Academics
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PhD Program
Curriculum and Focus Areas

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Core Curriculum

PhD students spend about half of their first year of study taking a common core of six industrial engineering and management sciences courses that provide fundamental knowledge:

Additional first-year courses may be chosen from relevant graduate-level offerings throughout the university in areas such as:

  • Mathematics
  • Economics
  • Engineering
  • Management
  • Social sciences

At the end of the first year, PhD students must take a candidacy exam that tests their ability to understand, apply, and integrate concepts from the basic core curriculum. Students who demonstrate satisfactory performance in 12 courses and the candidacy exam are eligible to receive the Master of Science degree in Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences, if they do not already hold an M.S. degree in a similar discipline.

View the Curriculum Planning Worksheet for the PhD Degree

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Advanced Study

Students whose performance in first-year courses and the candidacy exam demonstrates a strong potential for success in research are invited to continue to study for the PhD degree. The program has two additional required courses, which can be taken in either the first or second year from the following list

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Majors and Minors

PhD students also complete one three-course major and one two-course minor. Majors and minors may be chosen from the following areas:

  • Analytics (minor only)
  • Stochastic Analysis & Simulation
  • Optimization
  • Financial Engineering
  • Logistics & Operations
  • Healthcare Engineering
  • Applied Statistics & Statistical Learning
  • Management Science

Permitted courses in these areas are listed in the PhD Major and Minor Areas Document. Students may also petition to substitute a major or minor area of their own design with approval from their adviser and the Graduate Committee.

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Candidacy Exam 

Candidacy exam consists of two components: (i) performance in core courses, and (ii) performance in the oral exam.

(i)          Performance in Core Courses

Students must maintain a GPA of 3.3 or higher in eight core courses in the first year. Students with a GPA below 3.3 and three courses (out of eight core courses) with a grade of B or lower will be dismissed from the program. Students who have a core GPA of less than 3.3 but have a maximum of two courses with a grade of B or lower must retake the exams for those courses and obtain a grade of B+ or higher. Failure to earn a grade of B+ or higher in those courses will result in dismissal from the program.

(ii)         Performance in the Oral Exam                      

          The oral exam is offered in June of each year.  Students must take the exam at its first offering after they have had the opportunity to complete the eight PhD core courses. For most students, who begin in Fall quarter, the candidacy exam must be taken in June of their first year in the program.

The oral exam is a two-hour exam administered to individual students by committees of at least three IEMS faculty members. The exam is based on the student's review and presentation of one of a selection of papers provided by IEMS faculty. A student is also required to submit to their committee a short written report on the paper prior to the oral examination. Guidelines for the oral presentation and written report are communicated in advance. In the above, the phrase "IEMS faculty member" means any graduate faculty member with at least a 20% appointment in IEMS. 

Evaluation

After the oral exam, the IEMS faculty evaluates the overall performance of each student. This includes performance on the two components of the candidacy exam as well as the student's research potential. There are four possible outcomes of the evaluation after the candidacy exam:

  1. Invitation to continue in the PhD program: This is the normal outcome.
  2. Invitation to continue in the PhD program, with conditions: The student can continue temporarily in the PhD program, but will be dismissed from the program unless specified conditions are met. The conditions are determined as warranted by the individual student’s unique record. Possible conditions include but are not limited to, earning adequate grades in further courses, achieving satisfactory performance in another written or oral examination, and passing the prospectus exam on an earlier timeline.
  3. Dismissal from the PhD program, eligible for MS degree: The student is dismissed from the PhD program effectively immediately. However, the performance on the candidacy exam was sufficient to grant an MS degree once the other requirements for the MS degree are satisfied. 
  4. Dismissal from the PhD program, ineligible for MS degree: The student is dismissed from the PhD program effectively immediately and cannot receive the MS degree.

 

MS Degree Conferral

The requirements for the MS in IEMS are: 12 credits of graduate coursework taken for a letter grade (not P/ no P), including the 8 PhD Core courses, a GPA of at least 3.0, and a satisfactory performance on the candidacy oral exam. An IEMS PhD student who has satisfied these requirements and wants to be awarded the MS degree must log into the Graduate Student Tracking System and fill out the Master’s in Primary PhD form. Following approval of this form, applicants will subsequently submit the Application for Degree and Master’s Degree Completion forms via GSTS.  All three forms must be submitted to be awarded the degree.

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Dissertation

A student's dissertation committee is chaired or co-chaired by the student's adviser. Two or more additional committee members are chosen by the adviser in consultation with the student. At least two committee members, including the chair or a co-chair, must be full or joint industrial engineering and management sciences faculty members. The committee must include at least one member who has primary affiliation outside of the department.

To earn a PhD, students must also pass the prospectus examination and dissertation defense at which they present their research.

The degree is awarded following an oral final examination and submission of the completed dissertation. The entire PhD program is usually completed in four or five years.

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Teaching Requirement

Teaching is an essential element of the education and training experience of PhD students at Northwestern. The Graduate School requires that all PhD students serve in some instructional capacity for at least one academic quarter during their graduate education at Northwestern.

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Graduate Program Handbook

Please consult our Graduate Program Handbook for further information on departmental policies and procedures.

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