Comprehensive Exam:
Comprehensive exam is required.
The student’s advisor asks the faculty members (usually two or three, the student’s advisor can also be included) with whom the student has had classes in the program to write one or two comprehensive/thoughtful questions. The questions are generally from the required courses the student has taken in the program, but questions covering other courses are allowed.
After collecting the questions, the advisor usually gives the student about two weeks to complete these questions (open-book) and then sends the answers to the questions to the individual faculty member to grade.