Metallurgical Engineering Ph.D. Program

Degree Requirements

Overview

Complete a minimum of 54 credit hours in courses level 6000 or above. This includes

• 24 credit hours of coursework.
  • 12 out of the 24 credits must be METE courses. Exceptions to this rule are at the discretion of the student’s Supervisory Committee.
  • 6 semesters (3 credits) of Graduate Seminar required (METE 7800)
• 24 hours of Thesis Research (METE 7970).
• The remaining 6 credit hours can be either coursework or research hours.

All coursework must be completed at a cumulative 3.0 GPA (B grade average). All courses must be passed with a B- or better. Students will also be required to complete the following requirements during the course of the program:

• Qualifying Examination
• Supervisory Committee
• Program of Study
• Dissertation Proposal
• Dissertation

Graduate Seminar

Students are required to take 6 semesters (0.5 credit hours each semester) of METE Graduate Seminar.

• METE 7800 - Graduate Seminar I (0.5 credits) Fall Semesters
• METE 7800 - Graduate Seminar II (0.5 credits) Spring Semesters

One oral presentation is required.

METE Graduate Seminar Independent Study

If students are unable to attend the Graduate Seminar in a given semester due to an academic or work related conflict, they will be required to make up the credit through an independent study. Students will still be required to register for METE 7800, as the credit hours are required for the graduate program. However, it will be the student’s responsibility to attend at least 10 seminars or lecture during the duration of the semester.  The seminars or lectures must be related to the field of Metallurgical Engineering. The seminars or lectures can be on- or off-campus. They may be live, or pre-recorded and viewed from various media platforms (for example, YouTube).

Students must write a one-page (typed, single-spaced, 12 pt. font) paper addressing the following topics:

• How the topics relate to your research.
• One full paragraph should discuss the research style and communication skills of the speaker.
• Students should give advice on how the presentation could have been better.

The 10 one-page papers are due the last day of classes in the given semester.

Thesis Hours

Students must complete at least 24 hours of Thesis Research (METE 7970, Thesis Research: Ph.D.). The candidate must also be regularly enrolled at the University and registered for at least one course during the semester in which the final oral examination (dissertation defense) is taken.

After the residency requirement has been met (two consecutive semesters of nine hours or more), graduate students who are registered for three credit hours in any one of the following classes are considered full-time status:

• Classes within the ranges of 6970-6989 or 7970-7989

This does not fulfill state residency requirements.

Registration Restrictions

The credit hour requirements for full-time and part-time status for a graduate student at the University of Utah are

Full-Time                    Part-Time
9 hours per term       5-8 hours per term

No candidate for a graduate degree is permitted to register for more than 16 credit hours in any single semester. A schedule of nine credit hours is considered a full load for doctoral degree candidates.

Transfer Credit

Graduate credit may be transferred from other regionally-accredited institutions with department and advisor approval. Credits transferred from another institution may be used for only one degree. Up to six semester hours of transfer credit may be applied toward fulfillment of graduate degree requirements if they are of high letter grade (B or higher; ‘credit only’ grades are unacceptable), are recommended by the student’s supervisory committee, and were taken within four years of the semester of admission to the University of Utah for master’s students and within seven years of the semester of admission to the University of Utah for doctoral students.

Nonmatriculated Credit
Only nine semester hours of nonmatriculated credit, taken no more than three year prior to approval, can be applied toward a graduate degree.

Faculty Consultation and Independent Study
Only 3 hours of METE 7980 - Faculty Consultation can be counted towards the Ph.D. degree provided there is proper documentation. This can take the place of 3 METE coursework hours on the Program of Study.
Only 3 hours of METE 7920 - Independent Study can be used towards the Ph.D. degree.

English Proficiency

The University of Utah Admissions Department sets the requirements for English Proficiency, not the department. This requirement cannot be waived. Applications will not be processed without official test results dated within two years. For more information, please see the admissions page on English Proficiency found here.

