Academic Milestones

Academic milestones relate to goals for the completion of your degree. Administrative milestones relate to other activities for which you need to pay attention. 

The MCS program is defined as a one-year program, although students often take between 16 and 20 months to complete it. We encourage you to do some initial work on your thesis, like beginning to read papers or try some background work, in parallel with taking courses if you plan to complete in one year.

The practical academic milestones for an MCS student are:

• End of term 2: courses are complete and you should have a good idea of your thesis topic, if not already started on the work
• End of term 3: sufficient seminar attendance done to receive a passing grade in csci 6999 (attend the lesser of 6 or 75% of seminars denoted for 6999 in the term for each of 3 terms
• End of term 4: your thesis should be done or the end should be in sight with you just doing some remaining writing

The PhD program often takes between 4 and 5 years to complete.

The practical academic milestones for a PhD student are:

• End of term 2: courses are complete and you should be working on some research work alreadyend of term 5: your research aptitude defence should be complete. Many supervisory com- mittees are looking for you to have published a result in a peer-reviewed venue as part o the research aptitude defence, so factor that into your plans.
• End of term 6: sufficient seminar attendance done to receive a passing grade in csci 6999 (attend the lesser of 6 or 75
• End of term 8: your thesis proposal should be successfully defended
• End of term 12: your thesis should be fully written and defended.
• Annually (at least) after courses are complete: have a meeting with your full supervisory committee