For Pre-Candidacy Students

FAQ

Course Registration:

Pre-candidacy students should enroll for 18 credit hours total
Incoming/first year students should meet with the Vice Chair of Graduate Studies, and receive guidance on what courses to enroll in
All first time TAs should enroll in the TA training course: Physics 7891

Course Waivers/Exemptions:

To request a waiver/exemption for one of the physics grad core classes (7501/7502, 7601/7602, 7701/7401), you will need to:

Contact the course instructor, and copy the Vice Chair of Graduate Studies and the Graduate Program Coordinator to request the waiver
Be sure to include your transcript from your last institution, as well as the syllabus from the comparable class you are asking to substitute for
If the waiver is granted/approved, the Grad Studies Office will file the approval for your record

Auditing a Course:

Here are the instructions to audit a course:

-------------

First, you will need to get the approval to audit in writing from the instructor, send that approval email to the Graduate Program Coordinator, and then she will send it to grad_schoolregistrationservices@osu.edu along with the info in the list below and ask them to enroll you as an auditing student in the course:

Your instructor’s email response
Your Ohio State username (name. #)
Semester or term and year of course
Course department
Course number
Class number
Number of credit hours

The GPC will copy you on those emails, so you know when the course has been added.

Something to keep in mind since is that the credit hours are charged tuition, but they don't count toward the minimum credit hour requirement for the semester.

So, pre-candidacy students will need to keep their needed credit hours of enrollment to meet the pre-candidacy minimum in addition to any audited courses, but, you have to make sure your PI (If you are a GRA) or Department (if you are a GTA) is okay with paying the additional tuition cost since they will be charged for the total course hours.

Student Health Insurance:

If you have external health insurance already or insurance from your family that you want to use, then you do not need to enroll in the student health plan.
However, if you do need insurance and would like to use the student health plan, you will need to manually opt in.
This page has some information on how to select or waive your student health insurance: SELECT / WAIVE OVERVIEW : Student Health Insurance
You should be able to select your coverage through Buckeye Link, in the 'Finances' section under 'Student Health Insurance.'
It is important to note that the deadlines for this process each semester at the link above

Financial Responsibility Statement:

The Financial Responsibility Statement (FRS) is required to be completed each term before enrollment in courses can be initiated. Information on the Financial Responsibility Statement can be found on the Office of Business and Finance site.

To complete the FRS:

Go to buckeyelink.osu.edu
Select My Buckeye Link under Quick Links
Log in with your Ohio State username (lastname.#) and password
Select Financial Responsibility Statement under the To Do List
Agree to the three required statements
Select Submit

OPERS:

GTA and GRAs: Remember, you need to manually opt out of OPERS if you do not want to participate! Otherwise, you will be automatically enrolled, and the monthly contributions will be automatically pulled out of your paycheck
Here is some more information about OPERS, and how to opt in/out as a student: Student Employee Retirement - Human Resources at Ohio State
You have 30 days from the start of your appointment to submit the opt out paperwork

Statement of Account:

BEGINNING OF SEMESTER: If you have enrolled in classes for the semester, then your tuition and fees have been calculated, and your Statement of Account is now available on your BuckeyeLink student center.

You will see an amount due - likely a very large amount! Do not worry – that will reduce to $0 when the following tasks are complete:

You are enrolled in the correct number of credit hours for the semester
Your AU25 appointment is active in Workday
- Our HR and the Graduate Program Coordinator are responsible for hiring all students who will have GTA, GRA, or fellowship appointments in Physics. If you have a University, Graduate Access, or Presidential Fellowship, your hiring will be completed by the Graduate School
As a reminder, the semester's mandatory student fees will be deducted in equal installments from your paychecks

Editing Physics Website Profile:

If you don't already have a photo on the Department of Physics website and are comfortable adding one, please do so!
Here are some step-by-step instructions on how to log in to our website and add a photo to your profile page:

Each grad student and staff member has editing access for their own personal page on the website. You can update your personal page at any time, by scrolling to the bottom of the physics website, clicking "Login," and using your full OSU email. You will need to reset/pick a password first, then you should be able to login and edit whenever. Contact the Graduate Program Coordinator if you have any difficulties with this
You can add your office number, education, professional website, or whatever else you would like. (You can use the other 'People' pages as inspiration.)
If you cannot log into your page or you believe your profile is missing, please contact the GPC

Enrollment Reminder

General course registration information on the OSU Graduate School website: Course Registration | Graduate School

Please enroll for the coming term for all courses and research hours and be FULL time enrolled a month before the first day of the next semester's HR appointment start dates. Procrastinate At Your Own Peril! (See below for how many credit hours are required to be full time enrolled for a term.)
Step one for registering for classes: CLEAR Financial Responsibility Statement FIRST which can be found by clicking on your To Do item labeled as that on the right menu in SIS.
ALWAYS verify after you submit your course registration how many credit hours you registered for as you have to change the default of 1 credit hour when registering for Physics 7998 or 8999 research and it is easy to forget to do that!
Last Day you can ADD a full semester course ONLINE is the 1st Friday of the term!
Deadlines Matter! You can’t change your mind for enrolling or dropping any course AFTER the first Friday of a term as the First Friday is the deadline for a full refund of tuition.
Remember, you should always ADD FIRST then DROP LAST. : ) SIS will not warn you that you won’t be able to add a full semester course after the first Friday as the online drop window is open until the 3^rd Friday. Please check with the Grad Studies Office if you need to make any changes to your schedule after the fee payment deadline 1 week before the start of a new term.
All PRE Candidacy students for Graduate support titles (GTA, GRA): Autumn & Spring terms: 8 credit hours minimum but we recommend maximized registration at 18 credit hours for autumn and spring; Summer Term: 4 credit hours. After registering for any courses, please use Physics 7998 (non-thesis research) for the full semester session that will be meet for the entire term.
All PRE Candidacy students on Fellowship or GRA GS-Match funding): Autumn and Spring terms we recommend maximized your enrollment to 18 credit hours then Summer Term: 6 credit hours. Please use Physics 7998 (non-thesis research) for the full semester session.

Annual Review

Progress to PhD

For the Department of Physics, our graduate students under semesters are required to take:

One-year Quantum Mechanics sequence (Phys 7501-7502)
One-year Classical and Statistical Physics sequence (Phys 7601, 7602)
One year sequence consisting of Analytical and Numeric Methods of Physics with Electromagnetic Field Theory (Phys 7701 & 7401)

You need to have an average GPA across the 6 core courses of 3.3 (B+) and any core course in which a student receives a B- or lower grade is required to be repeated for a better grade. This is referred to as the "Physics core course requirement."

Some students may have already taken an equivalent graduate level core course at another university or institution. In this case the student may request consideration that the core course be waived from the core course requirement. Please email the Graduate Studies Chair as well as the course instructor and provide a course syllabus, books used and copy of transcript showing the grades. This information will be discussed with the relevant core course instructors and then the student will be notified once a determination is made.

Physics Advanced Topics courses are typically numbered 68xx or 88xx. In addition to the core course requirement students are required to take at least three semesters of Advanced Topics courses, with at most one of these at the 68xx level. Physics 5810 "Computational Methods" does count as a 68xx level advanced topics course. For 5810 students will need to contact the Graduate Studies Program Coordinator to request manual enrollment in the course before the start of the semester.

If a student's advisor recommends that the student takes a course outside of Physics and the student wants this course to count as one of the three required Physics Advanced Topics courses, the student’s advisor should send an email to the Graduate Studies Chair confirming that this non-physics course is important for the student’s research. With this process, one non-physics course at the 4000-level or above will generally be approved to count as one of the required Physics Advanced Topics courses. If a student wants to have a non-physics course below the 4000 level count as a Physics Advanced topics course, or if the student would like more than one non-Physics course to count towards the Physics Advanced Topics requirement, they should discuss this with the Graduate Studies Chair, who may ask the student to prepare a petition that will be discussed with the Graduate Studies Committee.

After you complete your 6 Core Courses, 2 of the 3 Advanced Topics courses and meet the GPA requirements, you are eligible to schedule and complete your candidacy exam. Candidacy can be scheduled concurrently with your 2nd Advanced Topics course and/or with retaking a core course but should be scheduled late at the end of the term or between terms to verify that you meet the course completion, grade and GPA requirements. You will need to complete your 3rd Advanced Topics course within 1 year after passing candidacy.

By this point most students would have earned 18 credit hours of Physics Core Courses, 6 hours or more of Advanced Topics Courses, 2 hours of Physics seminars (Physics 6780 and 7891a) and at least 21 hours of Physics 7998 non-thesis independent research for a 2-year, 6 semester total of 47 credit hours. The Graduate School requires students to have completed a minimum of 30 credit hours to be eligible for taking their candidacy exam and this schedule of courses insures that is met.

Selecting your 4-member candidacy committee from the Physics faculty:

Advisor
2nd faculty in same research area as your advisor
3rd faculty member is either a theorist or experimentalist in your research area (if your first 2 are experimentalists, you would need a theorist in the same research area and vice versa if your advisor and 2nd member are theorists, you would need an experimentalist in the same research area.
4th member should be completely unrelated to your research area and can be either a theorist or experimentalist.

Example: Student is in condensed matter experiment the committee will need to be the student's advisor in CM Experiment, 2nd faculty member in CME, 3rd faculty member in CM Theory and the 4th member from outside of Condensed Matter.

Note that if your advisor recommends a faculty committee member that does not hold any appointment in Physics, you will need to email and petition the Graduate Studies Office for permission to have that faculty member as part of your 4 person committee. Please email your petition request directly to the Vice Chair of Graduate Studies (Prof. Gupta) with copy to your advisor and the Grad Studies Program Coordinator. The Graduate Studies Office encourages most of our Physics grad students to schedule their candidacy exam during their 2nd summer. There are some research areas that this may not be possible and that should be discussed with the Vice Chair of Graduate Studies during the annual review conducted during spring terms. All students are required to pass candidacy by the end of their 3rd year.

The candidacy exam process is 6 weeks and needs to be scheduled to be completed during a current term in order to change your student status from Pre-candidacy to Post-candidacy. Please see the Candidacy Exam Info page for detailed instructions for how the exam is conducted.

Students should file an Application to Graduate form on gradforms.osu.edu to have a Master's degree recorded on their student file. The Application to Graduate online form will have an option for Master's degree for passing Candidacy and you should select that option.

At this point most students pass into their thesis research with their research advisor. Students begin the term immediately following candidacy registering for Physics 8999 Thesis Research for 3 credit hours only with their research advisor and are now subject to the Graduate School's rule for continuous enrollment for subsequent Autumn and Spring semesters. Post Candidacy students who may wish to take a term off or need to leave to work on a summer internship could do so during summer term but this should be discussed in advance with the advisor and the Physics Graduate Studies office.

Most students will need to spend another 4 years or 12 semesters (36 credit hours) working on their thesis research and earning enough credit hours to meet the 80 credit hour minimum to graduate. (Some students will need longer but on average most Physics student complete their PhD in 6 years.) Note that there is not a minimum number of Physics 8999 Thesis Research hours required for students who started their graduate program with Physics, but a reasonable number should have been earned in the years following passing candidacy. (Students transferring or starting the program with their Master's degree do have different requirements and these will be outlined in the Physics Handbook currently under revision as well as these students are subject to some additional Graduate School rules.)

Your post candidacy period to work on your PhD is limited to 5 years from the date of your candidacy exam but can be extended with a petition form "Committee and Examination Petition" sent to the graduate school using gradforms.osu.edu.

Some students may wish to take a graduate course sometime between passing candidacy and graduating and in those situations, students should register for the course for 3 credit hours and NOT Physics 8999 Thesis Research. Students should always discuss in advance the course they are interested in with their advisor before signing up for it and if the course is over 3 credit hours, students must have their advisor's permission to exceed 3 credit hours as this does mean a higher tuition cost to the professor.

