BMCDB Documents and Guidebooks
- Student Handbook 2024 - 2025
- Degree Requirements
- Graduate Group Bylaws
- Enoch Baldwin's Step-by-Step Guide to the Qualifying Exam 2024 - 2025
- Aggie Tutorial Farm
- List of Hands-On Bioinformatics Courses
- List of Advisor-Approved Electives 2024 - 2025
- This list is not comprehensive! Students are welcome to identify eligible electives not listed here; note that only A-F grading satisfies elective degree requirements.
- No forms are required for advisor approval; please obtain a recent syllabus and email the request to your academic advisor and the Graduate Program Coordinator.
SPA Forms: The Mentor-Mentee Plan, IDP, and DCR
- Mentor-Mentee Plan
- This compact establishes a faculty and student's professional expectations of one another; it's an opportunity for both parties to clarify their wants, needs, and deal-breakers.
- It is mandatory to complete when a first-year student joins a lab.
- Students and faculty are asked to update the plan on an annual basis, whether it is to reaffirm the expectations therein or to revise them.
- This annual update was implemented in 2023-2024, and is required for our 2023 cohort onward.
- For our 2022 cohort and prior, it is not mandatory but strongly encouraged.
- Individual Development Plan (IDP)
- This annual progress assessment must be completed by all BMCDB students yearly, usually in spring as part of the campus-wide Student Progress Assessment (SPA).
- With advisor approval, students who are graduating by September of a given calendar year are not required to complete the IDP.
- If a student is enrolled in a training program that requires this IDP template, such as the eMCDB T32, they may submit that IDP in lieu of the BMCDB form above.
- If the T32 required that the IDP was due at a different time of year, that is acceptable. What we care most about is the student is completing the IDP on an annual basis.
- Students are required to provide the committee with a one-half to three-page summary of their doctoral research; due to the breadth of research represented in BMCDB, students are encouraged to consult their labmates for examples, but here is one.
- The annual summary should be in the same PDF as the IDP form signed by the major professor (PI).
- Dissertation Committee Report (DCR)
- This progress assessment is to be completed as part of each dissertation committee meeting. After a BMCDB student advances to candidacy, they are required to convene their dissertation committee for a meeting:
- Annually each spring, for students in their third and fourth years of study
- Biannually each fall and spring, for students in their fifth year of study and beyond
- With advisor approval, students who are graduating in spring or summer are not required to schedule a spring committee meeting.
- "Advisor approval" is extremely informal here - an emailed "okay" is fine. Please CC the Graduate Program Coordinator, or forward her the email from your advisor - that is all the action you have to take!
- With advisor approval, students who are graduating in fall quarter are not required to schedule a fall committee meeting.
- See above re: "advisor approval" :)
- This progress assessment is to be completed as part of each dissertation committee meeting. After a BMCDB student advances to candidacy, they are required to convene their dissertation committee for a meeting:
The QE and Candidacy: BMCDB-Specific Forms
- The Qualifying Exam and candidacy applications are completed as e-forms in GradSphere. No PDFs required!
- Qualifying Exam Contract
- This form is specific to BMCDB, and it is only completed in the academic year when a student takes the qualifying exam. The contract is due to the Graduate Program Coordinator by the end of fall quarter.
- Degree Requirement Student Checklist
- This informal checklist was developed by the Graduate Program Coordinator for students to complete before advancing to candidacy.
- Any guidance given to a student by their academic advisor supersedes this form.