to approval.

The Electrical Engineering department will be accepting Computer Science students to earn a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering. Many of the Electrical Engineering Ph.D. research and qualifier areas are common to both Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. A brief overview of the planned expanded Electrical Engineering Ph.D. program is given below. Interested students should contact Dr. Clinton Lee (cbl@ncat.edu) in the Electrical Engineering department.

• Unconditional Admission Requirements
• Admission is subject to review by the Graduate Curriculum Development Committee.
• The student must possess a Master of Science degree in EE, Comp E, CS or a related discipline.
• A minimum overall graduate GPA of 3.0 on a 4.0 scale.
• Submit his/her GRE scores to the Department of Computer Science.

• Credit hour requirements
• A total of 45 credit hours that includes 24 credit hours of coursework.
• A minimum of 12 credits hours at the 800 level.
• A minimum of 12 credit hours of COMP997 - doctoral dissertation.
• 3 credit hours of COMP992 – doctoral seminar, 6 hours of COMP995 – preliminary exam.
• A maximum of 6 credit hours outside of CS and EE.

• Ph.D. Qualifying Examination
• All students must take the exam within five semesters after admission to the program.
• At the time of the exam, a student must be enrolled with a minimum GPA of 3.0 and must have an approved Graduate Plan of Study with the school of graduate studies.
• Any students on provisional status can not sit for the qualifying exam.
• The first qualifying exam will be given in the Spring 2003 for those students that have been granted admittance into the program in the Spring 2002.
• The qualifying exam will be given each Fall and Spring starting the academic year 2003.
• Each student must select four subjects for the qualifier from the following subjects:

• Subjects for the Ph.D. qualifying exam

1. Theory and Languages

2. Artificial Intelligence

3. Algorithms

4. Information Systems

5. Operating Systems

6. Software Engineering

7. Computer Architecture

8. Pattern Recognition & Computer Vision

9. Computer Networks

10. Systems and Control

11. Machine Intelligence

12. Neural Networks

13. Communications Systems

14. Fault Tolerant Computing

15. Digital Signal Processing

16. Digital System Design

17. Power Systems

18. Optical Materials and Devices

19. Semiconductor Materials and Devices

· Preliminary Oral Examination

o This exam is held no later than one semester prior to the Ph.D. final examination.

o This is an oral presentation and defense of the student’s dissertation proposal and is conducted by the student’s Advisory Committee.

· Ph.D. Final Oral Examination

o This is a final dissertation defense presentation conducted after completion of the dissertation.

o Each Ph.D. student must take a final oral examination conducted by the student’s Advisory Committee.

o Unanimous approval of the student’s Advisory Committee is required for passing the oral examination.