Ph.D. in Physics Requirements Guide

Course Requirements | Qualifying Examination | Ph.D. Dissertation

 Course Requirements

The Graduate School requires a total of 72 hours of credit (formal coursework plus registered research hours) prior to receiving the Ph.D. Within these 72 hours, the Ph.D. program in physics requires 28 hours of formal coursework¹ including:

• Six core courses covering the foundations of physics, as detailed below, totaling 16 credit hours;
• One graduate-level course totaling 3 or more hours in the Department of Physics and Astronomy but outside the student’s field of specialization (a “breadth course”);
• Additional graduate-level courses to make a total of 28 semester hours in any subject relevant to the student’s overall program of graduate study and research;
• Six semesters of Physics Colloquium, three of which should be taken before the qualifying exam; and,
• A minimum of two semesters of Teaching Practicum are to be taken at any time before the thesis defense.

A student must earn a grade of B or higher in each course counted towards these 28 hours. Satisfactory grades (“S”) have to be obtained in PHYS 8001: Physics Colloquium, and PHYS 8003:Teaching Practicum.

Core courses provide the foundation for deeper connections to elective coursework and research. There are two ways to satisfy each core course requirement:

• Take and pass the course with a grade of B or higher; or
• Take and pass an alternate written exam on the material covered by that particular course with a score equivalent to a grade of B or higher.

Students are not permitted to retake core courses. Instead, a student who receives a B- or lower grade in any core course has a second chance to meet the course requirement by taking and passing the corresponding alternate written exam. These students who fail to satisfy any one of the core course requirements due to a low course grade and failure on the alternate written exam may be dropped from the Ph.D. program at the discretion of the Graduate Program Committee.

Transfer Credit

Students who have taken graduate courses elsewhere may petition the Graduate Program Committee to have those courses evaluated for transfer credit to avoid unnecessary duplication and speed up the student’s entry into research. In order to transfer any number of core courses for credit, transfer students must take any one of the core courses offered at Vanderbilt and earn a grade of A- or better.

Core Course Requirements

Students concentrating in physics must complete the following courses in the first two years of graduate study:

• Physics 8000: Research Seminar
• Physics 8010: Particle and Continuum Mechanics
• Physics 8020: Advanced Electrodynamics I
• Physics 8030: Quantum Mechanics I
• Physics 8040: Statistical Mechanics
• One of the following courses: 

1. 1. 1. Physics 8021: Advanced Electrodynamics II
      2. Physics 8031: Quantum Mechanics II
      3. Physics 8152: Quantum Mechanics of Solids
      4. CPBP 8306: Introduction to Chemical and Physical Biology

Breadth Courses and Electives

One “breadth course” is required of all students. These are advanced graduate-level courses (typically 8XXX level) from physics or related fields outside the student’s field of specialization. The elective courses may be filled from any graduate-level courses that are appropriate for the student’s program; DGS approval is needed for courses offered outside the Department of Physics and Astronomy. The chart in Appendix A shows breadth and elective courses available in the department.

The Departmental Colloquium is another required course aimed to provide breadth in the student’s education. The colloquium course PHYS 8001 has to be passed with a satisfactory grade three times before the qualifying exam, and six times before the thesis defense.

Teaching Requirement

Teaching experience is important for the student’s learning and future career. The Teaching Practicum: PHYS 8003 is required of all students for a minimum of two semesters. Typically, the graduate students in the department would teach for five to six semesters.

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The Qualifying Examination

The doctoral degree in physics requires students to write and defend a dissertation that presents the results of independent research. To progress to that point, each student must first pass the Qualifying Examination to become a doctoral candidate.² According to the Graduate School Catalog, “the purpose of the Qualifying Examination is to test the student’s knowledge of the field of specialization, to assess familiarity with the published research in the field, and to determine whether the student possesses those critical and analytical skills needed for a scholarly career.” In the physics Ph.D. program, the Qualifying Examination requires each student to independently write and orally defend a research proposal. The topic is of the student’s choosing, and may be the same as their current research. The Qualifying Examination is administered by the student’s Ph.D. committee, and only the committee members and the student are present. Passing the Qualifying Examination marks the student’s formal entry into dissertation research under the supervision of the thesis adviser and the Ph.D. committee. The Qualifying Exam should not be seen as a hurdle, but as an important part of one’s training to become an independent scientist.

