Ph.D. Program

The following four core courses worth for 12 credit hours are required:

In addition, CSC 7800: Research Seminar must be taken during the first year.

The student must pass each core course with a grade of B- or higher. If a B- or higher grade is not achieved in any of the core courses, the course must be repeated. Each core course is typically offered once a year.

Eight additional courses (electives) must be chosen from at least two of three categories listed below, and must include at least five 7000+ level courses:

Approval must be obtained before registering in CSC 7090 or CSC 8000.

One of the 7000+ level courses can include CSC 7700: Special Topics courses in specific areas, as appropriate.

The student may enroll in CSC 7999: Independent Study. Only 3 credit hours total from this course will apply to the PhD coursework requirements. Please see Graduate Advisor before enrolling in this course for more information.

Up to three (12 credit hours) of interdisciplinary graduate courses from other departments may be taken.

The student's advisory committee and graduate advisor must approve all eight courses. Additional coursework may also be required as decided by the advisory committee and graduate advisor.

At least 18 credit hours of CSC 9000: Dissertation Research must be taken with an “S” (Satisfactory) grade. The student may begin enrolling in CSC 9000 starting in the second year and continue until the final exam.

All PhD students must maintain continuous registration for courses and research hours as specified in his/her plan of study. In order to alter his/her plan of study (e.g., by substituting courses for those listed on the form), the student must obtain approval from the graduate advisor. If a student has not completed all four core courses with a grade of B- or higher by the end of the sixth semester, he/she will be dropped from the PhD program. Additionally, if a student cannot take or pass the general exam by the end of the fourth year, he/she will be dropped from the PhD program. Any exceptions, such as an extra semester, must be granted by the graduate advisor or division chair per the advisory committee’s request.

Dual enrollment in the PhD and MS programs or a change from the PhD program to the MS program must must be granted by the graduate advisor or division chair per the advisory committee’s request. Any graduate assistantships will be stopped if the student decided to switch to the MS program.

The residency requirement is fulfilled after two consecutive semesters of full-time coursework upon approval of the plan of study.

The Graduate Advisor in conjunction with the Graduate School must approve any transfer credit.

The advisory committee must be formed by the end of first year. The Major Professor or Advisor serves as the chair of the committee, which has, at least, two other members (one of them being CSE faculty). The chair and members all are chosen from the Graduate Faculty in Computer Science and Engineering. In the event that the Research area requires additional supervision from a faculty member not in Computer Science and Engineering (or the student has chosen to have a minor field of study), a member must also be chosen from the Graduate Faculty in that area, subject to approval by the Major Professor and the Graduate Advisor. An adjunct professorial faculty or a faculty from other department can serve only as the co-advisor thereby requiring a regular CSE faculty as the co-advisor. At least two members of the advisory committee must be full members of the Graduate Faculty; the other members of the committee can be full or associate members of the Graduate Faculty. The committee must be approved by the Chair of the CSE Division, and then approved by the Dean of the Graduate School. 

Although each student is primarily responsible for his/her own progress through the program, the advisory committee (which meets, at least, once every semester since its formation) is responsible for ensuring that the student’s curriculum is of high academic quality and appropriate to allow the student to pursue his/her research and career goals. The committee provides feedback and recommendation during the annual evaluation, and also advises the Graduate Advisor and Division Chair on matters concerning the student.

Every PhD student is evaluated annually in April. The entire faculty meets to review the progress of each students and provides feedback and suggestions. This evaluation may include:

• Determination of teaching assistantships and other financial support awarded in the next year
• Evaluation of satisfactory progress in the PhD program
• Evaluation of coursework and research plans (first year)
• Evaluation of research progress, including reports, presentations, and published papers (second year and after).
• Students are expected to start publishing research papers as early as possible.
• Remarks and recommendations from the major professor and advisory committee.

An in-depth review (such as meeting with the student) may be conducted as needed. Any student matter that cannot be resolved at the advisory committee level will be handled by the entire faculty. The graduate school may be consulted as well.

Research Qualifying Examination

The Research Qualifying Examination is used to evaluate students’ future research endeavors. The examination consists of a written report and an oral presentation. The student must propose a novel research problem, highlight the motivation for exploring that particular problem, and outline the research methodology that will be used to address or explore the problem, including technical approaches and potential solutions. Alternatively, it may consist of an extensive survey of an important existing research area with research problems and a research plan. The guidelines for the report and presentation are as follows:

Written Report: 

The written report must consist of an abstract (50-200 words); an introduction (about one page) explaining the research problem and motivation; a body (about four to five pages) explaining research methodology, results, and discussion; a literature review (about one page) of related work; a conclusion, which summarizes the research findings and gives future plans/directions; a bibliography; and an appendix, if needed. The report should be about eight pages and use the IEEE conference proceedings template, which is available here. The report should be a substantial document at a similar level of quality as a full research publication article. In case of a survey, the sections may be adjusted accordingly. The written report must be submitted to the advisory committee at least two weeks before the oral presentation date.

