{"id":17011,"date":"2026-05-05T16:11:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T20:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/cognitivescience\/?page_id=17011"},"modified":"2026-06-09T09:51:49","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T13:51:49","slug":"roadmap-for-phd-students","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/cognitivescience\/roadmap-for-phd-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Roadmap for PhD Students"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Roadmap for PhD Students\n <\/h1>\n \n \n <\/header>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Event<\/th>Timing (recommended)<\/th>Description<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
Supervisory Committee Defined<\/strong><\/td>Within the first year of the program (by September of 2nd year)<\/em><\/td>Supervisor and student agree on committee members; members are contacted and agree to serve<\/td><\/tr>
Initial research meeting (informal with committee \u2013 student presents tentative plan)<\/td>Shortly after committee defined (by December of 2nd year<\/em>)<\/td>Student gets a chance to try out their ideas, present some pilot work (if already done), and benefits from committee\u2019s expertise<\/td><\/tr>
… subsequent meetings<\/td>As required to provide student with sufficient guidance; could be in the form of departmental seminars, with committee members attending, or as lab meetings<\/td>Student should have some continued interaction with the committee members (the form may vary)<\/td><\/tr>
Prospectus Defense<\/td>By end of 2nd year (e.g. August)<\/td>Program Requirement (formally scheduled meeting)<\/td><\/tr>
Informal consultations\/meetings with committee members (no limit, at least 1 or 2 recommended per year)<\/td>As required; again, could take the form of lab meetings or departmental seminars; a yearly progress update is minimal<\/td>To ensure project benefits maximally from committee expertise<\/td><\/tr>
Penultimate draft of document to committee<\/td>About 4 months before projected defense date (to allow for revisions and comments) \u2013 Feb to March of 4th year of program<\/em><\/td>Committee members may focus on different aspects of the thesis, especially if multiple methodologies are involved<\/td><\/tr>
Final version approved by Supervisor<\/td><\/td><\/td><\/tr>
Intent to Submit<\/td>8 weeks before the projected defense date, the candidate informs the Department that he or she intends to submit the dissertation for defense<\/td>University Requirement<\/td><\/tr>
Final version [6 examinable copies] to graduate administrator<\/td>6 weeks before projected defence date<\/td>University Requirement<\/td><\/tr>
Final version circulated to committee, including external examiner<\/td>4 weeks before schedule defense<\/td>University Requirement<\/td><\/tr>
Thesis Defence<\/td>End of 4th year of program <\/td>University Requirement<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>
(for a 4-year, 10 credit PhD)<\/strong><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Event Timing (recommended) Description Supervisory Committee Defined Within the first year of the program (by September of 2nd year) Supervisor and student agree on committee members; members are contacted and agree to serve Initial research meeting (informal with committee \u2013 student presents tentative plan) Shortly after committee defined (by December of 2nd year) Student gets a chance to try […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cu_dining_location_slug":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_page_type":[111],"class_list":["post-17011","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","cu_page_type-programs"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/cognitivescience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/cognitivescience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/cognitivescience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/cognitivescience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/cognitivescience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17011"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/cognitivescience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17371,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/cognitivescience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17011\/revisions\/17371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/cognitivescience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_page_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/cognitivescience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_page_type?post=17011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}