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:

1. Your instructor’s email response
2. Your Ohio State username (name. #)
3. Semester or term and year of course
4. Course department
5. Course number
6. Class number
7. 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

The graduate school and university offer many opportunities to apply for funding, and we encourage you to check these out:

• Graduate School Grants page: Grants | Graduate School
• Alumni Grants for Grad Research and Scholarship: Alumni Grants for Graduate Research and Scholarship | Graduate School
• Office of Research and Sponsored Programs: Find Funding | Enterprise for Research, Innovation and Knowledge at Ohio State
• Council of Graduate Studies funding: Funding, Awards & Resources : Council of Graduate Students
• Career Development Grant: About the Career Development Grant : Council of Graduate Students
• Ray Travel Award for Service and Scholarship: Ray Travel Award for Service and Scholarship (up to $1000 per academic year) : Council of Graduate Students
• General Resources: General Grad Student Resources : Council of Graduate Students
• College of Arts and Sciences Small Grants Program: Graduate Student Funding | College of Arts and Sciences
• Rickover Fellowship Program: Rickover Fellowship Program in Nuclear Engineering - SCUREF

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.

First decide, would you like to have full access to all course materials and to complete all assignments/ tests, or are you just looking to sit in on the lectures?

If you just want to sit in, all you need to do is ask the instructor if this is okay with them. If it is, then you can just go and listen and that's the end of it.

However, if the instructor wants you to officially register as an auditing student and/or you are wanting full access as described above, then you need to get the approval to audit in writing from the instructor, send that approval email to the Graduate Program Coordinator (Carly Scopel, scopel.6@osu.edu), 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:

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

The Grad Program Coordinator 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 18 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.

An annual review is a requirement for all post-graduate students.

For pre-candidacy students, you will meet once a year with the Vice Chair of Graduate Studies, in May. This is meant to be a check-in and a way to track degree progress, updates on finding research and a group, and to address any concerns you may have at the end of the academic year.

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:

1. Advisor
2. 2nd faculty in same research area as your advisor
3. 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.
4. 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. 

Most graduate students in the Ph.D. program receive financial support as Graduate Associates, (either Teaching Associates (GTA) or Research Associates (GRA)) or as Fellows during their student career. These appointments cover the cost of tuition and the instructional fee, monthly stipend, and 100% subsidized health insurance. Renewal of GA appointments is subject to the student adhering to the code of student conduct, and remaining in Good Standing with the Physics Department.

Good Standing in the Physics Department generally requires that the student meets the Physics Core-Course GPA requirement (at least 3.30 GPA in the core courses), the Graduate School’s GPA requirement (at least 3.00 GPA in all graduate courses, see below), has satisfactory teaching performance as a GTA (as determined by the Physics Vice Chair for Administration), and is making reasonable progress towards their degree (as determined by the Physics Graduate Studies Committee). Graduate School policy is that a student with a GPA in all graduate courses below 3.00 is put on probation by the Graduate School, and is not eligible for graduate appointment for the semester following their GPA falling below 3.00 without petition from the Vice Chair of Graduate Studies to the Graduate School.

Appointment titles and the semester stipends will be sent via Workday before the start of each semester. All graduate appointments are subject to good academic standing, prior performance as well as available funding per section 9.2 of the Graduate School Handbook.  

Graduate Student Stipends

Most of our students are supported for a full 12-month year that runs mid-August to mid-August for Autumn, Spring and Summer semesters. As of autumn 2025, the monthly stipend amount for students appointed through the Department of Physics is:

$2,682 per month

*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.