Plan
for Atmospheric Sciences Graduate Students
(Adopted:
29 August 2003) (Amended most recently April 18, 2007, highlighted
in red)
M.S.
1 Complete the general university
degree requirements and the Master's Degree requirements as described in
the catalog (UAF
catalog section for ATM). These requirements entail
at least 30 credits. The
student must file a Graduate Study Plan with the Graduate School. Annually,
the student must complete a committee meeting and submit the Report of
Committee Form to the Graduate school. There is no written comprehensive
examination.
2 (Classes) Four core classes are required. The core consists of: Fundamentals
(601), Atmospheric Chemistry (606), Cloud Physics (615), Radiation (613),
Dynamics (645). ATM 601 is required to be taken by all students, leaving
3 out of the remaining 4 (606, 615, 613, and 645) to fulfill the MS core requirements.
Further class work is encouraged and will be guided by the student's committee.
One credit classes can not count towards Advancement to Candidacy.
3 (Comprehensives) Near the completion of their degree, the student
gives an oral defense on their thesis work. They will have a public defense
of their thesis work followed by an examination session with their committee. In
this examination session, the committee will examine their thesis research
as well as their general knowledge in atmospheric sciences. This examination
session acts as their comprehensive exam for the M.S. degree.
4 (Thesis) The student will write a thesis and make a public presentation
summarizing his/her findings. The student's thesis must be approved by
the students advisory committee, and further needs the approval of the academic
department chair, and the dean of the college.
Ph.D.
1. Complete the general university
degree requirements and the PhD Degree requirements as described in the
catalog (UAF
catalog section for ATM). These requirements entail at least 18 credits. The
student must file a Graduate Study Plan with the Graduate School. Annually,
the student must complete a committee meeting and submit the Report of
Graduate Student Advisory Committee Form to the Graduate school.
2. (Classes) The core classes are required. The core
consists of: Fundamentals (601), Atmospheric Chemistry (606), Cloud Physics
(615), Radiation (613), Dynamics (645). Further class work is encouraged
and will be guided by the student's committee. One credit classes can not count
towards Advancement to Candidacy.
3. (Comprehensives) The comprehensive examination process begins
with the written examinations (section 3.1). The student must pass the
written examinations to stand for the oral presentation of the research proposal
(section 3.2). Completion of both written and oral sections advances
the student to Ph.D. candidacy. Re-examination is considered in section
3.3.
3.1 (Written Examinations) The student will take written comprehensive examinations
on four subjects. The subjects are based upon the material in an academic
course that the student has completed. The professor who regularly
teaches this class (with some possible exceptions) will write the question
for the examination with subject material limited to the syllabus of the course. This
same professor will grade the examination question he/she wrote. The
student must take the ATM 601 comprehensive examination test plus two other
subjects in core topics (of their choice), plus one other examination on a
class of the student's choosing (subject to the approval of the committee Chair). The
professor writing the exam assigns a grading structure to their exam. For
overall written comprehensive examination grading, the professor's scores are
converted to grades of unsatisfactory, marginal, satisfactory, and excellent.
The professor's grading structure must be written on their examination (for
example, below 50% is unsatisfactory, below 70% is marginal, 70% to 90% is
satisfactory, and above 90% is excellent). For a student to pass their
written comprehensive examinations, they must have no unsatisfactory exams
and maximally one marginal exam. Written comprehensive exams are offered
once per year, in June.
3.2 (Oral Examination) The student must give an oral presentation
of their thesis research plan. This presentation must demonstrate to
the committee that the student has a viable research project and background
knowledge sufficient to pursue a PhD degree. For the oral thesis proposal
it is recommended that the student prepare a brief document (5-10 pages maximum)
for their committee that outlines their research plans, states the overall
goals (hypothesis), and presents a proposed road map to accomplish these goals.
This document will not be graded and is intended to help the student better
formulate and organize their research plan. The student's committee
attends along with an outside examiner (as described in the catalog) and grades
this presentation. The grades are pass, conditional pass, and fail. In
the case of a conditional pass, the committee will describe the areas that
must be remedied, and if the student completes these requirements, their grade
is converted to pass. In the case of failure of the oral examination,
the student may be re-examined once.
3.3 (Failure of Comprehensive Examinations) The student will be
allowed to re-attempt the written comprehensive examinations only once. If
a student has scored unsatisfactory or marginal in two or fewer subjects, the
student only has to re-take these one or two examination subject tests. If
a student scores unsatisfactory or marginal in more than two subjects, they
must re-take the whole suite of four subject tests. If a student is in the
end unable to pass their comprehensive exams, they are shifted into the M.S.
program, where they must then satisfy the degree requirements of the M.S. program
to get an M.S. degree.
4. (Thesis) The student will write a thesis and make a public presentation
summarizing his/her findings. The student's thesis must be approved by
the students advisory committee, and further needs the approval of the department chair, and the dean of the college.
5. Transfer Students
5. 1 Masters and Ph. D. transfer students will be required to take
the Atmospheric Sciences core courses, unless the same or equivalent courses
were already successfully taken, as determined by the student's advisory committee
chair and the department chair.
5. 2 Students entering the Ph. D. program after passing the comprehensive
examination at another department of the UA system or University will be evaluated
by the advisory committee to determine if any parts of the Atmospheric Sciences
comprehensive exam need to be taken or retaken.
Ammendments ( Adopted:
1 April 2004)
1. Comprehensive Examinations will
be offered during or around the first week in June of each summer, depending
on faculty availability.
2. Each (of the four required) exams will be a one-half day (4
hour) long test . The tests will be scheduled so that each student
will take only one test in a single day, if possible.
3. It is permitted for a faculty member outside Atmospheric Science
to prepare and grade test questions.
4. It is policy that neither the test questions nor the student's
test question answers will be kept by the student, but rather will be returned
to the faculty. Of course, the student may go over the test in the presence
of the faculty member responsible for the questions in each case.
Amendment (Adopted: 18 November 2005)
1.
If a class was taught by a visiting professor, affiliated faculty or sabbatical
replacement faculty, comps will be written by the tenure-track faculty
whose expertise is the closest to the subject of the class.