Difference between revisions of "Doctor of Philosophy"

Revision as of 13:41, 6 February 2008

Students with a goal of PhD are admitted provisionally until they have passed the Basic Exam at the PhD level. Students who have not already received a Master's degree in Statistics from NCSU or another institution are strongly encouraged to get the Master of Statistics degree en route to the PhD.

Program Pre-requisites

Students are expected to have a good foundation in the material covered in the core courses of our Master’s program (ST 512, 521, 522, 552), even if the Master’s degree was received at another institution. Some students with previous Master’s degrees find it useful to take these courses at NCSU. However this tends to lengthen the time to degree. Students are also expected to have had courses comparable to MA 425-426 (Mathematical Analysis I and II).

Required Course Work

Students that join our doctoral program with a Master of Statistics from other universities are required to have a minimum of 54 credit hours in their doctoral Plan of Work (POW). Students who receive the Master’s degree from NCSU must have a minimum of 72 credit hours on the Master’s and PhD POWs combined. The POW may include research credit hours (ST 895 and 899), however students are required to take 21 hours of coursework consisting of core courses, a computing course, a consulting course and electives as detailed below.

• Measure Theory and Probability (ST 778, ST 779)
• Advanced Statistical Inference I & II (ST 793, ST 794)
• A new statistical computing course will be required for all students enrolling Fall 2006 or later. The was first offered Fall 2007 as ST 750, but is expected to be listed as ST 758 beginning Fall 2008.
• ST 841: Statistical consulting (unless student has taken ST 641 in our department)
• Ph.D. Electives:
• 6 hours of statistics Ph.D. electives are required from the following list
• ST 740: Bayesian Inference and Analysis
• ST 746: Stochastic Processes
• ST 750: Advanced Statistical Computing
• ST 762: Nonlinear Statistical Models
• ST 782, 783: Time Series Analysis
• ST 784: Multivariate Analysis
• Approved special topics and other courses
• 3 hours of supporting electives

Additonal Notes on Course Work

• If any of the above 21 credit hours or courses is taken as a part of the POW for a student’s Master’s program, then an equivalent number of hours of supporting electives need to be taken as a part of the student’s doctoral POW.
• Students are strongly encouraged to take ST 810A “Preparing for Research” during their first year in the PhD program.
• Research Hours
• Once a student has identified a research advisor, he/she may register for research credit hours (ST 895) with the consent of the advisor.
• Once a student has passed the prelim oral, he/she may register for ST 899 as long as 1) they have finished all coursework on the POW and 2) they are not registered for any other classes. Three hours of ST 899 is considered full-time credit (rather than the usual 9 hours).