Graduate Program

Sample Programs

Case 1: PhD in Inorganic Chemistry, 1999

First year

Began summer research with Mirkin research group

• Entered in fall quarter
  
• Joined the Mirkin research group in November
  
• Completed course work in spring quarter
  
• TA in a general chemistry laboratory
  
• Formally admitted in June to the doctoral program
  

Second year

• Passed second-year oral examination and qualified for PhD candidacy in spring quarter
  
• Received additional teaching experience in NMR spectroscopy laboratory
  
• Joined Phi Lambda Upsilon , the chemistry honor society
  
• Named as coinventor on a patent application, "DNA-Based Materials and Colorimetric Detection"
  

Third year

• Presented a seminar for the inorganic division
  
• Coauthored a paper in Science
  
• Presented a talk at the Materials Research Society meeting in San Francisco
  

Fourth year

• Member of a team that won the BFGoodrich Collegiate Inventors Program
• Wrote and defended an original research proposal, "Photo-polymerizable Low Molecular Weight Gelators for Organic Fluids"
• Defended PhD thesis, "Synthetically Programmable Nanoparticle Assembly Using DNA," which was chosen the department’s best thesis in 1999
• Seven publications resulted from thesis research
• Is currently a senior scientist at Clinical Micro Sensors, a Southern California biotech company
   

Case 2: PhD in Organic Chemistry, 1999

First year

• Entered in fall quarter
  
• Taught in an organic chemistry laboratory
  
• Joined the Marks research group in November
  
• Formally admitted to the doctoral program in June
  

Second year

• Received fellowship from Shell Oil Corporation
  
• Passed second-year oral examination and qualified for PhD candidacy in spring quarter
  
• Presented a poster at the Midwest Regional American Chemical Society meetings
  

Third year

• Continued full-time research
  
• Presented an organic division seminar
  
• Received a Division of Organic Chemistry Graduate Fellow ship from the American Chemical Society
  
• Presented a poster at the Green Chemistry Gordon Conference
  

Fourth year

• Presented a second organic division seminar
  
• Wrote and successfully defended an original research proposal, "Catalytic Asymmetric C-C Forming Reactions with Aldehydes and Ketones Using Chiral
• Lewis Acids"
  
• Defended PhD thesis ("Organolanthanide-Catalyzed Intramolecular Carbon-Nitrogen Bond-Forming Reactions and Their Appli cations to the Asymmetric
• Synthesis of Naturally Occurring Alkaloids (+)- Pyrrolidine 197B and (+)- Xenovenine")
• Presented a poster at the National Organic Symposium
  
• Is currently a research and development scientist at Procter & Gamble