After completing the Candidacy Examination successfully, the PhD in Computer Science candidate must prepare a thesis proposal that outlines, in detail, the specific problems that will be solved in the PhD dissertation. The quality of the proposal should be at the level of, for example, a National Science Foundation grant proposal. The candidate is responsible for sending the research proposal to the committee two weeks before the oral presentation, and should notify and get the approval the Office of Research and Graduate Affairs once the committee has been established. The PhD in Computer Science committee need not be the same as the Candidacy Examination committee, but it follows the same requirements and must be approved by the Office of Graduate Studies. The oral presentation involves a 30-minute presentation by the candidate followed by an unspecified period during which the committee will ask questions. After the question and answer period, the candidate will be asked to leave the room and the committee will determine if the research proposal has been accepted. The Office of Research and Graduate Affairs must be notified of the results of the examination. The internal Thesis Proposal Form should be returned to the department after the proposal. The research proposal can be repeated at most once. The Thesis Proposal examination must be passed no later than two years after advancement to candidacy.
The College has an internal thesis proposal form, which the student is responsible for bringing to the candidacy presentation: