M.A. and Ph.D. candidates must file a Plan of Study before completing 12 credit hours in their program. For students entering in fall semester, the Plan of Study must be filed by February 15 in their first year of residence. The first step for the student is to choose a major advisor and then an advisory committee. The student and the committee will put together a set of courses which fulfill the requirements summarized below.

A PDF form for the Plan of Study can be found here.

A Ph.D candidate’s Plan of Study must indicate the semester (or summer session) during which the preliminary exam will be taken. A student may defer the preliminary exam only upon approval of the student’s advisory committee and the Chair of the GSAC.

After the proposed Plan of Study is filled out and signed, the original signed hard copy should be given/mailed to the graduate coordinator, who will enter the contents electronically and send it to the Graduate School for approval. If subsequent changes are to be made, there is a Change Plan of Study PDF form here. (Submitting a change does not mean it has been approved. The student should check Hokie Spa to verify approval of the original form and any revision.) Please note that the Plan of Study form is different from the Change Plan of Study form. There are also Plan of Study checksheets on the department webpage to assist in mapping out the Plan of Study.

Graduating students are required to review their Plan of Study one semester before graduation in order for changes to be approved by the department. A committee for an M.A. candidate has a minimum of three members, of whom two have to be from Virginia Tech. For a Ph.D. committee, the numbers are five and three.

Regarding courses, there are a few general considerations. Courses with a first digit of 4 or lower are undergraduate courses. Only under extraordinary circumstances can an undergraduate course receive graduate credit. Courses numbered 5000 or above are graduate-level courses. Research and Thesis- 5994 and Research and Dissertation-7994 carry no grade. The specific course requirements for the M.A and Ph.D. degrees are as follows:

• M.A. -- 30 credits are required, including a maximum of 12 credits from (allowable) 4000-level courses and a minimum of 12 credits from 5000-level courses.
• Also, a minimum of 9 credits and a maximum of 10 credits of thesis credit from 5994 can be counted.
• A maximum of 6 credits from 4984, 5974, or 5984 can be counted
• A maximum of 6 credits, obtained at an accredited institution, can be considered for transfer credit. In order for a course to transfer, a "B" grade or better must have been earned.
• A minimum of 3 committee members (2 from Virginia Tech) is required.

 

• Ph.D -- 90 credits are required, including a maximum of 12 credits from (allowable) 4000-level courses and a minimum of 27 credits from 5000-level courses.
• At least 24 graduate-level semester credit hours, including no less than 15 hours of course work (not research 7994), must be completed while in residence at Virginia Tech.
• A maximum of 18 credits from 4984, 5974, or 5984 can be counted. The minimum and maximum dissertations credits are 30 and 60 respectively from 7994.
• Not more than 42 semester hours (of which not more than 10 credit hours can be for master’s thesis) for work done at another institution may be transferred. In order for a course to transfer, a "B" grade must have been earned.
• A minimum of 5 committee members (3 from Virginia Tech) is required.