Students need to have a minimum of 80 total graduate credit hours to apply for graduation. (Undergraduate courses do not count toward the 80 credit hours.) Note that as only 30 hours are required for the candidacy exam as well as for applying for your Master's degree, the balance of hours from pre-candidacy will need to be transferred to count toward earning your PhD. The Graduate School has a form for transferring graduate credit hours in excess of 30.

Candidacy Exam Info

Student has 4 weeks (give or take a few days) to complete the written portion.

The written portion of the Candidacy Examination will consist of a professional-quality report on the assigned topic. The topic should be sufficiently broad as to complement the intended research project and to ground the student thoroughly in the literature of her/his chosen research area. It should not be as narrow as a thesis research proposal. The topic should serve as a vehicle for the student to review and know the literature of the field. Students who are new to a research area may find it desirable to do background reading in the area before scheduling the Candidacy Examination. The student may freely use all the resources of the University including faculty and graduate students. The Advisory Committee may reserve the right not to answer questions of judgment but may very well answer questions of fact. The paper should be from 10 to 20 pages in length (not including figures and references), 1.5 line spacing and 11-12 pt font. The paper should include a clear introduction to the topic and complete references. It is permissible for the advisor to review a draft of the written paper and/or the oral presentation before the date of the Candidacy Exam.

Student is responsible for coordinating with the committee members to confirm their availability for a particular date and time for the oral exam well in advance of the exam date, preferably prior to the start of the exam period. Student is responsible for submitting the "Application for Candidacy" form online via gradforms.osu.edu. Advisor and Physics Grad Studies Office approvals are required no later than 10 working days (2 weeks or 14 calendar days) before date of exam. If the “Application for Candidacy” form is not submitted at least two weeks before the oral exam date, the oral exam date must be rescheduled in order to meet the two-week-before-oral-exam deadline. The Grad Studies office recommends submitting this online form no later than 16 days before the date of the oral examination to allow time for the 2 approvals.

Student should submit the written exam portion approximately 4 weeks (give or take a few days) after the topic is assigned. Note that the written portion should be completed and submitted to Advisor and Committee at least 1 week before the oral exam date.

Oral Exam generally lasts two hours, beginning with a summary of the material contained in the paper. The entire oral exam, including committee deliberations after the student has finished and has been excused from the room, must not exceed two hours from the scheduled start of the exam.
Student should prepare a summary presentation of his/her paper of no more than 20 minutes in length, if given without interruptions. Note that exam format can vary by research areas and committee members. Exam questions can start immediately at the exam start time and many students may not actually deliver very much of their presentation.
The Candidacy Examination Committee will question the student about the specific topic of the paper and about broader issues related to the research area, including the material covered in the advanced courses, during and after the presentation. All members of the Committee shall be given the opportunity to participate in the questioning. The Committee will be testing whether or not the student has learned the background, literature, techniques, etc. appropriate to her/his chosen specialty. This "common knowledge" of the field is considerably wider than that required for a dissertation project, but without it the research cannot be related to other work in the field. The Candidacy Examination should test whether a student is prepared to begin a detailed thesis research project.
The Graduate Studies Office makes the follow suggestion for how to start these exams: Let the student present a few slides to get through the topic overview and if possible, make the first question something easy for the student to answer. Most students experience a lot of anxiety about this exam process and giving them a chance to present a little of their topic in the first few minutes and then having the first question be one that they can easily answer will help build their confidence to get through that important first 5 to 10 minutes of an exam where anxiety is usually at its highest point.
Attendance at the oral portion of the Candidacy Examination is strictly limited to the student and members of the Examination Committee. No observers (unless approved by the Graduate School), other faculty or other graduate students may be present.
Advisor and Committee members should sign the "Report on Candidacy Exam" form online at the end of the exam at gradforms.osu.edu. Approval timing is expected within 24 hours of the exam and timing is VERY critical for exams taking place on the last business day before the start of a new term.
Note that the total timeline is usually 6 weeks, give or take a few days, but the time line can be as short as 5 weeks. If there are special circumstances that will occur during the 6-week timeline or that happen while the student is in the middle of the exam 6-week timeline, please contact the Graduate Studies office to discuss what, if any, accommodation(s) can be made.
If the written or oral exam must be postponed for any reason OR if there is a change of committee member due to an emergency, the student MUST NOT start the exam until he/she has filed a "Committee and Examination Petition" form on gradforms.osu.edu; this form needs immediate online approval by the Advisor and the Graduate School BEFORE starting the oral exam. Graduate School’s Office of Graduation Services will update the “Report on Candidacy” form in order to change out the faculty member name to allow the exam to be valid. Please also contact the Physics Graduate Studies office to alert them of the issue so that they can facilitate the petition to notify the Graduate School that one is pending their immediate review. Usually the exam can proceed within 5 to 10 minutes of the notification to the Graduate School so the delay is usually minimal.
The student passes the exam if and only if all committee members judge both the written and oral portions of the exam to be “satisfactory”. Each committee member must indicate their decisions on the 2 report forms for the Candidacy Exam in gradforms.osu.edu accordingly.
- If one or more committee members marks either or both of the written and oral portions “unsatisfactory”, then the student fails the exam. The committee must then decide among the following alternatives and inform the Graduate Studies Office:
  - The student should not be allowed to take a Second Candidacy Exam.
  - The student should be given a Second Candidacy Exam using the same topic or a narrower version. A narrower version may facilitate the student acquiring the necessary expertise. If the committee decides that only the oral portion is unsatisfactory, the committee can allow the written portion of the second Candidacy Exam to be identical or nearly identical to the original written portion.
  - The student should be given a Second Candidacy Exam using a new topic.
- If early or midway into the exam a student becomes extremely flustered and is unable to continue with the exam, then the exam should be halted. The student is given an “unsatisfactory” for the oral exam and the committee must recommend how to proceed as indicated above.
- For the Second Candidacy Exam, which will be the student’s last allowed attempt, the Graduate School will assign a faculty member from outside of Physics to attend the exam.

