DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN COMPUTER SCIENCE
GENERAL INFORMATION
Graduate students who have exhibited a high degree of scholastic proficiency and given evidence of ability for independent scholarly work may consider extending their goals toward the degree of doctor of philosophy. The preliminary requirements for admission to the program include the following:
1. A Bachelor's degree in science, engineering or management from an accredited school and a superior academic record, or
2. A Master's degree or one year of graduate work in an analytically-based area, and a superior academic record.
Applicants must include GRE general exam scores, at least two letters of recommendation, a statement of purpose, and all relevant academic records, in addition to the completed application form.
The Ph.D. program consists of 4 Parts: A) Courses; B) Qualifying exams; C) Dissertation Proposal; D) Dissertation.
Courses and Credits
A minimum of 75 credits of graduate work beyond the BS degree, including at least 21 credits of dissertation. A Master of Science degree in Computer Science may be transferred in as 30 credits without taking individual courses into consideration. Other graduate coursework may be transferred in on a course-by-course basis. This includes courses taken for degrees other than a Master of Science in Computer Science.
Students are required to take at least two courses of each of the following three areas at Polytechnic. In the theory area, one of these two courses must be Theory of Computation (CS 6753) unless an equivalent course has already been taken. In selecting these courses, students are not to choose courses having substantial overlap with courses taken previously, at Polytechnic or elsewhere.
Systems Core Area:
CS 6143 Computer Architecture II
CS 6243 Operating Systems II
CS 6253 Distributed Systems
CS 6843 Computer Network Protocols and Applications
CS 6813 Computer Security
CS 6823 Network Security
Theory Core Area
CS 6043 Design and Analysis of Algorithms II
CS 6753 Theory of Computation
CS 6903 Modern Cryptography
CS 9703 Computational Geometry
Programming/Software Core Area:
CS 6063 Software Engineering I
CS 6073 Software Engineering II
CS 6083 Principles of Database Systems
CS 6413 Compiler Design and Construction I
CS 6533 Interactive Computer Graphics
CS 6613 Artificial Intelligence I
CS 9163 Application Security
The CIS faculty may modify these area menus from time to time. Certain selected topics courses can be used to fulfill these requirements, with prior written permission from the CIS Department.
Students must receive at least a grade of B in each of the six courses; further, the grade point average averaged over these six courses must be at least a 3.5. Full-time students must complete these course requirements by the end of their second year.
Additionally, for each of the courses Computer Architecture I (CS 6133), Operating Systems I (CS 6233), Design and Analysis of Algorithms I (CS 6033), Programming Languages (CS 6373), the following rule applies: The student is required to take the course unless the student has already taken an equivalent course (at either the graduate or undergraduate level) with a grade of B or higher; if the student has taken an equivalent course and received a B grade or higher, he/she will not be permitted to take it at NYU-Poly as part of this Ph.D. program without special permission.
Qualifying Exam
The purpose of the qualifying exam is to assess the student's knowledge of computer science and the student's ability to perform dissertation-level research. The student will be evaluated based on two components: a research exam and course work.
Research Exam
After entering the PhD program, each student will work on a research project under the direction of a research adviser. By the end of the second year, the student must take a research exam based on this work. The research exam will be tailored to the individual student's research, and will have the following three parts:
(1) written report,
(2) oral presentation,
(3) answering questions posed by the research exam committee.
The research exam will be used to assess the student's ability to do dissertation-level research. The exact format of the report and presentation can vary depending upon the student's research accomplishments up until that time and the focus area. Students may schedule the research exams during two periods of time in the year; a range of dates around the end of the Fall and Spring semesters shall be announced in advance by the graduate director.
Course Component
As part of the qualifying exam process, the student's overall performance in courses will be evaluated. Special emphasis will be given to performance in PhD core courses. Students taking the research exam in their third semester must complete at least four PhD core courses by the end of the third semester in order for their course performance to be evaluated at the end of the third semester; otherwise, their evaluation will be delayed until the end of the fourth semester (by which time they must have taken all six PhD core courses).
Students who do not pass the qualifying exam on the first attempt may retake it once. The second attempt must be made by the end of the student's fifth semester. Students who do not pass the qualifying exam on their second attempt will be dismissed from the PhD program. Students cannot register for dissertation credit until they have passed the qualifying exam.
Dissertation Proposal
After passing the qualifying exam, students should begin conducting research.
The student, in consultation with their advisor, forms a dissertation committee of at least 4 faculty members, including one member from another department or from outside the University. At least six months before the dissertation defense, the student is to prepare a dissertation proposal and orally present the proposal to the dissertation committee.
Dissertation
The last, and most substantial, aspect of the Ph.D. program is the dissertation. The dissertation must embody a significant original research contribution and must be written in accepted scholarly style. The research should be conducted in close consultation with the student's advisor. It is strongly recommended that at least one paper on the research be submitted to a refereed archival journal or refereed conference. When the adviser feels that sufficiently significant research results have been obtained and that the dissertation has been written in an acceptable way, a public dissertation defense, consisting of an oral presentation by the candidate and questions by the dissertation committee, will be scheduled.
Additional requirements for the Ph.D. dissertation are available from the office of the Dean of Graduate Studies.
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General Information and Curriculum 
