Course requirements

Last updated: June 2005

This web page should not have to exist. The Mathematics degree requirements should be stated clearly in writing, on a web page or in a publicly available document, for everyone to see. Unfortunately, the only written statement of the departmental requirements - those over and above the FoGS regulations - is the degree requirements web page, which leaves a lot of room for interpretation, is sometimes inaccurate (e.g. lists courses that don't exist), and is not always consistent with the actual departmental practices. It took me a fair bit of work just to find out how many courses my students are supposed to take. The department expects supervisors to help students with the administrative matters, but does not make it easy for us to do it!

The information below comes from various sources: our wonderful graduate secretary Lee Yupitun, September 2004 graduate orientation, UBC calendar, Joyce Tom at the Faculty of Graduate Studies, the FoGS web page. The requirements below apply to non-IAM students - the IAM requirements may be different.

Master's students: You need a total of 30 credits, including either essay (3 credits) or thesis (6 credits). This may include up to 12 credits for graduate level courses taken elsewhere, except where these courses were used for another degree. There is no policy on the number of credits you need to take each year (except for those students transferring early to a Ph.D. program - see below).
Ph.D. students: You need a total of 30 course credits. For those continuing as Ph.D. students after completing a Master's degree (UBC or equivalent), courses taken as part of Master's program count toward the 30 credits, so that in many cases no additional coursework should be required. Note that the departmental web page states incorrectly that Math 649 (Ph.D. thesis) carries 6 credits. In fact, Ph.D. thesis has zero credits, according to both the UBC calendar and the FoGS.

The departmental web page used to say that Ph.D. students are required to sign up for at least 12 course credits each year, until the grand total of 30 is reached. That requirement appears to be gone - it was removed from the web page in September 2004.

The Faculty of Graduate Studies has no general course requirements for Ph.D. students, with one exception listed below; however, it does require Ph.D. students to advance to candidacy within 3 years from starting the Ph.D. program, and in our department this includes the 30 credits.
Exceptions: If you were admitted into the Ph.D. program directly from a Bachelor's degree, without completing a Master's degree first, the Faculty of Graduate Studies requires completion of 12 credits (including at least 9 with first class standing, i.e. A- or better) in your first year. Similarly, if you are a Master's student who wants to transfer to a Ph.D. program without completing the Master's degree first, you must complete 12 credits (including 9 with first class standing) before you are eligible for transfer. (It used to be 18 credits. FoGS reduced its requirements in Spring 2005.)
Courses you may take for credit: listed on the degree requirements web page. (Note that "510a" and "510b" are really 507 and 510, respectively.) Although the FoGS graduate student guide (page 6) allows up to 6 credits to be taken at the undergraduate level, the Math department does not permit this.
Course credits: Most courses are worth 3 credits, but there are exceptions. Math 599 carries only 1 credit. The number of credits given for 600 level courses may vary (usually it is 2 or 3). A reading course (620) may carry from 2 to 6 credits.
Math 599 (Mathematics Teaching Techniques): required for all students who want to be considered for teaching positions. A teaching position means that you actually teach a lecture section. You do not need Math 599 to be offered a teaching assistantship. Math 599 carries 1 credit and is only offered in Term 1 of each year.
Registration requirement and the summer reading courses: Students are responsible for maintaining continuous registration throughout the degree program (UBC Calendar). This includes the summer term when no courses are offered. In most thesis-based programs at UBC, students are registered in the thesis course from start to finish. However, Ph.D. students in Mathematics are not allowed to register for the thesis until after they have passed the oral qualifying examination. This requirement was mostly ignored in the past, but now the department has started enforcing it. In practice this means that supervisors of most first-year Ph.D. students are forced to open reading courses for them for the summer. Apparently, this was the outgoing graduate advisor's (Summer 2005) last major initiative before he took off for an early and extended vacation.