Oral Presentation: 

The oral presentation is a 40-minute talk based on the written report regarding the student’s research proposal. The presentation must be at least 30 minutes long and will be followed by approximately 10 minutes of questions. The presentation will be open to the public, including all faculty and students. The oral presentation will be evaluated by the advisory committee for clarity and content.

The committee will convene privately to determine the outcome of the examination. The committee will provide comments and suggestions to the student and may require the student to revise and attempt the examination again. All committee members will vote to either pass or fail the student. If there is more than one “fail” vote, the student cannot pass. The outcome of the examination and the comments of the advisory committee will be recorded for the annual evaluation. In special instances, the examination requirement may be waived (see below).

The student will be allowed two attempts to pass the exam. The first attempt must be made by the fourth semester, and the second attempt, if required, must be made by the fifth semester. In the fall semester, the exam must be completed by the end of October, and in the spring semester, the exam must be completed by the end of March. Failing the examination once may result in discontinuation of academic support (e.g., discontinuation of teaching assistantships, etc.) Failing the examination twice will result in discontinuation of academic support. Research assistantship support may be discontinued at the discretion of the advisory committee.

Examination Waiver:

Exceptionally, if a student has already published an article since joining the CSE PhD graduate program, then the oral presentation requirement can be waived upon approval of the advisory committee. A student has to submit a waiver request to the committee, with justification explaining the student’s contribution to the publication, the importance of the venue, the significance of the results and the impacts to the Research community, and a future plan (about 1 page). The publication article must be a full refereed paper in proceedings or journal, at least in the accepted status. In case of a conference paper it would be helpful if the student has presented the paper before. The publication must have the LSU CSE affiliation of the student with appearance or acceptance date after the student joined the PhD program. The student should be first author (or the main contributor in case of alphabetical author ordering). The publication substitutes the written report requirement.

If all advisory committee members approve the waiver request, then the student passes automatically the Research Qualifying Examination. (Otherwise, the student goes through the normal process of the oral presentation and written report submission.)

The waiver request must be submitted at least three weeks before the date of what would have been the oral presentation, and the response by the committee members will be given within a week.

At the request of the student, even with the granted waiver the student can still give the presentation in front of the committee to receive feedback (with no additional pass/fail decision).

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PhD General Examination (Proposal Defense)

After successfully passing the Research Qualifying Exam and satisfying the core courses requirement, the student must submit a written proposal of his/her doctoral research project to the advisory committee. The General Examination must be completed before the end of the fourth year, unless an extra semester is granted by the division chair on the request of the advisory committee. Students must submit a Request for Doctoral General Examination Form to the LSU Graduate School. The Graduate School will appoint one additional member to serve as the dean’s representative.

The proposal defense will be presented to the advisory committee and will be open to the public, including all faculty and students. The advisory committee, along with the dean’s representative, will determine whether the student passes or fails. Once the student passes the General Examination, he/she is admitted to candidacy for the degree. The student then must enroll in CSC 9000: Dissertation Research if he/she has not done so already. At least least 18 hours of CSC 9000 must be taken and passed with "S" (Satisfactory) grade. Generally, the number of research hours is expected to be high.

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PhD Final Examination (Dissertation Defense)

After passing the General Examination, the student must prepare a dissertation based on the original research he/she has conducted. Students must submit the Request for Final Doctoral Defense form to the Graduate School three weeks before defense date. This Final Examination may be taken one semester after the General Examination. The student must prepare a written dissertation and defend the dissertation in a public oral defense. The written dissertation must be submitted at least two weeks before the oral defense. The oral defense will be open to the public, including all faculty and students. The date, time, and location of the oral defense, along with the names of the PhD candidate and advisory committee members and the title and abstract of the dissertation, must be announced at least thee working days in advance of the exam. Failure to follow this policy is sufficient cause for postponement of the exam. 

To successfully pass the Final Examination, the dissertation must be approved by all members of the advisory committee, including the dean’s representative. Passing of the Final Examination, along with meeting all other requirements, constitute completion of the requirements for the doctoral degree. The Graduate School must approve each doctoral degree and ensure that all requirements have been met.

The primary goal of the doctoral program is to ensure that students are able to conduct independent research on a significant problems in the field of computer science. The Final Examination is designed allow the student to defend his/her research and demonstrate the ability to conduct research that will positively impact and contribute to the field of computer science. The dissertation must be of sufficient quality and depth to merit publication in a refereed scholarly journal.

A paper describing the bulk of the research should be submitted to a refereed scholarly journal or a national meeting (conference) of a relevant professional society. The advisory committee may require the student to prepare a technical report on his/her PhD work.