(note these bullet points are also sent to students in Docusign to amend their grad appointments for their raise to the Post Candidacy stipend rate.)

Apply to Graduate: Student should file online an "Application to Graduate" on gradforms.osu.edu to receive their Master's after they successfully pass their candidacy exam. This form can be filed the same term the exam is scheduled, but the application is subject to verification that the exam was passed before the start of the following term. Otherwise, this form can be submitted by the 3^nd Friday of the term following the one in which the exam was taken.
Per the Graduate School’s Handbook, the candidacy period is 5 years. Students can petition one time for a one-semester extension of the candidacy period. If the student would still not finish during that extra semester, then the student and committee will need to do a Supplementary Candidacy Exam. See below for the Physics Supplemental Candidacy Exam process.
For the term following the candidacy exam, a student will register for 3 credit hours of Physics 8999 Thesis Research. If student would decide or the Advisor recommends that they take a class, then the student would register for that class only and skip registering for research hours for that term. If the class would be more than 3 credit hours, the student will need permission to exceed the 3 credit hour standard. If on GRA, the student will need advisor’s permission to exceed the 3 credit hour maximum. If a student is on GTA for term then permission is needed from both Prof. Pelz and Prof. Gramila. The Graduate School’s permission REQUIRED if a student is on any Fellowship. If the class is only for 1 or 2 credit hours, then the student would register for that class and the remaining credit(s) under Physics 8999 Thesis Research to total 3 credit hours for that term.
Please note that post candidacy students can only change their course schedules through the 1st Friday of the term, which is the deadline for the last day to add a class online. Any changes after that 1st Friday will only be eligible for a partial tuition refund.
Please note that auditing a class still costs tuition but does not count toward required 3 credit hours of continuous enrollment or toward the 80 graduate credit hours required for a PhD. Most instructors expect auditing students to still participate in the class so please discuss the restrictions on auditing a class first with Professor Pelz BEFORE you enroll. In addition, Audit does not count for an International student’s full-time enrollment status, therefore post candidacy international students would have to be over-enrolled for additional credit hours that semester to count toward the 3-credit-hour minimum enrollment. As an alternative, students who may wish to “sit in” on a class informally will need to discuss that with the instructor and their advisor.
New post-candidacy students should review the graduate student web page on our Physics website under the “Current Students” heading on the right menu and the subpage “Progress to PhD.” Toward the bottom of that page there is information a student should review and also included are webpage and PDF links regarding research and publication ethics.
Student’s annual review will be conducted annually with the 4-person thesis research advising committee. This committee usually consists of the same faculty members as the Candidacy Exam committee, but a member can be changed as needed due to retirement or change of research advisor. No formal update to the Graduate School is required to update an advising committee.
If a student would need to change advisors due to a retirement or other change in the current advisor’s employment, the Graduate Studies Office will need to be notified of the new advisor and an update email sent to the Graduate School to update the student’s advisor in the Student Information System (SIS).

