What are doctoral exams?
These are sets of exams, also referred to as General Exams, designed to validate the readiness of the student to undertake and complete doctoral work. They are based on the required material and in-depth courses, but do not replicate the class exams. Rather, the Doctoral Exams explore and validate the candidate’s aptitude for doctoral research, both in terms of capability to understand a body of material in depth, and to formulate and do research.

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Who runs the Doctoral Exams?
The exams represent ESD, and are run by the faculty as a whole. Each candidate's Doctoral Committee should of course participate. The exams are coordinated by the ESD Academic Administrator.

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What do they consist of?
The General Examination has two phases: a written and oral portion. The written consists of four in-depth questions answered on four consecutive days. The oral includes both a short presentation by the student and committee questions.

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When should I take the exams?
Candidates should take these exams by the end of their 4th semester in graduate school at MIT for those who came without a Master's and by the end of the 3rd for those who arrived with a Master’s degree. Recognizing that students come to us with a variety of backgrounds, the faculty will make exceptions where justified, keeping in mind the basic idea of timely assessment. Following these guidelines will prevent students who cannot demonstrate their aptitude and preparation for doctoral research from wasting time and resources.

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How often are the exams offered?
They are offered twice yearly. The Winter session starts with the written portion in mid-January followed by the oral exam about ten days later at the beginning of February. The written portion for the Spring exams is in mid-May with the oral exam toward the end of May.

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What is the Written Exam format?
The written exam focuses on the curriculum required of doctoral students and further in-depth courses. This exam is designed to test the student’s capability to respond to questions about their field. It is not a replication of final exams for individual subjects.

It consists of:

• 1 “1 day/8 hour” integrative question looking at Engineering Systems generally. Students in both tracks – TMP and ESD – will receive the same question.
• 3 “1 day/8 hour” questions on the required subjects and the student’s in-depth specialization

Each written exam is emailed or picked up, on each of the four days, at 9:00am and must be returned to the Student Office by 5:00pm. This is an open-book exam.

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Who writes the questions?
The common question is coordinated by the ESD Education Committee. The other questions will be written by ESD Faculty in coordination with members of the student’s committee.

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What is the Oral Exam?
The oral examination focuses on the student’s research topic and takes about 1.5 hours. First the student makes an oral presentation of 20 - 25 minutes. The faculty will ask follow-up questions on the presentation and the written exam, if needed. This is not a thesis-topic defense. The oral is designed to determine the capability of the candidate to conduct doctoral research in ESD and offer guidance on how to proceed.

The presentation describes the candidate’s research, provides a literature review, outlines the research method, describes how evidence will be acquired and, in general, demonstrates the candidate’s capacity for integrative, in-depth investigation of a subject. The presentation should be done using PowerPoint with copies of the slides made available to the examining committee. This presentation may be the outcome of thesis research, a course or independent study. The candidate should circulate, 10 days in advance, a research report of about 20 pages.

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Who determines if the student passes the exams?
This exam is the process by which the faculty vets the capability of the candidates to conduct doctoral research in ESD. The principle here is that the ESD faculty as a whole are examining and qualifying students for the ESD doctoral program. Specifically, the written and oral exams are run by the chair of the ESD Education Committee, with the guidance of the student’s Doctoral Committee. The presentation is also attended by members of the Education Committee which represents the ESD faculty; however, all faculty and research staff are welcome to attend.

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What kind of outcomes can I expect?
These exams are Pass/Fail. In practice, the following outcomes are possible:

• Pass both written and oral portions
• Pass one or the other portion, but not both
• Fail both portions

Normally, the student who has not passed the entire exam or does not pass a portion of the exam is encouraged to re-take what is needed for a pass. Nobody is allowed to take the exam more than twice.

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July 2006