Qualifying Exam Objectives

Following the first academic year of the Ph.D. program, students must advance to candidacy in order to continue in the program. Advance to candidacy must occur before the Ph.D. Dissertation Proposal Exam can be scheduled. Students will be evaluated on the following criteria in order to advance to candidacy:

• Performance in the METE core courses
  • METE _ - _ (3 credits)
• Performance in their research as assessed by the research advisor by grades for thesis credit hours
• Overall GPA
• Passing the Qualifying Examination

Based on the evaluation by the METE faculty, students will either be approved to advance to candidacy in the Ph.D. program, be removed from the Ph.D. program and asked to pursue a terminal M.S. degree, or be granted a conditional pass with required remediation actions at the discretion of the faculty. A student not passing the qualification exam portion of the candidacy evaluation may be required by the committee to re-take the prelim exam one time. If two failures occur the student will not be allowed to advance to candidacy.

Qualifying Examination

The qualifying examination will be scheduled Spring semester. Department faculty will determine the content of the qualifying exam each year based on the content taught in the first-year core courses. The exam will test students on their understanding and ability to apply core themes and topics in Metallurgical Engineering in the following categories.

• [subjects]

The exam will consist of

Scoring

Each student will receive a score -

Preparation

Students should prepare by taking the core METE graduate courses and by studying individually over the year leading up to the exam. It is also suggested that students conduct mock examinations together. Students should be prepared to respond to the oral exam questions with organized, logical arguments using a whiteboard or similar device and drawing upon fundamental concepts in metallurgical engineering, especially from the core METE courses. The written portion of the exam will allow the student to consider and organize their answers. Students should also be prepared to succinctly but thoroughly explain the technique(s) and material(s) they are working with in their research projects.

Supervisory Committee

After successfully passing the Candidacy Evaluation, Ph.D. students must make an appointment with the Graduate Academic Advisor to start building a supervisory committee.

Each supervisory committee consists of five faculty members. In compliance with The Graduate School’s policy, the majority of the committee members (at least 3) must be tenure-line faculty in the Department of Material Science and Engienering. The supervisory committee chair must be a regular tenure-line faculty at the University of Utah. The Dean of The Graduate School may approve requests to appoint a committee member from another university where appropriate justification and supporting documentation is provided. The supervisory committee is responsible for approving the student’s academic program, preparing and judging the qualifying examinations, approving the dissertation subject and final dissertation, and administering and judging the final oral examination (dissertation defense).

Supervisory Committee Request Form

Program of Study

During the third year of graduate study, PhD students are required to complete a Program of Study. This form is not a selection of courses that satisfies the minimum requirements but will be a list of all course work and research hours proposed for the PhD degree that will be approved by the Supervisory Committee. It is important that students understand that the Supervisory Committee makes the final decision for the courses that will appear on the Program of Study for the PhD.

Procedure to Complete

The procedure to complete the Program of Study form is as follows:

• Students must arrange a meeting with their Supervisory Committee Chair to present the proposed course for the Program of Study form.
• At the meeting, the Supervisory Committee Chair will review and approve the student's courses for their degree.
• In some cases, the Supervisory Committee Chair may require extra course work that exceeds the minimum requirements for a PhD degree based on the dissertation topic.
• As stated in the Graduate School's requirements: coursework used to complete requirements for one graduate program may not be used to meet the requirement of another.
• All course work must be completed in the first two years of graduate study.

Program of Study Form

Dissertation Proposal

After advancing to candidacy, but before the end of the third year (6th semester) in the program, students must complete the written and oral portions of the Dissertation Proposal Exam. An exception can be granted by a student's Supervisory Committee Chair for extenuating circumstances.

The Dissertation Proposal must occur before the Dissertation Defense and the two many not be completed within the same semester. The Dissertation Proposal Exam (written, oral, or both parts) may be repeated once if a "Fail" or "Conditional Pass" is received the first time.

Written Proposal

Students must independently prepare a written proposal for the research they will complete for their dissertation. It must be given to their Supervisory Committee at least two weeks prior to the date of the oral exam. Students must propose their own original research which will form the basis of their publications and Ph.D. dissertation. The proposal should detail the prior work in the field, detail any results already obtained by the student, and lay out the research objectives and plan for meeting those objectives before completing the dissertation. A copy of the Dissertation Proposal will be provided to the Academic Advisor to be retained in the student's file.

