The Ph.D. program consists of the following components:

Course work
General Examination (Two Papers with Oral Examinations)
Dissertation Prospectus
Dissertation adn Final Examination (Defense)

Student progress is monitored by an advisory committee, selected by the student.

Most students in the department also hold Graduate Assistantships, either Teaching Assistantships or Research Assistantships or both.

Deadlines: Choose major and associate advisors - End of first year (May)

A notable feature of our program is the extent to which we encourage our students to engage in original research from the earliest stages of their education. The advisory system and the general examination are particularly geared toward helping students to develop their research skills and realize their scholarly ambitions.

Each entering student is assigned a temporary advisor who assists in the planning of a first year program. These temporary assignments expire in April of the student's first year, by which time the student has selected a permanent major advisor. By the end of the first year of study, the student and the student's major advisor have chosen two associate advisors to complete the advisory committee, and have worked out and submitted a Plan of Study. Students have the option of changing major advisor and/or committee members as their interests change.

Graduate School forms – http://www.grad.uconn.edu/forms.html

• Plan of Study
• Request for Changes in the Plan of Study
• Change of Major Advisor
• Note: There is no form for change in advisory committee (other than major advisor). To record a change, the major advisor sends a memo to the Grad School.

• Students proposing an experimental study for either general examination (see below) are also required to take Linguistics 332 (Experimental Methods) in the fall semester of their second year. This course counts towards the 22 credits of electives.

• Certain experiments require approval for research with human subjects from the University IRB. This is a time-consuming process – if this applies to you, it is imperative to start on the approval process early

This section will be added in the near future

External Fellowships: Graduate students are strongly encouraged to pursue sources of support external to the university, such as fellowships. Since department-internal support is limited, external support increases the funding available to all students within the department. External support is also prestigious and can reduce the number of hours a student must work in GA-ships, making more time available to devote to studies.

Graduate Assistants Employability Policy: With the ever-tightening squeeze on graduate assistantships, and our regular review of policies, the faculty have decided that it is necessary to place a new condition on the issuing of GA awards.

All graduate assistants must comply with the University’s stated policies on (spoken) English proficiency (http://tap.uconn.edu/ita/testing/index.htm#english).

Students who are not eligible for classroom instruction as defined by this policy by the end of their 4th semester of study will not be in the pool for GAships assigned during April-May-June for the following academic year. (In particular, students should satisfy the policy by the date of the last posted TEACH test in the spring semester of the second year.) If and when any such students do pass English Certification, they may be entered in the pool for any unassigned GAships, and returned to regular funding assignments made for each AY in late spring.

This policy does not affect a student’s eligibility for pre-doctoral fellowship funds.