My PhD Students

FAQ - What are the expectations I have for my PHD students?

1. Years in the PHD program: Students with master degrees 3-4 years. Students without master degrees 4-5 years.

2. Publication: 

   • There is no firm requirement for publication. Depending on your career goal (e.g., industry, research institute, or academia), requirements can vary. 

   • This is a general expectation.

     • First author papers: 2 conference papers  + 1 Journal paper (better submitted to one of the IEEE transactions or IET or Applied Energy. i.e. smart grid, power systems, sustainable energy, power deliver)

     • Co-authored papers: 2-3 conference papers

     • Patents can be counted as publications

3. Financial Aids: Normally, you only be TA for one year (usually the first year) and the rest years you will be RA. The RA rate is usually the same as the departmental TA rate.

4. Meetings: Project meeting is weekly. We have 1 all-hands meeting weekly. You can schedule an individual meeting with me as well.

5. Conference Participation: 

   • First year students can participate PES general meeting regardless you have a paper accepted or not. But you are expected to submit an abstract to participate the student poster contest at the conference.

   • You will go to a conference if you have a paper accepted. You will be given the opportunity to present your work at the conference.

   • You can participate project review meetings and you will be expected to present your work at the meeting.

   • We also have local conferences (e.g., state energy conferences, CAPER and FREEDM conferences) and workshops. We support your participation of those meetings too.

   • You can identify a conference you want to go. International travels are not usually supported in full due to funding limitations.

   • Registration, travel, and hotel are usually covered. In some cases, we cover food by reimbursement instead of pre dim.  

6. Course Selection:

   • As long as you meet departmental requirement, I don't interfere with students' course selection.

   • I recommend you to take courses from computer science, statistics, operations research, and economics department to enhance your background.    

   • I encourage you to take some courses online to broaden your background. 

   • You can get a minor in another department.

7. Enrollment - best practices for PhDs 

   • I recommend if you are taking courses then enroll in a total of 12 CH using a combination of course and ECE 895.  Then you can later drop a course and maintain full time status if you need to.

   • If you are beyond 72 CH, then please enroll in only 3 CH to save tuition funds and still maintain full time status.

   • Please only enroll in ECE 895 with advisor approval.  If you are adding CH then please email your advisor and ecegradoffice@ncsu.edu and not just do it in mypack by your self.

8.