Ph.D. Committee

The Ph.D. Committee administers the Qualifying Examination and subsequently monitors the student’s progress toward the completion of the thesis. The committee comprises at least four members of the graduate faculty. To ensure consistency among Qualifying Examinations, at least one member of the committee should be a current or recent member of the Graduate Program Committee; and by Graduate School rule, at least one member of the committee must be from outside the department or program in which the student plans to do the dissertation research. The composition of the committee is proposed by the adviser in consultation with the student and must be approved in writing by the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS) to ensure breadth and level of expertise.

Preparing for the Qualifying Examination

The Qualifying Examination in the department is taken during the fourth semester (under exceptional circumstances, a student may petition the Graduate Program Committee to delay the Qualifying Exam until the fifth semester ³ ). By Graduate School rules, students taking the Qualifying Exam must have completed all requirements for formal coursework (Section 1) with a GPA of 3.0 or better in all courses taken for credit. The steps needed to prepare for the Qualifying Examination are detailed in the table and the corresponding notes.

QE 1: Ph.D. Committee Formation

The student should get involved in research as soon as possible certainly no later than the summer after the first year of study. During the first two years of study, a student may explore research opportunities in several groups, but the faculty Ph.D. adviser must be selected at least one semester before an anticipated Qualifying Examination date.

The student and the adviser agree on the other members of the Ph.D. Committee. The student then contacts members of the committee to ascertain their willingness to serve. Once the composition of the Ph.D. Committee is decided and all the proposed committee members have agreed to serve, the student completes the Request to Appoint Committee form, and submits it to the DGS for approval and notification of the Graduate School. During the annual exam cycle, the committee membership should be finalized and the form submitted by February 1.

QE 2: Proposal Abstract

The student prepares a one-page abstract that outlines the proposal’s research topic, hypothesis, and specific aims and presents it to the Ph.D. adviser for review and critique. The student would then revise the abstract as needed in order to arrive at an abstract suitable for submission to the full Ph.D. Committee. After the abstract is approved by the Ph.D. adviser, the student will submit the abstract electronically (pdf preferred) to the Ph.D. Committee and the DGS by February 15. The abstract will be reviewed by the student’s Ph.D. Committee, focusing on the following questions:

• Is the research topic appropriate?
• Is the hypothesis well-formed and testable?
• Is the scope sufficiently focused (doable during a typical graduate career of three to four years)?
• Is the hypothesis consistent with the research plan?

The Ph.D. Committee chair will collect comments from the Ph.D. Committee and will provide the student with written feedback on the appropriateness of the proposal in approximately one week. The student will take the input into consideration in preparing the full eight-page proposal.

QE 3: Scheduling the Qualifying Exam

The student should contact all committee members to set a date for the oral part of the Qualifying Examination. Once a date is agreed upon, the student fills out a Request to Schedule Qualifying Exam form after obtaining the approval of the adviser and the DGS and no later than three weeks before the proposed date. The deadline to submit the form for approval to the DGS is March 1 in the spring semester of the exam. Note that the Graduate School issues the notice of the examination at least two weeks in advance.

