PhD-EE students are expected to take the written preliminary exam on three of these seven topics after completing 9 credit hours of classes toward their degrees. Students may choose the three topics upon which they will be examined. This exam is typically given in the second or third year of a student’s program. The preliminary exam is designed to assess:

  1. Critical thinking and analysis
  2. Competence and breadth of knowledge on core concepts in environmental studies.
  3. Prove that the student has acquired the skills and knowledge necessary to function as an independent scholar in environmental studies and in their chosen field of specialization.

Below includes examples of previous exams:

Preliminary Examination

When the student has completed 9 semester hours of coursework in the doctoral program,

he or she will be required to take a preliminary examination. The preliminary

examination will be taken at the beginning of the second semester of the student’s

doctoral program. The preliminary examination will be a written test of knowledge in at

least three areas of electrical engineering. The student will choose from the following

areas: Microelectronics, Computer Networks, Power Engineering, Control Systems,

Communications, Digital Systems, Engineering Mathematics, and Signal Processing.

The preliminary examination will be prepared and administered by the Graduate Program

Administrator and graduate faculty. Students failing any portion of the preliminary

examinations must consult with the Graduate Program Administrator to determine the

steps to be taken. Two consecutive failures on the examination will result in the student’s

dismissal from the Ph.D. program.

TOPICS FOR PRELIMINARY EXAMINATIONS

Microelectronics

Crystal structure: atomic bonding: phase relationships and kinetics. Band theory; Fermi-Dirac

Statistics: conduction and introduction to semiconductor device physics: operational amplifiers.

Diodes and nonlinear circuits. field effect transistors: analysis and design linear amplifiers.

Biasing: small and large signal behaviors. Operation of bipolar junction transistors. Design and

analysis of single and multistage transistor amplifiers. difference amplifiers, frequency response

of amplifiers and feedback concepts.

Digital Systems

Numbers. systems, and codes. Boolean algebra and logic minimization methods. Combinational

and sequential design and using logic gates and flip flops.  Memory and programmable logic.

register transfer and computer operations, control logic design. Computer  instructions and

addressing modes, and design of a CPU input-output communication memory management

Power Engineering

Study of average and RMS power: polyphase circuits. complex frequency, frequency response,

and magnetic circuits. Electric and magnetic devices. force and torque measurements, iron core

transformers. single phase and polyphase power circuit analysis.  Introduction to per unit system.

Control Systems

Basic discrete and continuous time signals, properties systems. linear time invariant systems.

Fourier analysis. z-transformers. Laplace Transforms. Model of physical systems, system

responses, system characteristics, stability design, frequency response analysis and design, and

discrete time systems.

Communications and Signal Processing

Basic discrete continuous rime signals. properties of systems. linear time invariant systems,

Fourier analysis, z-transformers, Fourier transformers. signal spectra, correlation, convolution,

and sampling.  Transmission and processing of signals, system  representation,  filter, signal

distortion, linear, angle and pulse modulation. Effect of noise interference on communications.

Computer Networks

Data network architectures and protocols including X.25, LANs and Internet; Performance

Modeling and analysis to compute throughput bit errors: ( i ) Link Layer (ii) Network Layer

(iii)TCP: DTF-DCL interface: Understanding of virtual circuit, data gram concepts and their

behavior; Communication channels: modulation /demodulation, line coding techniques.

scrambling: Concept of dB. dBm, dBw, SNR. Channel capacity, Multi-service requirements.

Engineering Mathematics

Ordinary differential equations: Random Variables, expectations. means. variance. binomial and

normal distributions,  hypothesis,  testing. sums of independent random variables. central limit

theorem;  Matrices and determinants; vector spaces, systems or linear equations, eigenvalues and

eigenvectors: power series. Laplace transforms, Fourier Series and orthogonal functions.