Comprehensive Oral Exam for the M.S. Degree

You are required to pass a final comprehensive oral exam which will include defense of your Thesis (Plan A) or Project (Plan B) and questioning by your committee members. It is your responsibility to organize your thesis or project comprehensive oral exam and to schedule the date, time, and room of your exam.

1. In order to meet the deadline established by the Office of Graduate Studies, comprehensive oral exams for a thesis or project are scheduled early in April or November of the semester in which you plan to graduate. 
   
2. Faculty advisor approval of an acceptable draft is required; at which time you provide copies of your draft to other committee members. You distribute the approved draft two weeks prior to scheduling your exam. One week after you distribute your advisor-approved draft to your committee members, you need to contact each committee member for feedback and/or revision. You make necessary revisions to the draft and resubmit a copy to committee members as soon as possible prior to the comprehensive exam. There must be sufficient time available for additional revisions, another meeting with your committee (if necessary), and completion/reproduction of the final copy for faculty signatures. When additional revisions and/or changes are required by your examining committee, you with your faculty advisor need to complete these and resubmit your thesis or project to your committee within 2 weeks of the time of the exam. The deadline date for submission of the approved and signed thesis is posted every semester by the Office of Graduate Studies. Approved and signed projects submitted to the NuFS Graduate Coordinator, Dr. Panfilo Belo, must meet the same deadline.
   
3. Plan A Thesis: You need to schedule a 2-hour comprehensive oral exam session; subsequent meetings may be necessary.
   
4. Plan B Project: You need to schedule a 1-hour comprehensive oral exam session; subsequent meetings may be necessary.
   
5. A comprehensive oral exam committee is composed of a minimum of three members for Plan A Thesis and two members for Plan B Project. For Plan A Thesis, two committee members must be NuFS graduate faulty, the third member can be another NuFS faculty, SJSU faculty, or a professional outside the university with whom you have worked in completing your thesis. For Plan B Project, one committee member must be NuFS graduate faculty; the second member can be another NuFS faculty, SJSU faculty, or a professional outside the university with whom you have worked in completing your project.
   
6. In order to schedule your comprehensive oral exam, you must arrange a time agreed upon by all of your committee members and reserve a room (contact Xuan ("Swan") Duong Francis, Department Coordinator, CCB 200: 408-924-3100).
   
7. During the comprehensive oral exam, you will be expected to:

• make a 10-15 minute formal presentation of your thesis or project
• react to to specific questions about the presentation
• clarify content/questions on your paper (page-by-page); and 
• respond to additional questions on material related to your thesis or project (which could include material from courses / literature / speakers / current events / etc.)

8. Graduate faculty are available during the Spring and Fall semesters only. No final comprehensive exams will be scheduled at times other than the regular academic semesters. To enroll for NuFS 298 / NuFS 299 for credit during vacation periods, you must have approval of you graduate advisor who must agree to be available.