QE 4: Research Proposal

After receiving the written comments on the proposal abstract, the student will proceed to prepare a full proposal. The written proposal must not exceed eight pages (single-spaced, 12-pt font). Within this space, the proposal should have four sections:

1. Rationale or Background – This section provides background information and justification for the proposal. An important part of preparing the proposal is a thorough review of the current literature. This review should be concisely summarized here.
2. Description of the specific hypothesis to be tested (about one paragraph).
3. Specific Aims or Research Objectives. This section will largely follow the previously approved abstract, but the student can make changes as the proposal gets more fully developed.
4. Research – This section should detail the experimental/theoretical plan to meet the specific aims. The student is advised to number the specific aims and use the same numbering scheme for subsections of the Research Plan. This section should describe the experimental/theoretical strategies and design, but it should not provide the sort of detailed Materials & Methods section one would find in a journal article. This section should sketch anticipated outcomes and some discussion of how the plan might be adjusted with different outcomes.

The written proposal should certainly cite the relevant literature and include a bibliography. The bibliography itself does not count against the eight-page limit. The student may include figures and tables in the text, but these do count against the page limit. As with the abstract, the written proposal must be the student’s independent work, but they are encouraged to seek advice from the Ph.D. adviser and other experts. The student may also seek assistance with grammar/English usage so long as these critiques are disclosed in a footnote or endnote. The student will submit the proposal to the Ph.D. Committee and the DGS by April 1. The student may seek critique from the full Ph.D. Committee for further revisions of the proposal before the oral examination.

The Qualifying Examination

During the oral Qualifying Examination, the student defends the research proposal. The exam is limited to a maximum of two hours. The student is allotted a maximum of 15 minutes to provide an overview of the proposal. This is a strict limit, so committee members are asked to restrict questions to points of clarification during the student’s presentation. The remainder of the two hours is reserved for the committee to ask questions in which the student should be prepared to discuss the general background of the proposal and its significance; to discuss relevant experimental approaches, including their theoretical bases and limitations; to outline anticipated results; and to interpret the meaning of these results. The student should be particularly prepared to discuss the interpretation of alternative results proposed by the committee. Although the primary focus of the questions will be on the research proposal, the committee may and likely will probe into the student’s core knowledge of physics and astronomy.

Students are strongly encouraged to prepare for the oral examination by gathering student peers for mock oral exams.

Copies of the student’s prepared slides must be made available to the committee members at least one working day before the examination. By rule of the Graduate School, attendance at the Qualifying Examination is limited to only the Ph.D. Committee members and the student.

The Ph.D. Committee will decide within one day whether or not the student has passed the Qualifying Examination. Within one week, the committee will provide a written report to the student and to the GPC describing the student’s performance on the examination. Even if the student was judged to have passed the examination, the report should address any deficiencies in preparation that were evident during the examination. If the student was judged to have failed the examination, the report should note the serious deficiencies that caused this failure; the committee may also offer their judgment on whether retaking the examination would be in the best interest of the student. A second attempt at passing the Qualifying Examination must be completed before the beginning of the subsequent fall semester. By Graduate School rule, only two attempts are allowed to pass the Qualifying Examination.

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The Ph.D. Dissertation

Proposal for the Ph.D. Dissertation

After passing the Qualifying Examination, the student is officially admitted to candidacy for the Ph.D. and will develop a topical focus for the Ph.D. dissertation grounded in the subfield chosen for that examination. The dissertation topic should be an original research proposition that advances the frontiers of science in the field of specialization. While consultation with the adviser will be crucial to this process, it is to be emphasized that the proposal for the dissertation is the responsibility of the student. Within two semesters of passing the Qualifying Examination, the student will present a specific proposal to the Ph.D. Committee. This proposal can be, and likely should be, based on the proposal that the student successfully defended during the Qualifying Examination. At this stage, the proposal should contain at the minimum a chapter-by-chapter outline of the dissertation, a report on the research already carried out, and a specific plan for completing the remainder. As a general rule, students should plan to complete the dissertation within three years of passing the Qualifying Examination, so that the dissertation can be submitted five to six years after entering the Graduate School. By Graduate School rule, all requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy must be completed within four years of passing the Qualifying Examination.