If a student needs to renew their candidacy status beyond 5 years and 1 semester, the student will need to schedule a Supplemental Candidacy Exam before the end of the semester.
The new renewal will last for 2 years. If at the end of the 2 years the student does not successfully defend their thesis, the student will not be eligible to finish their PhD at OSU.
All Graduate School rules pertaining to candidacy examinations must be followed.
Department recommends a minimum timeline of 3 weeks for the Supplemental Candidacy Exam with the written chapter(s) due to the committee to allow them at least 5 to 7 days to read it. The committee and Grad Studies office must approve the Application for Candidacy –Candidacy Type=Supplemental Candidacy no less than 2 weeks before the oral exam date.
If there was a prior failed attempt at candidacy and then the student passed the 2^nd attempt, the Graduate School will assign an outside faculty member representative to this supplemental exam.
The exam will consist of both a written report and an oral portion that lasts approximately 2 hours. The written report can be a chapter or two from the thesis; the advisor should consult with committee members on the chapter selection. It is recommended that some input from the student about which chapter(s) he/she feels the most comfortable with at that time should/could be considered. Please note that this process is similar to how a first candidacy exam topic is selected, which is done by the advisor in consultation with the committee. The advisor then communicates the exam topic to the committee, the student, and the Physics Graduate Office.
After passing the Supplemental Candidacy exam, the student and committee are free to schedule the thesis defense as soon as 2 weeks from the Supplemental exam date as long as the committee and the Graduate Studies office have approved the “Application for Final Examination” form at least 2 weeks prior. A student’s extension period is typically 2 years.

Graduate Appointments

*Pay Dates are the last working day of month.

Semester dates:

Autumn: mid-August through December 31st. August, September, October, November, and December (4.5 months)
Spring: January 1st through mid-May (last business day before start of summer term.) January, February, March, April, and May (4.5 months)
Summer: mid-May through mid-August. May, June, July, and August (3 months)

Date(s) per term by which unit expects to make reappointment decisions:

Tuition and Fees

The Department of Physics will make GA appointments in a manner such that students will not be billed for tuition. If a GA fails to register for classes according to the schedule published by the Registrar’s Office or class/registration information provided by the Graduate Program Coordinator, the student will be responsible for any late registration penalties that are assessed.

The GA will also be responsible for obtaining student health insurance or waiving it if student is still on parental plan. Student Health Insurance is subsidized 100% by the University.

Primary Duties

Teaching Associates:

Instruction of introductory physics course recitations and/or labs.
Mandatory attendance for all associated preparation, training/organizational weekly meetings.
Proctoring examinations as assigned.
Duties also include grading homework and exams, record keeping, examination proctoring, holding 1 to 2 office hours
per week, tutor room hours as assigned .
Enroll and attend Physics 7891A teaching seminar for first academic year of teaching assignment. (Students who have already been a GTA are not required to register for this course.)
Reappointments require satisfactory teaching performance in prior semesters.
Other duties as assigned.
Reappointments require satisfactory performance in prior semesters. Graduate students in our program are required by the department to maintain a 3.3 GPA in the core courses and a 3.0 overall GPA is required Graduate School policy as noted in their handbook
*Must be available during entire term of contract.

