Doctoral Degree

Doctoral Degree Requirements

The program offers a Ph.D. degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering. Students complete the following requirements to graduate: course requirements, the written qualifying examination, the thesis proposal, and the dissertation defense. Details of these steps are summarized in the following table and then discussed below.

A student with an MS degree in Industrial Engineering or a closely related field takes the qualifying examination after the first year of study. The total period of study is approximately 4 years. Students with backgrounds other than Industrial Engineering and students who have only a BS degree upon entering the program may take longer.

Requirement	Ph.D. after BS	Ph.D. after MS
Total credits	72	54+18 transferred
Research credits	24	24
Course credits	48	30
Seminar all semesters	Yes	Yes
Minimum ISE credits	30	21
600 Level ISE credits	12	12
Dissertation	Yes	Yes
Qualifying Exam	Yes	Yes
Thesis Proposal	Yes	Yes
Required courses	DOE	DOE
Elective courses	advisor approval	advisor approval

Summary of Ph.D. Requirements

Course Requirements

A Ph.D. student entering with a BS degree must take 16 courses.

A student entering the program with an MS from another university may transfer up to 18 credits (for appropriate courses with approval of the Graduate Director). The student takes at least another 30 credits of course work at Rutgers with at least 21 credits in the ISE department at Rutgers – these courses begin with the number 540. The procedure for transferring credits is given in Section 6.

Students are required to take the following courses:

• At least four ISE courses at the 600 level..
• Design of Experiments (960:590)
• One additional course (in addition to 960:590) in math or statistics at the 500 level or above.

The Qualifying Examination

The comprehensive exam tests students on their knowledge of the five core subjects in Industrial and Systems Engineering:

• Optimization/Deterministic Models
• Stochastic Models
• Data Science/Statistics
• Reliability
• Production/Manufacturing

Students are given the option to select onlythree of core courses among the above five subjects.

Doctoral students take at least two sections of the qualifying exam after completing one year of course work and complete all sections after completing two years of course work. The students who arrive in Spring will be required to take at least two sections of the qualifying exam in the Fall of the next year, and to complete all sections after completing two and a half years of course work.

The exam is given the September of the fall semester. Students are asked to sign up to take the exam approximately one month in advance. Each part is an open book exam that is 3 hours long. Students are required to respond to all questions.

The exams focus on the topics covered in the courses. The questions, however, test the depth of your knowledge. It is not necessary to worry about obscure details. However, it is necessary to know in depth the material from the courses.

A committee of professors is assigned to compose and proctor each exam. The graduate committee that is chaired by the Graduate Director determines the final results. Students are notified about the results within two weeks of the exam at the latest.

If a student fails one or more sections of the exam, the graduate committee may recommend that the student repeat those sections. If a student fails several sections and shows a serious lack of comprehension, the graduate committee may recommend that a student withdraw from the program. Students may only repeat a section one time. No exceptions.

Please Note: Non-PhD students may NOT take the qualifier unless s/he has approval from the Graduate Program Director.