Mechanical Engineering PhD students are required to follow the MAE guidelines for the comprehensive exam, which is oulined on the MAE PhD program website. This page outlines the process for students in the Solid Mechanics group.

Overview

You should consider the comprehensive exam a dry run for your thesis defense. Therefore, you should only take the comprehensive exam once you and Dr. Runnels feel confident that the bulk of your thesis work is complete. Generally you should plan to take your comprehensive exam one year prior to your defense. However you may take it the semester before, as long as you are prepared to complete up to a year’s worth of work on your thesis prior to your defense.

Timeline

Several months before: At least 3-4 months prior to your exam, you should consult with Dr. Runnels to determine whether you are ready for your exam, and what the time frame should be. Do not proceed with your exam until you and Dr. Runnels are in agreement. At this time, you should also ensure you have completed your finalized Program of Study (see MAE website), and that you have confirmed your committee members.

Two months before: If you have any non-UCCS faculty or UCCS IRC faculty (holding the rank of instructor), they will need to complete the paperwork for special appointment to the UCCS graduate faculty. Information on that process can be found here, and generally involves the completion of this paperwork. Make sure to give your committee members plenty of time, and you can ask the MAE department admin to set up an electronically signable version of the form.

Remember: your committee members, especially those who are not UCCS faculty, are doing you a favor by serving in this capacity. You must be respectful of their busy schedules, and give them plenty of lead time on this and all other requests.

At this time, you should also determine committee availability so that you can schedule a room for your exam. With the comprehensive exam, as with your thesis defense, you are responsible for scheduling and managing this event. This means you must work with campus (either lecture hall scheduling or event services) to find an appropriate venue for your exam. The earlier you start on this, the better. You should plan on a 2 hour reservation block. Once you have made the reservation, let your committee know the details right away.

If you are planning on a hybrid meeting, be sure that the room you have reserved has the appropriate equipment, and that you have complete details on how to join the virtual meeting for those joining remotely.

If you are having visitors join in person from off-campus, ask the MAE department admin to email a parking code to the visitor.

One month before: At this point you should have finalized the majority of your thesis document. You should have a complete draft ready for Dr. Runnels to review. Your thesis should be written in LaTeX on Overleaf using the official template.

Two weeks before: Send a copy of your thesis to your committee for their feedback, and remind them of the specifics of your talk (time, location, etc.) For those who are in person, print off a hard copy as well. Make sure that Dr. Runnels has the details of your presentation so that it can be advertised to the department. Remember that it is an open talk and anyone is allowed to join.

One week before: Finalize your presentation and share it with Dr. Runnels if you have not already. Make sure that you incorporate any changes that he recommends in advance of your presentation.

Day of the exam: Your comprehensive exam will take the following format:

  • (10 minutes) Arrive and set up
  • (1 hour) Your presentation including questions from the general audience.
  • (30 minutes) Private session with you and your committee
  • (15 minutes) Private deliberation by the committee
  • (5 minutes) Notification of the committee’s decision

Two weeks after: Dr. Runnels will ask the committee members to submit their written feedback on your presentation and your thesis. You will be responsible for addressing all of their comments, just as you would for a journal article, prior to your thesis defense.