Students assigned an Associate Instructor position should meet with the course instructor who will discuss duties and expectations. Students should contact the course instructor a week before the start of class, Monday, August 31. .

All international students who assigned Associate Instructor positions must pass the Test of English Proficiency for International Associate Instructor Candidates before the start of their position.

Please contact your faculty advisor or Michael Gasser, Director of Graduate Studies (gasser@indiana.edu), for course planning assistance.

Important notes regarding Fee Remissions: (students receiving fellowships/assistantships)

College of Arts & Sciences Fee Remissions Policy:
Fee remissions given to students should be used to enroll in courses related to their degree on the Bloomington campus. The College anticipates departments will hire only Arts and Sciences degree students. Any exceptions should be cleared with an Associate Dean before commitments are made. Once the exception has been approved, the College will only provide a fee remission at the Arts and Sciences rate. Schools such as Business, Law, etc. have higher tuition rates than the College.

Students who have passed the written and oral qualifying examinations must enroll each semester (excluding summer sessions) for any remaining required course work or dissertation credits. Once students have accumulated 90 credit hours in completed course work and deferred dissertation credits, they must enroll for a minimum of 1 hour of graduate credit each semester until the degree is completed. Students who have completed all requirements for the Ph.D. except the dissertation are eligible to enroll in G901 Dissertation Research (6 credit hours) for a flat fee of $150 per semester. Enrollment in G901 is limited to a total of six semesters.

Students who will graduate in June, July, or August of any year must enroll in a minimum of 1 hour of credit as described above in either the current or the immediately preceding summer session.

Ordinarily, students shall be considered full-time by the University Graduate School if they are registered for 8 hours of credit (4 credit hours during each summer session) and their programs of study meet with the approval of the departments. Courses taken as an auditor may not count in the definition of "full-time study"; however, courses taken to remove undergraduate deficiencies for admission may count.

Transfer of graduate credit is at the discretion of the department and subject to approval by the Graduate School. It is never automatic, and decisions are made on an individual basis. Up to eight credits of graduate course work can be transferred for the MS, provided the credits have not previously been applied to a degree. Up to 30 hours of credit can be transferred to the Ph.D., provided the credits were not applied toward a previous Ph.D. Approvals must be obtained before a student can be nominated to candidacy. Credit from institutions operating on a quarter or trimester schedule is adjusted to units of semester credit. For example, a three-hour, one-quarter course would normally be transferred for two semester-hours of credit. It is often difficult to measure work done at institutions that do not assign units of credit, as is the case at most European universities. Also, the Graduate School requires an official transcript on which a grade is recorded. It is in the student's best interest to gain approval for credit transfers as early as possible. However, students who are undecided about their final degree objective should defer their requests until a final decision is made because the request must state to which degree the credit will be applied.

Students applying for transfer of credit should provide evidence of course content, including catalog descriptions and any other material (text, course notes, tests, assignments, etc.) that might be helpful. The courses must fall within the time limits of applicable credit, namely, seven years prior to qualification. It is the department's responsibility to certify that the content and level of the course work is appropriate. To make this determination, the director of graduate studies may consult with other faculty members or arrange for the student to be interviewed by them.

Students should assemble an advisory committee no later than one year after the student has been admitted to the Ph.D. program. The advisory committee will help with arrangements and evaluations of the qualifying examination. There must be at least two members from the core cognitive science faculty area and one from the minor(s). At least two of the members of the committee must be members of the graduate faculty.

Normally qualifying examinations are taken after the student has completed all the course work for the Ph.D. The examinations will cover the major subjects and may, at the discretion of the minor department(s), cover the minor subjects as well. The form of the examination is determined by each student's advisory committee.

After passing the qualifying examination, fulfilling all major and minor requirements, and receiving approval from the graduate school, the student is awarded a Certificate of Candidacy. Students have 7 years from the date the qualifying examinations were passed to complete their degree.

To initiate research for the dissertation, the student chooses a professor who will agree to direct the dissertation. Once this choice is approved by the Dean, the assigned director (who will also serve as the chairperson) along with two or more additional faculty members from the core cognitive science faculty and a representative of the minor department(s) will make up the research committee. This committee should be selected from the members of the graduate faculty and should consist of faculty who are qualified to judge the student's dissertation research. This committee and the student's thesis prospectus must be approved six months before the defense of the dissertation.

Students must submit to the University Graduate School a one-page announcement of the final examination thirty days prior to the scheduled defense of the dissertation. This announcement must bear the signature of the research committee chairperson. The Cognitive Science Program office will also receive a copy of this announcement prior to the defense and a copy of the dissertation. (Dissertation submission can now be done electronically. Visit the Dissertation Submission Site for more information.) There is a guide to the preparation of theses and dissertations available online.

Coursework

A minimum of 90 credit hours, including the following:

The six cognitive science core courses: Q520 (Mathematics and Logic in Cognitive Science), Q530 (Programming Methods in Cognitive Science), Q540 (Philosophical Foundations of the Cognitive and Information Sciences), Q550 (Models in Cognitive Science), Q551 (The Brain and Cognition), and Q560 (Behavioral Methods in Cognitive Science). On the basis of their undergraduate background, students may be exempted from no more than one of the core courses.
At least 16 additional credit hours from offerings listed or cross-listed in cognitive science. A maximum of 6 of these 16 credit hours may come from pure research courses Q799 and Q899, or the equivalent in another department.
At least four semesters of the Colloquium Series course Q733. In one of these semesters, the only for which credit is received, each student will be expected to give a lecture on his or her independent research as a part of the Colloquium Series.

