PH.D. PROGRAM
Doctoral Program Admission
Domestic applicants must hold a Master degree or equivalent from a local university or foreign institute recognized by the Ministry of Education, or alternatively, a Bachelor degree in medicine with no less than years of residence practice at teaching hospitals recognized by the department.
Applicants with the aformentioned qualifications may submit their applications to the department. Based on their application materials, a number of applicants are selected to take the oral exam in mid June. The final decision is based upon the applicant's portfolio by 60% and the oral exam grade by 40%. For application details and procedure, please refer to the application and admission brochure available around early May each year.
International Student Admission
- International students must apply to the NTU Center for International Academic Exchange.
- Details of the application procedure.
Overseas Chinese Student Admission
- Overseas Chinese students must apply to University Entrance Committee For Overseas Chinese Student.
- Related information in the Division of Graduate Academic Affairs, Office of Academic Affairs, National Taiwan University.
Department Requirements for a Ph.D. Degree
The following requirements are applicable to students entering the program in or after the 2006 academic year.
Please check with the department office for earlier requirements.
- Advisors
- Each student must have a full-time faculty member of the department as his or her advisor. However, with the permissions from the advisor and the Chairman, a student can also have a co-advisor outside of the department.
- Students may choose advisors immediately after entering the program. Before a student finds an advisor, he or she will be assigned a temporary advisor by the program coordinator.
- Each student must have an advisor no later than the next semester after he or she passes the qualifying examination.
- To change his or her advisor, a student must obtain permissions from both the new advisor and the Chairman.
- Courses
- Required
- Ph.D. dissertation (12 credits)
- Research project (must be taken for each semester in which Ph.D. dissertation is not taken)
- Research seminar (must be taken for each semester in which a student is registered as a full-time student)
- In addition to PhD dissertation, research project, and research seminar, each student must complete at least 18 credits from the department's course list; students transferred from the master program must complete at least 30 credits from the department's course list.
- Every semester, the courses to be taken by a student must be approved by his or her advisor (temporary advisor) during the enrollment.
- Qualifying examination
- The exam covers the following six subject areas: Theory of Computation, Computer Architecture, Algorithms, System Software, Artificial Intelligence, and Programming Languages and Compiler. The number of subject areas chosen by a student each time plus the number of subject areas the student already passed should not exceed 4.
- A student can take the same subject area exam at most two times. For students who fail in the same subject area for two times, their study in the program will be terminated.
- The qualifying examination is held within four weeks from the beginning of each semester. The exact date will be announced by the Graduate Academic Affairs Division, Office of Academic Affairs, in one week after the previous semester ends.
- The examinees who have doubts in their scores may file a request of re-scoring to the Graduate Academic Affairs Division, Office of Academic Affairs within 10 days after the official announcement of scores. Late requests are not responded.
- The qualifying examination must be taken during the first year of study. Students with extaordinary difficulties may apply for an extension, pending on the Chairman's approval.
- Students must pass 4 of the 6 subject areas of the qualifying examination within five semesters of study (including periods of suspension). A student can still take the qualifying examination during suspension.
- For students who fail to fulfill the above requirements for the qualifying examination, their studies in the program will be terminated.
- Thesis Proposal
- After a student's research direction is approved by the department, the student's advisor and the Chairman jointly organize a committee for reviewing the student's thesis proposal. The committee shall consist of no less than 5 faculty members of the school.
- The proposal review shall be in the form of an oral examination on the student's thesis by the committee.
- A student's proposal must be approved in no more than two reviews; otherwise the student's study in the program shall be terminated.
- Students who change advisors must retake the proposal review.
- Degree Defense
- Students can only apply for the Ph.D. degree defense after their proposals are approved. The defense and the proposal review, however, cannot take place in the same semester. Students with exceptional difficulties may apply for an exemption, pending on the Chairman's approval.
- The committee for a student's degree defense consists of 5 to 9 members, including at least half of the members in the comittee for the student's proposal review.
- Check the requirements of National Taiwan University and Ministry of Education to confirm and supplement these requirements.
- This regulation is approved and enforced by the Academic Affairs meeting. All modifications, thereafter, shall be of the same procedures.