Ph.D. Screening Exam

• Application: You must apply through the EE-Systems Department to take the screening exam. To take the exam you should satisfy the following: admitted to the Ph.D. program in the communications area and/or working on Ph.D. research with a faculty member in the communications group. If you were admitted to the Ph.D. program in another area and are currently not working with a faculty member in the communictaiosn group, you should take the screening exam in the area that admitted you.
• Pre-Exam Meeting: A faculty member in the communications group will serve as coordinator for the exam. This professor will call a meeting of the students taking the exam approximately one month before the exam. The coordinator will review the information on this page and address any questions that the students have at that time.
• Timetable: The screening exam is given near the 12th week of the semester, every Fall and Spring semester. Students must pass this exam prior to the end of their second year in the USC Ph.D. program. This two year period will start the first semester of USC Ph.D. study, and does not include any time spent in the MSEE program at USC or other institutions. Students who do not pass the exam on their first attempt can take the exam again. This is typically done during the following semester, but should be within the two year timeframe in any case. Thus, it is strongly encouraged that all students first take the exam by the third semester.
• Exam Format: Our exam is a series of 20 minute oral exams (note that other groups in EE-Systems have different formats). Each student sits in an office on the 5th floor of EEB and the professors move from room to room giving the exams. The exam is usually given over the course of one or two days.
  Exams focus on basic concepts, with the potential for some open-ended questioning. The topics covered are:
  • Transform Theory (EE 401)
  • Linear Systems (EE 301)
  • Random Processes (EE 562a)
  • Probability and Random Variables (EE 464)
  • Linear Algebra (EE 441)
  • Combinatorics (no specfic course). Materials are found in Chapter 2, of Feller, W. An Introduction to Probability Theory and Its Applications, vol 1, John Wiley & Sons, 1968.
  • Signal Analysis (EE 467)
  • Electromagnetics (EE 330 and EE 470)
  During some semesters, multiple exams may be given on a single topic, typically EE464 and/or EE562a, in order to give all faculty members in the communicatiosn group an opportunity to examine the students.

• Grading: each professor will grade your exam on a range of 1-10, corresponding to Fail (1-3), Marginal (4-6), and Pass (7-10). The communications faculty then meet to discuss the overall exam pass level. Generally, students who have done well on all exams pass and students who have done poorly on several exams do not pass. For students in the middle, the faculty consider factors in addition to the oral exam performace, such as GPA, GRE scores, research experience, and prior personal interaction.
  The raw exam scores are not disclosed. Students who do not pass the exam are encouraged to meet with the exam faculty coordinator to get a better understanding of the areas where improvement is necessary.
  Students who do not pass the exam on their first attempt can take the exam again. This is typically done during the following semester, but should be within the two-year timeframe in any case.
• Suggestions: Based on feedback from students, we suggest the following steps for preparation:
• Meet the professors. If you have not had a class from some of the professors, you should stop by their office during office hours and introduce yourself. Feel free to ask questions about their exam format, philosophy, and content.
• Work problems. During the exam, you will be asked to work problems out, not just give definitions. The best practice for this is working out problems from the course. Exams from the class are an excellent source of problems since these are usually focused on major concepts from the class.
• Practice oral exams. Team up with others taking the exam and give each other mock exams. Oral exams have a different dynamic than written exams and it is best to get a feel for that prior to the exam.
• Prepare your exam room. Make sure that you can reach all areas of the whiteboard and that you have working markers and erasers. You can move a desk or ask the CSI staff for supplies. As trivial as this sounds, you want to be comfortable in your workspace during the exam.