- Course phase consists of eight technical elective courses + CMPE700 (PhD Seminar). Technical courses are expected to be in alignment with the chosen research area. The advisor may ask the student to take as many non-credit courses as necessary. Note that non-credit courses do not count towards the GPA, but must be repeated if failed. The student cannot proceed to the qualification exam stage until all non-credit courses are passed. If the advisor approves, certain non-credit 5XX courses that are otherwise offered for credit can be converted to a course with credits until the end of the add-drop period of the following semester.
- Students who had started PhD program before Spring 2016 (inclusive) are exempt from CmpE700.
- Students have to complete 60ECTS from the courses. This requires half of the course load to be from CmpE5xx and CmpE6xx courses because the ECTS of CmpE graduate courses is 10. The remaining load can be filled from all programs provided that the course is related with the thesis work, the advisor approves and the following conditions hold:
- Students can take 5xx and 6xx courses from other departments. ECTS of other 5xx courses is usually lower than 10.
- Students can take at most two courses from another university. In this case, they have to directly apply to the Institute of Science and Engineering for an approval. Note that BÜ does not allow a course to be taken from another university if that course is offered in BÜ. Grade is transferred as P or F but ECTS is transferred as it is.
- The student is expected to complete 9 credits in the first semester, 18 credits at the end of the second semester and 24 credits (i.e., all course work) at the end of the third semester. Maximum course load per semester is five.
- Courses with F/CC/CB grades can be repeated with another course.
- Courses have to be completed in four semesters with a GPA higher than 3.00 to continue to the program
- "CMPE699: Guided Research in Phd - I" is a 4-credit course in which the student can start research for the domain of the PhD thesis. It makes the student study the literature that will be related with the thesis work. The student has to register to the related section of his/her advisor. It is expected that the student makes a literature survey and prepare a survey paper/report at the end of this course. This course is usually taken in the first or second semester. The advisor may ask the student to take at most four additional non-credit guided research courses CmpE69A, 69B, 69C and 69D depending on the breadth of the thesis topic.