Breadth Requirement Administration

Courses Taken Prior to Enrolling in the Doctoral Program:

Students may complete part or all of the breadth requirement before formal enrollment in the doctoral. program, e.g., while enrolled in a previous degree program at Columbia, and/or by "importing" elective courses (not core courses) from another academic institution of equivalent quality.  All import applications must be submitted no later than two weeks (14 days) prior to the student's first Black Friday enrolled in the doctoral program.  Both core and elective courses taken at Columbia prior to formal enrollment in the doctoral program "count" automatically and do not need to be "imported", provided that the grade was B+ or higher. However, in the case of courses completed more than 5 years prior to formal enrollment, the appropriate faculty member [the person approving the import or the advisor in the case of prior Columbia courses] must judge that the course is sufficiently relevant to the goals of the doctoral breadth requirement.

[Modified by full faculty vote on February 2, 2005. Effective immediately. All previously approved courses are grandfathered.]

Exams in lieu of Courses:

Area exams are offered in every core area (and sometimes elective areas) primarily as an alternative to taking the corresponding course, and are intended for students who have already obtained the appropriate background and expertise, while enrolled in a prior Columbia degree program or at another institution, and/or feel confident in their ability to self-study the requisite material. Exams may also be taken by students who have completed the corresponding course with less than a "doctoral pass" (B+) grade, or are taking the course concurrently.  A written syllabus defining the content covered by each area exam will be made available no later than one week following the first faculty meeting of the semester; the exam syllabus is often the same as the syllabus for the corresponding course that semester, or the semester that course was most recently offered if not offered the given semester  Signup sheets for exams are normally made available through the Doctoral Program Administrator approximately six (6) weeks prior to exam administration, and students must normally sign up for all exams they intend to take at least four (4) weeks prior to the exams. Failure to show up for an exam, or leaving the exam without completion, is deemed de facto failure, unless the student presents acceptable evidence of illness or emergency to the . No "makeups" are offered, the student must take the course or exam in a later semester.

In general, an area exam is a conventional one-hour written exam given in the week before the university's study days. In some cases, the area exam may be a subset of the final exam (including possibly the entire final exam) for the corresponding course, in which case its administration is co-timed with that final exam. When the final and area exam are co-timed, any reduction in time allotted to the area exam below the normal three hours for the final exam must be proportional to the size of the subset, and in no case may be less than one hour.  In either the case of a one-hour separate exam or a three-hour or less co-timed exam, the area exam must test only on material covered by the published area syllabus, not any other material covered only in the course syllabus but not on the exam syllabus, if distinct. Alternative structures such as project, team, oral, take-home, extended duration, etc. must be approved at least six weeks in advance by the full faculty on petition of the relevant area faculty. Other details such as pretesting, blind grading, open vs. closed book, etc., are at the discretion of the area faculty.

A regular faculty member must be designated as responsible for each core comp exam. [And any elective exams.]  The designated faculty member may optionally delegate to an adjunct (but not a student) the duties of preparing the syllabus, exam and grading scheme, but retains ultimate responsibility for adhering to the above rules.

[Above paragraph added by full faculty vote on May 8, 2008. Effective Fall 2008.]
 

Last updated on May 8, 2008.