Contact Information
Dr. Sangchul Bang
Professor and CENE Graduate Coordinator
Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE)
Email: Sangchul.Bang@sdsmt.edu
Phone: (605) 394-2440
Office: CM 238
Faculty
Professors Bang, Fontaine, Gribb, and Kenner; Associate Professor Stone; Assistant Professors Benning, Cetin, Gadhamshetty, Nam, Robinson, and Shearer.
Background Requirements
All SDSM&T Graduate College admissions requirements apply to the Civil and Environmental Engineering (CENE) Ph.D. program. In addition, a GPA of 3.00 or better is required, as is the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) for applicants except School of Mines graduates.
Students with a B.S. degree who apply to the Ph.D. program will be admitted to the CENE M.S. program until they have accumulated sufficient course credits for an M.S. degree. Admission to the CENE Ph.D. program is normally limited to qualified students who have already earned an M.S. degree in Civil or Environmental Engineering or a related field. Students holding an M.S. but with extensive undergraduate deficiencies may be placed into the CENE M.S. program until these deficiencies are remedied. Students placed into the M.S. under one of these two circumstances will be admitted to the CENE Ph.D. program after passing the qualifying exam.
Incoming students should have completed the courses presented below. Deficiencies in these areas must be remedied by taking the necessary coursework prior to enrollment in the doctoral program.
Calculus I, II, and III
Differential Equations
Probability and Statistics
General Chemistry I and II
General Physics I
Statics
All CENE doctoral students are also expected to have completed the appropriate background courses for their intended research emphasis area (refer to the CENE Ph.D. Program Handbook: http://www.sdsmt.edu/Academics/Departments/Civil-and-Environmental-Engineering/Roadmap-To-Success/). Additional subjects may be required by the student’s graduate committee. These requirements will be documented as a formal component of a student’s Program of Study.
Qualifying Exam
All CENE Ph.D. students are expected to take a qualifying exam to demonstrate their potential for independent research. Students entering with a B.S. degree will take the examination in the semester immediately following the completion of 24 credits of graduate coursework. Students placed in the M.S. program due to undergraduate deficiencies must take the qualifying exam in the semester immediately following completion of all deficiencies. Students entering with a completed M.S. degree will take the qualifying exam before the end of their second semester in residence.
To pass the qualifying exam, the student must 1) complete all undergraduate deficiency requirements, 2) submit a valid Ph.D. Program of Study to the CENE Ph.D. program coordinator Dr. Sangchul Bang; 3) complete a literature search and paper on a topic related to the student’s area of concentration; and 4) present and defend the paper in an oral examination by the student’s Advisory Committee. The paper should reflect a sustained effort and culminate in an analysis of potentially significant research problems. The identified problems need not match the eventual dissertation topic.
The Comprehensive Examination and Admission to Ph.D. Candidacy
When the student’s program of coursework has been substantially completed, she or he will undertake the comprehensive examination for admission to candidacy. This exam will consist of two parts:
- A written examination based on emphasis area courses as specified by the student’s advisory committee. This will be a 3-hour written examination. The written examination will be graded by the student’s advisory committee prior to the dissertation proposal presentation.
- The student will prepare a written dissertation research proposal and complete an oral presentation of that proposal in the presence of the CENE faculty and the student’s Advisory Committee, preferably as a presentation of the CENE graduate seminar series.
Satisfactory completion of the comprehensive examination requires successful completion of the written exam and the dissertation proposal defense, with no more than one member of the graduate student advisory committee votes against passing. If the student has conditional pass (usually requiring a re-write and/or re-submittal of the proposal), the committee shall inform the student promptly as to how and when the conditions may be removed. Admission to candidacy should normally be passed at least 5 months before the dissertation is defended. Additional details about the comprehensive exam are presented in the CENE Ph.D. Program Handbook.
Dissertation Defense Requirements
The dissertation defense will be scheduled at any time after the student has completed the required coursework and after the graduate student advisory committee is satisfied that the dissertation is an acceptable manuscript. A schedule of exam and defense deadlines is available on the Graduate Education web page. Additional details regarding scheduling and other requirements are presented in the CENE Ph.D. Program Handbook.
The dissertation defense may not be scheduled during the period of university final examinations. The student will be required to give an oral presentation, open to the public, on the major findings of his/her research. CENE doctoral candidates are expected to present their dissertation defenses during the CENE graduate seminar series. An oral examination will follow the presentation, led by the student’s major professor with only the student’s advisory committee in attendance. The student’ advisory committee will question the student to test the quality and completeness of the research. Additional details about the dissertation defense procedure may be found on the Graduate Education web page and in the CENE Ph.D. Program Handbook.
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