Research project

All Cognitive Science Ph.D. students must complete a research project during their second year in the program. By the end of their first year, they must have agreed on a supervisor and a topic for the project and submit a progress report form to Cognitive Science Program.

All new Ph.D. students should decide on a supervisor and topic for their projects by the end of their first year and submit the Research Project Progress Report Form to the Cognitive Science Program office. The project should be completed by the end of the second year; at this time students should submit the Completion of the Research Project Form along with an electronic file copy of the research project to Cognitive Science Program office.

Content specialization

Each student will select a content specialization, an area of study that can be approached from the perspectives of the different disciplines within cognitive science. The list of available content specializations currently includes Language and Speech, Modeling, Dynamical Systems, Logic, and Human-Computer Interaction, but with the approval of the student's advisory / research committee, any relevant area of cognitive science may fulfill the content specialization requirement. Students must complete at least five courses in their specialization, and these courses must be taken in at least two different departments. The content specialization should normally be selected by the end of the student's second year in the program, and the courses selected must be approved by the student's advisory committee.

Minor

Students must complete a minor in another department or program. Courses counting toward the minor may also count toward the student's content specialization. The minor should normally be completed by the beginning of the student's fourth year.

Qualifying examination

Each student is expected to pass a Qualifying Examination, normally by the first semester of the student's third year in the program. If the student fails the exam, it may be retaken once, by the end of the student's third year.

Prior to the qualifying examination, each student will be expected to turn in a Qualifying Examination Petition Form with the signatures of the Director of Graduate Studies and Advisory Committee.

The examination is expected to have a written and an oral component and to demonstrate (1) in-depth knowledge of the student's Content Specialization, (2) knowledge of some other area of Cognitive Science, (3) academic writing competence, and (4) the ability to defend a position in an oral setting.

In consultation with his or her Advisory Committee, the student will agree on the format of the examination. Within these constraints, two broad categories of Qualifying Examinations are possible.

1. Conventional Written Examination

The student and his or her committee agree on a set of topic areas and readings. The topics must include at least one area outside of the student's Content Specialization and must be approved by the Director of Graduate Studies. The student then has three months to prepare for the exam, normally during the summer following the second year in the program.

Each committee member writes one or two questions. The student has two days, four hours per day, to answer the questions, using any resources he or she wishes to bring to the examination room. Within a week, the committee evaluates the student's answers. The student does not normally receive feedback from the committee but may discuss the answers informally with members of the committee in preparation for the oral portion of the exam. The student meets with the committee within two weeks after submitting the answers to orally defend his or her answers and respond to follow-up questions. If the committee agrees that the student's written and oral answers are satisfactory, the student has successfully passed the qualification exam. Otherwise, the committee may fail the student outright or may require the student (1) to elaborate further in written answers to one or more questions or (2) to answer in writing one or more additional questions. If the student satisfies the committee with these additional assignments, he or she has successfully passed the qualification exam; otherwise, the exam is considered failed and must be completely retaken.

2. Papers

In consultation with his or her Advisory Committee, the student selects topics for three qualifying papers. Two of these topics are expected to be within the student's Content Specialization, and these should address at least two of the different methodological approaches to that content area.
The third paper can deal with a topic in any other area of cognitive science but must be outside the student's Content Specialization. The topics must be approved by the Director of Graduate Studies. Each paper should answer a question. An example of a recent Qualifying Examination paper question is: How might simulation-based models help to clarify or dispel the view of communication as information transmission?

The student is given the period of three months during the summer following the second year in the program to write the papers. During this time, he or she may consult any works on the paper topics but may not discuss the topics with others. Questions to the committee should only concern procedural matters. After the papers are submitted to the committee, they are evaluated by the committee members, normally within a period of a week, and returned to the student with comments. Next the student meets with the committee to defend his or her answers orally; the oral portion of the exam should take place within three weeks of the submission of the papers. Based on the written answers and the oral defense, the student may be passed immediately, failed outright, or required to rewrite one or more of the papers and possibly also to meet with the committee again for a second oral defense. If the student satisfies the committee with these additional assignments, he or she has successfully passed the qualification exam; otherwise the exam is considered failed and must be completely retaken.

Ph.D. evaluation day

The status of all Ph.D. students (starting the beginning of the student's 2nd year) will be reviewed and evaluated by the faculty early in the fall semester. Each student will be responsible for providing the information listed below to the Graduate Secretary, with a copy to his / her assigned faculty members. The information will be due a week prior to the review.

In the Ph.D. Evaluation Day faculty meeting, the progress of each Ph.D. student will be discussed individually; a letter will be sent to each student containing the faculty's resulting assessment and recommendations.

Student Information to Be Supplied:

A brief statement not exceeding 300 words is preferred. Recently enrolled Ph.D. candidates should just summarize their curriculum and qualifying examination plans, and indicate those research areas that interest them. Relevant information may include:

Research progress, including results, writing, thesis proposal, independent study courses, conference papers and presentations, journal papers, etc. List cited articles or other bibliographic information separately at the bottom.
Progress on program requirements: courses taken, performance in courses, screening / qualifiers taken, oral area qualifier taken, thesis proposal oral completed, minor, etc.
Teaching: course responsibilities, performance, student evaluations, course development, independent teaching of courses, etc.
Public service: help in organizing events, activity in student organizations, help in departmental administration, admissions, etc.

There are approximately 160 graduate courses in 22 departments and 85 undergraduate courses that are cross-listed in cognitive science.

Student Legal Services advises students free of charge on the legality of a lease and provides information about tenant / landlord rights and responsibilities.