Effective January 2006, the following new format for the Qualifying exam has been adopted:

• Student will choose 2 of 3 areas: Automata, Architecture, and Algorithms and will request a third exam from an area of interest (e.g. Databases, Software Engineering, Operating Systems, AI, etc.)
• The choice will be communicated to the Director of Graduate Studies at least 3 months in advance (an email request will be sent to the student).
• The exams will be conducted 2 times a year (May and September). Students who are admitted in the Fall semester are required to take the first attempt in May of the following year. The second attempt will be the next offering of the exam in September.
• The student must PASS all three exams by their second attempt.
• Syllabus for Architecture, Algorithms, and Automata are the same as before; Syllabus for other areas of interest will be developed as student's request an exam. Typical syllabus would be topics covered in 6000-level classes with a few additional topics.

• Automata
  Syllabus Sample Questions
  Past Exams: Oct 2001 Apr 2002 Oct 2002 Apr 2003 Oct 2003 Apr 2004 Oct 2004 Apr 2005 Oct 2005
• Computer Architecture
  Syllabus Sample Questions
  Past Exams: Oct 2001 Apr 2002 Oct 2002 Apr 2003 Oct 2003 Apr 2004 Oct 2004 Apr 2005 Oct 2005
• Algorithms
  Syllabus Sample Questions
  Past Exams: Oct 2001 Apr 2002 Oct 2002 Apr 2003 Oct 2003 Apr 2004 Oct 2004 Oct 2005

Syllabus - Other Areas

• Database Systems
• Software Engineering
• Computer Networks
• Parallel and Distributed Computing
• Graphics and Visualization
• Operating Systems
• Artificial/Computational Intelligence
• Bioinformatics Algorithms