Requirements for the Ph.D. degree include the following seven core courses (28 units): Astronomy 270, Astronomy 271A, Astronomy 271B, Astronomy 272, Astronomy 273, Astronomy 274, and Astronomy 280 and Astronomy 281.
In addition to the core courses, students must take two elective courses (8 units) from the following course options: Astronomy 275, Astronomy 276, Astronomy 282, Astronomy 283, and Astronomy 286. Exceptions or substitutions can be made by petition only to the Faculty Graduate Adviser and must be arranged in advance or, for students transferring from another institution, during or before the first quarter of residence. Students must achieve a grade point average of at least 3.00, averaged over all core and elective courses.
Students must also satisfactorily complete the two-quarter second-year research project, Astronomy 277A-277B (12 units), culminating in a written report of the methods and the results of the research performed. Before undertaking the second-year research project, students must identify a faculty adviser who is willing to oversee their work on the project.
The above course requirements, with the exception of Astronomy 277A-277B, must be completed for a letter grade.
Enrollment Requirements
Should you enroll in 596 or 599? Beginning no later than the seventh quarter in residence, and prior to advancement to candidacy, students should enroll in 596 courses (S/U) with a faculty adviser. After advancement to candidacy, students should enroll in 599 courses (S/U) with a faculty adviser.
Master’s Petition
Must pass the Astronomy Written Comprehensive Examination.
Masters Course Requirements
A total of 11 courses (48 units) are required for the degree. Of that number, the following seven core courses (28 units) are required: Astronomy 270, Astronomy 271, Astronomy 272, Astronomy 273, Astronomy 274, Astronomy 280 and Astronomy 281.
In addition to the core courses, students must take two elective courses (8 units) from the following course options: Astronomy 275, Astronomy 276, Astronomy 282, Astronomy 283, and Astronomy 286. Exceptions or substitutions can be made by petition only to the Faculty Graduate Adviser and must be arranged in advance or, for students transferring from another institution, during or before the first quarter of residence. Students must achieve a grade point average of at least 3.00, averaged over all core and elective courses.
Students must also satisfactorily complete the two-quarter second-year research project, Astronomy 277A-277B (12 units), culminating in a written report of the methods and the results of the research performed.
Courses taken in the 300 or 500 series may not be applied toward these course requirements.
The above course requirements, with the exception of Astronomy 277A-277B, must be completed for a letter grade.
Course Substitution/Waiver
Students who passed the comprehensive exam their 0th year may request core course(s) to be waived. Students should also have completed a comparable course in their previous degree. For course(s) to be substituted/waived, students must receive Astronomy Graduate Faculty Advisor's prior approval via e-mail with graduate advisors copied.
Typical Timeline
1st year- 2nd years - core courses
No later than the summer after first year – begin second-year research project
Fall and Winter of second year (4th and 5th quarters) - second-year research project
Spring quarter of second year (6th quarter) - comprehensive exam
Spring quarter of second year (6th quarter) - petition for MS degree
Fall quarter of fourth year (10th quarter) - Advance to Candidacy (ATC)
Spring quarter of sixth year (18th quarter) - Defend and file dissertation
Students are required to complete 36 units. Students fulfill the 36-unit requirement by taking the six core courses (24 units), two required non-core courses (4 units) and two elective courses (8 units). No more than eight units may be chosen from Physics 596 and/or seminar courses. Physics 597 and 598 may not be applied toward course requirements for the M.S. degree.
Master’s Petition
Must pass the Physics Written Comprehensive Examination.
Course Requirement
For the M.S. degree, 36 units are required, being typically 9-10 courses. The following six core courses must be taken for a letter grade to satisfy this requirement: Physics 210A, 210B, 220, 221A, 221B, and 215A. Other courses may be substituted in special cases with prior approval of the Faculty Graduate Adviser. The material in these six core courses draws from the body of knowledge tested on the written comprehensive examination.
All first-year students shall also enroll in the following courses (S/U) for at least one quarter: Physics 293, the weekly colloquium meeting, and Physics 201Q, a survey of modern physics research areas. These are counted toward the number of required courses and must be passed for the M.S. degree. In addition, any student who will or might work as Teaching Assistants shall take (S/U) and pass Physics 495, a seminar in teaching college-level physics, in the first quarter.
The remaining units may be acquired by taking upper division or graduate courses in physics or a related field, which are acceptable to the department for credit toward the M.S. degree. However, no more than eight units in total may be garnered from Physics 296, 596, and/or seminar courses. Physics 597, 598, and 599 may not be applied toward course requirements for the M.S. degree.
Some course requirements may be waived at the discretion of the Faculty Graduate Adviser, for example for those who have previously taken similar courses in another Master's program.
Students must file the applicable Master’s Advancement to Candidacy form to the Physics & Astronomy Graduate Office no later than the second week of the quarter in which the award of the degree is expected.
Course Substitution/Waiver
Students who passed the comprehensive exam their 0th year may request core course(s) to be waived. Students should also have completed a comparable course in their previous degree. For course(s) to be substituted/waived, students must receive Physics Graduate Faculty Advisor's prior approval via e-mail with graduate advisors copied.
Typical Timeline
1st year - core courses
Mid-September (before 4th quarter) - written comprehensive exam
Fall of 2nd year (4th quarter) - petition for MS degree
Spring quarter of third year (9th quarter) - Advance to Candidacy (ATC)
Spring quarter of sixth year (18th quarter) - Defend and file dissertation
Requirement Highlights from your Graduate Student Advisors
Enrollment Requirements
Students are required to enroll in a minimum of 12 units each quarter and maintain a minimum 3.0 GPA. If you have not enrolled in the minimum units by the end of Week 2 of the quarter (Friday, 5pm PT), fee remissions may be canceled and may be placed a hold on your account.
Note: student are allowed to enroll in 22 units maximum during the academic quarter
Note: If have not ATC'd but completed your course requirements and need units, you may ask your faculty advisor for approval to enroll in Astr/Physics 596. If you have ATC'd, you may enroll in Astr/Physics 599 with your faculty advisor.
Employment Requirement
Any student who will or might work as Teaching Assistants shall take (S/U) and pass Physics 495, a seminar in teaching college-level physics, during their first quarter or before teaching.
International students must have a passing TOP score to hold a TA employment.
Fee Remissions
Fee remissions are benefits paid for by the hiring department to cover partial graduate tuition and fees.
To be eligible, students must meet the following requirements:
Registered/enrolled in at least 12 units continuously for the term(s) of appointment.
Minimum 3.0 cumulative GPA at the time of hire.
Supervised by a UCLA faculty member.
Advancing to Doctoral Candidacy
Oral Qualifying Exam
Nominating Your Doctoral Committee
Please review the minimum standards of doctoral committee before submitting your doctoral nomination form.
Final Thesis Exam
A final oral examination (i.e. defense) is required for all students in the program. Full-time students are expected to defend and submit their Ph.D. dissertations by their 18th quarter in residence. To schedule your defense, consult and complete the preparation for the final oral exam form.
Nominating your Doctoral Committee & Oral Qualifying Examination (Advancement to Candidacy)
To ATC is a critical milestone in your progress toward a Ph.D. degree. It is arguably the most important step in the process by which students find and propose a viable and interesting research problem. It also creates your doctoral committee, the chair of which will be your nominal research advisor.
Full-time Physics students are expected to advance to candidacy by their 9th quarter in residence.
Full-time Astronomy students are expected to advance to candidacy by their 10th quarter is residence.
Nominating your Doctoral Committee
Doctoral committees are arranged by the student before the oral qualifying examination. Students are encouraged to consult with their advisor for recommendations on committee members.
To nominate a doctoral committee, please consult the minimum standards for doctoral committees and complete the nomination of doctoral committee form. The doctoral committee must be approved by the Division of Graduate Education before the oral qualifying examination. Remember that you will need to nominate your doctoral committee two weeks prior to the exam. Once you are ready to constitute your committee please contact Helen Chung.
Oral Qualifying Examination
The oral qualifying examination is an oral presentation of the student’s proposed dissertation problem.
Once the exam date is scheduled, please fill out the preparation for the qualifying exam linked below which notifies our office of your exam date and time.
https://computing.pa.ucla.edu/webform/preparation-qualifying-or-final-exam
For room reservations, please reach out to ASG manager, Andrew Soderlund.
Upon the successful completion of their oral qualifying examination, students are advanced to candidacy.
General Guidelines for the Oral Qualifying Exam
The qualifying oral exam is an opportunity to demonstrate to your committee that you have acquired an adequate command of your field and resources to produce original and significant work. The time frame of the exam may vary between one to two hours depending on the discussion time for the committee. The presentation lasts about 30 minutes (about 15 slides, 2 minutes per slide). Expect interruptions from committee members in order to ask questions/clarify points and remember to leave time for questions at the end as well.
The presentation itself should cover the following key topics:
1. An introduction to the science of your topic (i.e., why should someone be interested in what you are about to say?)
2. What you've done so far. You will want to discuss background literature and preliminary results, if you have them. It is important to make clear what *you* did when you are giving the background information.
3. Next steps (i.e., what’s your plan for completing the project?). If there are any resources you are counting on (such as the repair or delivery of a big laser) you should talk about that and if there is a chance you won't get it, what is your Plan B?
4. Timeline for completion of project
It is highly recommended that the student consult closely with the advisor about the contents of the examination.
Other general advice:
1. Never have any words, phrases, or plots that you do not understand at least "one sentence deeper". Anything on your slides is fair game for someone to ask "What is xxx?" If you don't know at all, that does not look good.
2. Have nothing on the slides you do not need. They only distract and waste the time of the person in the audience trying to figure it out.For example, if you take a slide from a publication and it has four curves on it but you only want to talk about one, white-box over the lines or points you are not going to talk about.
3a. *ALL* text and plots on your slides should be clearly legible. If axes numbers cannot be read, you can white-box them over and rewrite your own large numbers. Or use arrows and big numbers for values. If an axis is labeled with a complicated formula but you only need to say something simple such as "emittance", replace it. If something is not legible and is not necessary, just remove it by cropping or white box. The person in the audience will be annoyed trying to read fonts that are too small. If they are totally unreadable that is a bit insulting to the audience. (The only exception to this rule is if your point is to show something is hopelessly complicated)
3b. The corollary to rule #3 is that you should only have at most two plots per slide, but keep to one. *Extra* plots can go into backup slides.
4. Slide area is valuable. Don't waste it with large repetitive designs etc. from the master. Make sure your plots use all available space even if it means dragging a corner 10% bigger. Legibility goes as the square of the plot area.
5. You need to give a practice talk at least twice. Preferably do it once with a friend and once with your advisor. If your advisor is asking basic questions about your slides and it becomes clear he or she has not seen them before, that will really annoy the other committee members.
Student Status Options
Filing Fee is intended for students who has completed, while registered, all requirements for a degree except for the doctoral final oral examination (defense), master’s comprehensive examination, or submission of the master’s capstone project, the student may be eligible to pay a Filing Fee during the quarter in which the degree is to be awarded instead of registering. Students must meet the eligibility criteria set by the Division of Graduate Education.
While on Filing Fee status, a graduate student cannot be employed in an Academic Apprentice Personnel Title (AAP) such as Graduate Student Researcher (GSR), Teaching Assistant/Associate/Fellow (TA), Reader or Tutor. If you are planning to go on a filing fee, please contact graduate advisor, Brenda Buenrostro and Academic Human Resources Analyst, Randy Guzman to discuss employment termination.
View the Deadlines page for dates each quarter. For Summer, the deadline is 8 business days prior to the last day of Summer Session C.
If your research requires you to travel 100 miles away from UCLA during the academic quarter, please file for In Absentia by the () week of the quarter. More information can be found here.
In Absentia is not required during the summer.
Summer quarter status is linked to Spring.
Students are not eligible to return from a LOA in the summer term.
Health insurance is not automatically cancelled