Annual Meetings of the Ph.D. Committee

After the dissertation topic is approved, the student will meet with the Ph.D. Committee at least annually to report on research completed to date, publications planned or in progress, and an estimate of the time, resources, and analysis required to complete the dissertation project. The committee members may ask questions, critique the work presented by the student, or make suggestions about the project. The Chair of the Ph.D. Committee (usually the Ph.D. adviser) is responsible for preparing a brief written report of the meeting that will be sent to the candidate and to the Director of Graduate Studies. This report may also be reviewed by the Graduate Program Committee as it monitors student progress.

Publication Requirements

The research in any dissertation project is expected to contribute measurably to scientific progress in the field of specialization; thus, publication in peer-reviewed journals is an essential component of the Ph.D. research program. While the venue, number, and timing of publications vary according to the subfield, students should expect to play a major role in a first paper no later than the end of the third year of graduate study. By the time the dissertation is completed, the student must present to the Ph.D. Committee at least one paper that has been accepted in a peer-reviewed journal. The Ph.D. Committee may make an exception when the student is a member of a large collaboration that has long lead times for publication. In such cases, the student must present a manuscript that has been approved by the appropriate review committee for submission to a refereed journal. The Ph.D. Committee is responsible for verifying that the number and quality of the student’s publication record are appropriate for the field of specialization.

Completion of the Dissertation and the Ph.D. Defense

The Graduate School website gives essential information about the format of the Ph.D. dissertation and the defense. The defense is a public examination, and should be characterized by a spirited scientific debate on the strengths and weaknesses of the thesis presented by the student. In addition, the department stipulates the following:

• The Ph.D. adviser will inform the Dean of the Graduate School at least two weeks in advance of the date and place of the defense so that the event can be published in the Vanderbilt University electronic calendar. The department administrative staff will advertise the dissertation title, date, and place of the defense in order to promote attendance by faculty, research staff, and other students.
• The Ph.D. candidate must present a complete copy of the thesis to the committee members at least two weeks before the defense. This is both a departmental and Graduate School requirement.
• At the defense, the candidate will present the critical points of the dissertation for no more than 45 minutes; during this presentation, questioning will be generally restricted to matters of clarification. After the presentation is finished, questioning by attendees other than the Ph.D. Committee will be permitted for about half an hour.
• After the public questioning is concluded, the committee will continue the questioning of the candidate in an executive session for up to an hour. The Ph.D. Committee will then caucus in private to evaluate the defense and assign a grade.

The possible grade outcomes for the defense are:

1. Pass
2. Pass conditional upon changes made to the dissertation recommended by members of the committee, or
3. Fail

In case two, the committee may grant discretion to the principal adviser to enforce the changes to be made to the thesis recommended by the committee. The members may sign the paperwork certifying completion of a passing dissertation, but the adviser will submit the committee’s report to the Graduate School only after the changes made are satisfactory in the opinion of the adviser.

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Appendix A

Below are the core, elective, and breadth courses offered in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

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¹The Graduate School requires only 24 semester hours of formal coursework. The departmental requirement is higher because of the number and breadth of courses required to properly prepare for a career in physics. Additional coursework may be recommended by individual advisers. Exams are offered annually just before the start of the fall and spring semesters for material covered in courses offered during the fall or spring semesters. The students taking the exam are required to sign up by notifying the DGS by August 1/December 20 for the fall/spring exams, respectively. Note that exceptionally well-prepared incoming students may take and pass one or more of the alternate written exams to place out of the corresponding core course(s). A failure to pass the exam before the respective course is taken is not going to count against the two chances to satisfy the course requirement. Return to text

² Advancing to candidacy makes one eligible to register for dissertation research credits (PHYS 9999). Return to text

³ The Graduate School requirement is that the Qualifying Examination must be passed by the end of the eighth semester. Postponing it beyond this time does not allow for the completion of an acceptable dissertation project in the desired degree time frame of approximately five years. Return to text