PhD Comprehensive Exam and Dissertation
Each student follows a program of study developed in conjunction with the major advisor with input from the student’s doctoral committee. The program of study must contain all of the program core courses as well as elective courses specific to the student’s focus area.
Following completion of course work, students are required to complete a comprehensive examination. To be eligible for the comprehensive examination, students must be in full graduate status and have completed didactic course work with a minimum grade point average (GPA) of 3.00. To qualify for advancement to candidacy for the Doctor of Philosophy degree the student must pass the comprehensive examination.
Admission to PhD candidacy constitutes a promotion of the student to the most advanced stage of graduate study and provides formal approval to devote essentially exclusive attention to research and writing of the dissertation.
Each PhD student must write a dissertation that presents the results of research carried out by the student. An appropriate research project involves a substantive piece of original and independent research grounded in an appropriate body of literature. It is relevant to an identifiable field as it is currently practiced. It represents a hypothesis tested by collection and analysis of data and provides a significant contribution or advancement to that field.
See Regulations Pertaining to Doctoral Degrees for a full overview of regulations and procedures for PhD candidates.
Further information is available on the School of Pharmacy website: http://www.pharmacy.pitt.edu/programs/grad/grad_index.php.
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