How to: General Exam

(PhD Milestones: General Exam)

  • Reach out to your general exam committee members ~3 months in advance. Give them a tentative date or range of dates to make sure they'll be available.
    • This is likely going to be the same group of people from your qualifying exam, but make sure that they're still willing and able to be on your committee.
    • Reach out to potential Graduate School Representatives (GSR) ~3 months in advance (or even earlier). For the General and Final Exams, you will need a “GSR” on your supervisory committee in addition to the 3 other members (so in total: your advisor, 2 committee members, 1 GSR). See the requirements for GSR here. And look up a potential GSR here. Your advisor might have an idea about good people to ask to be your GSR, likely someone who has expertise related to your research who can give valuable feedback on the technical aspects of your work in addition to their GSR duties (making sure exam rules are followed by committee members, etc). The GSR doesn't necessarily need to be someone doing related work though. Here's an email template for reaching out to a potential GSR.
  • Reserve a meeting room (See notes here about reserving a meeting room for exams/presentations) Once you, your committee (including your GSR) have agreed on a date/time. Make sure to reserve it for a 2-hour block, plus any time beforehand you may need for setting up your presentation/projector, etc. See the links above for reserving a room for the Master's Thesis Defense. I used room ECE 303, which can be reserved here (NOTE: It does not have a projector, you will need to bring your own projector! As of 2023 this room has a projector now).
    • If you are presenting/meeting virtually or hybrid, create a Zoom meeting.
    • Send a calendar invitation (Google Calendar) to your committee members once a meeting location has been reserved.
  • Submit a “General Exam request form” through MyGrad: No later than 3 weeks before your planned exam, log in to MyGrad, then in the top menu bar click on Request Degree then from the drop down menu Doctoral (General Exam). Follow the steps as instructed.
    • One this is processed, the department should either email an electronic copy, or you can pick up a paper copy, of a degree warrant. This paper will be signed by the members of your committee when you pass the general exam, and you'll turn it back in to the CEE office afterwards.
    • See more info about MyGrad here
  • Writing your Doctoral Dissertation Proposal
    • You will need to send a written Doctoral Dissertation Proposal to your committee ~2 weeks before your general exam date.
    • Talk to your advisor about what they expect should be in this document (see mine here for ideas on formatting and content, I tried to keep it short.)
      • Include a timeline of milestones (papers published, conference presentations, examinations) between the general exam and your expected graduation date
  • Creating a presentation
    • The first half of your general exam will be your presentation of your plan for your dissertation. This is open to the public so invite all your friends, family, fellow students.
    • Your presentation will likely be 50% work you have accomplished so far (e.g. your 1st chapter) and 50% what you plan to do for the rest of the dissertation (e.g. chapters 2 and 3).
    • Include extra slides with more details not covered in the main presentation to cover any questions your anticipate the audience (or more importantly, your committee) might ask about your work. These will be especially useful for demonstrating to your committee all the work you've done and problems/questions you've already anticipated or investigated as part of your work that maybe aren't in the main presentation.
  • Preparing for the “exam”
    • The second half of your general exam is a meeting between you and your committee, where they will ask questions about your dissertation plan.
    • While they are “examining” you and your plan, their questions should be constructive, asking about details or potential problems in your plan that you may not yet have thought of (or maybe you have thought of them!)
    • Take notes during this meeting, you will get a lot of good information in a meeting with your whole committee that would be hard to get at another time. Come prepared with questions for your committee members or specific requests for assistance if there are areas of your work they can help with.
  • After the “exam”