Research Associates:

Responsible for conducting a directed scientific research project with a graduate faculty research advisor.
Conduct experiments and/or performing calculations as well as organizing or analyzing data.
Presenting findings in a publication and/or dissertation, collaborating with faculty in preparing publications, mentoring/coaching work of other GRA’s, or undergraduate students.
Other research activities and other related duties as assigned.
Other duties as assigned
Re-appointments require satisfactory performance in prior semesters. Graduate students in our program are required by the department to maintain a 3.3 GPA in the core courses and a 3.0 overall GPA is required Graduate School policy as noted in their handbook.
Please note that you must be available during entire term of contract as your tuition authorization and health insurance subsidy are both dependent on you being enrolled AND employed for the entire semester.

*See Section 11 on Benefits in Graduate School Handbook for guidelines on short term absences.

Section 11.2 Time Off under Sick/Bereavement Leave

Most graduate associates are part-time student employees (50 percent time) and therefore do not meet the eligibility criterion for the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) Policy 6.05(opens in new window). GAs, fellows and trainees do not accrue vacation or sick leave. Rules regarding time off during semester or term breaks or other times are determined by the GA’s appointing unit. GAs must check with their appointing units to determine when they are expected to be on duty. GAs that have held an appointment for more than 60.1 percent FTE for an entire 12 month period may qualify for leave under FMLA and should contact their local unit and FML Administrator(opens in new window) to determine eligibility.

Legal Holidays. GAs are not required to work on legal holidays noted on the university calendar. When university offices are required to maintain services on certain holidays and GAs are scheduled to work on a holiday, they must be given an alternate day off.

Each program unit can determine the policy or guidelines for graduate student paid leave. Any leave additional to legal holidays is optional, but are strongly encouraged by the Graduate School. One day off for students working 20 hours per week is recommended to be assessed as 4 hours/day over 5 working days. The Graduate School has the following guidelines that are strongly encouraged for students holding a GA, fellow or trainee appointment.

Sick/Bereavement Leave. A period of one to three consecutive days at a time for up to a maximum of three times for personal and/or family illness each spring or autumn semester may be taken. Sick days do not accrue beyond a semester. Many GAs have nine-month appointments and thus sick leave would not be granted in the summer term. If the student is a summer GA, fellow or trainee, then 1-3 days off up to twice per summer term is recommended.
Personal Leave. A period of up to 10 business days per year (two weeks per year) for vacation and/or personal reasons may be taken. Personal leave does not accrue.
Professional Development Leave. It is recommended that at least 5 business days per year be allotted for professional development activities such as attending workshops, or attending and presenting scholarly work at national and international meetings.
Parental Leave. Up to 3 weeks of leave may be granted for childbirth or adoption. Up to 3 additional weeks for health recovery of the birth mother is recommended (Appendix F). One suggested allocation would be to use remaining sick-leave, personal leave, and professional leave followed by paid leave for up to 3 or 6 weeks as applicable. Parental leave should be discussed and planned with the advisor and local unit.

For Pre-Candidacy Students

For Pre-Candidacy Students

FAQ

Enrollment Reminder

Annual Review

Progress to PhD

Candidacy Exam Info

Before

At least 1 week prior to start of exam period

Day 1

Between Week 1 and Week 3

End of Week 4

Week 5 or 6

Graduate Appointments

Graduate Student Stipends

Tuition and Fees

Primary Duties

Teaching Associates:

Research Associates:

For Pre-Candidacy Students

For Pre-Candidacy Students

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Funding Opportunities

Enrollment Reminder

Enrollment Reminder

How to Audit a Course

Annual Review

General

Progress to PhD

General

What happens after passing candidacy:

Candidacy Exam Info

Overview: Candidacy Timeline

Before

At least 1 week prior to start of exam period

Day 1

Between Week 1 and Week 3

End of Week 4

Week 5 or 6

Candidacy Eligibility

Advisor Guidelines for Candidacy Exam Process

Selecting the 4-member candidacy committee from the Physics Faculty

Candidacy Exam Information and 6 Week Timeline

Oral Exam presentation -- approximately 5 to 6 weeks after topic was assigned

After Passing Candidacy Exam

Supplemental Candidacy Exam

Graduate Appointments

General

Graduate Student Stipends

Semester and Dates of Appointment

Tuition and Fees

Primary Duties

Teaching Associates:

Research Associates: