PhD Program

Program Requirements

Most students require four to five years of full-time study to complete the PhD program. The following requirements must be met in order to complete the program.

• A research thesis defended before an examination board which includes an external examiner (11.0 credits)
• A comprehensive examination in chemistry. The format of this examination depends on the field of chemistry in which you would be conducting your research. At Carleton University this normally consists of two parts:

1. a research proposal examination and
2. a research topic presentation.

Students who do not complete the comprehensive examination by the end of their third year in the program will be deregistered. (No credit, Pass or Fail)

• Two credits of graduate courses (made up of any combination of 0.5 credit and 0.25 credit courses).
• CHEM 5801 (1.0 credit)
• CHEM 5802 (1.0 credit)

Program Requirements (from MSc)

Students who are transferred into the PhD program directly from the MSc (fast-track) must complete the requirements stated above. The exception is that that under exceptional circumstances only one seminar course will be required and credit for up to one credit of graduate courses may be given to reduce the requirement for graduate course credit from two to one. Students must complete their comprehensive examination within two years or be deregistered from the program.