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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.
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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 will participate, along with the ESD faculty. 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 examination 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.
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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 common core
required of doctoral students as well as each student's further in-depth preparation in a domain and a methodology. This exam is designed to test the student’s capability to respond to questions about their field.
It consists
of:
- Two
“1 day, 8 hour” questions looking at the common core shared by students in the doctoral program: one question is on ESD.86 and one question is on ESD.87
- Two “1
day, 8 hour” questions on the student's unique program, with particular focus on the student's domain and methodology. These questions are coordinated (but not necessarily authored) by the student's committee: usually one question focuses on domain and the other on methodology
Each written exam is emailed, on each of the four days, at 9:00am and must be returned to ESD's Academic Office by 5:00pm. This is an open-book exam.
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Who
writes the questions?
The questions on the common core are coordinated by the ESD Education Committee; typically they are written by the instructors of ESD.86 and ESD.87. The authorship of the domain and methodology questions will be coordinated by the student's doctoral committee to examine the student's preparation in his/her domain and methodology.
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What
is the Oral Exam?
The oral examination focuses on the student’s research topic and takes about 2 hours. First the student makes an oral presentation of 20 minutes. The faculty will ask questions on the topic of the presentation and on 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-level research in ESD. The presentation describes the candidate's past or present research, provides a literature review of the current state of research on the topic, describes the research method and how evidence was acquired or is being acquired. The presentation and the answers to the faculty questions during the exam are used to determine 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.
The candidate should submit a 5 page description of the research area to be covered by the exam roughly 10 days before oral examinations start (specific deadlines will be announced to each group of examinees). The report should introduce the research the candidate will be presenting to the ESD faculty, some of whom may not be familiar with the candidate’s research area. The 5-page research description is not part of the exam but simply a way to delineate the student’s area for the faculty who will attend the oral exam.
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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
The faculty attending the exam will determine whether a student who has not passed the entire exam will be allowed to re-take all or part of the exam. Nobody is allowed to take the exam more than twice.
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September 2009
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