The proposal should follow the NSF proposal format (or other federal agency if approved by the committee). For more information on the format, student should refer to the Dissertation Written Proposal Template.

For additional resources and information on NSF formatting, students should refer to the University of Utah Office of Sponsored Projects.

Oral Proposal

Students must arrange with their Supervisory Committee to present and defend their proposal. A common format is to prepare a talk lasting 40 minutes if uninterrupted based on the same ideas and research plan contained in the Written Proposal.

The committee will ask questions, evaluate the proposal, and give feedback and suggestions to the student on the proposed research. The committee will sign the Dissertation Proposal from, which has separate "Pass," "Conditional Pass" and "Fail" marks. Again, the committee may require remedial actions for "Conditional Pass" or "Fail" marks.

• Dissertation and Defense

  Students must submit a dissertation embodying the results of scientific or scholarly research. The dissertation must provide evidence of originality and the ability to do independent investigation and it must contribute to knowledge. The dissertation must show a mastery of the relevant literature and be presented in an acceptable style. The style and format are determined by departmental policy and registered with the thesis and dissertation editor, who approves individual dissertations in accordance with departmental and Graduate School policy. The approved style guides can be found here.

  At least three weeks before the final dissertation defense, students should submit an acceptable draft of the dissertation to the chair of the Supervisory Committee; committee members should receive copies at least two weeks before the examination date.

  The doctoral dissertation is expected to be available to other scholars and to the general public. It is the responsibility of all doctoral candidates to arrange for the publication of their dissertations. The University accepts two alternatives for complying with the publication requirements:

  The entire dissertation is submitted to UMI Dissertation Publishing, ProQuest Information and Learning, and copies are made available for public sale. The abstract only is published if the entire dissertation has been previously published and distributed, exclusive of vanity publishing. The doctoral candidate may elect to microfilm the entire previously published work. Regardless of the option used for meeting the publication requirement, an abstract of each dissertation is published in UMI Dissertation Publishing, ProQuest Information and Learning, Dissertation Abstracts International.

  Detailed policies and procedures concerning publication requirements, use of restricted data, and other matters pertaining to the preparation and acceptance of the dissertation are contained in A Handbook for Theses and Dissertations, published by The Graduate School and available on The Graduate School website.

  Please be sure to check the Thesis Office manuscript tracking system to see if your dissertation has been uploaded to ProQuest.

  Defense

  PhD students must orally defend the significant contents, results, and conclusions associated with their doctoral research before the entire Supervisory Committee at an open and public defense. At the conclusion of the public participation, the committee will excuse the public and conduct further questioning on the thesis and related topics. The outcome of the defense is reported on the PhD Defense Form.

  The draft or final dissertation document will serve as the written basis for the presentation and should be submitted to the Supervisory Committee two weeks prior to the oral defense. The Supervisory Committee will examine in detail the contents, results, conclusions and contribution made by the student's research and written dissertation.

  When should you defend in order to graduate in a specific semester?

  The earlier you defend in a given semester, the more likely you are to be able to graduate that same semester. Check the Thesis Calendar to see when the submission deadline is. You need to defend far enough ahead of that deadline that you can make any changes to the text required by your committee and ensure that the manuscript adheres to your chosen style guide and Thesis Office requirements by the deadline. Be aware that if you submit your manuscript on the deadline and there are any formatting errors you will not graduate that semester. The sooner you turn your manuscript in the more likely you are to graduate in that semester.  As a general rule of thumb, plan to defend in the first 2 months of the semester if you want to graduate that semester.

  Registration

  Student must be registered for 3 credit hours of MET E 7970 during the semester they defend. Once student defends and the dissertation has been accepted by the Supervisory Committee, the student is not required to register for another semester. International Students should check with the International Center once they have defended to make sure that they do not go out of status while completing requested rewrites.

  Thesis Defense Information

  Graduate School and Thesis Office Information:

  • Guidelines for Thesis Submission
  • Thesis Office Website