All required material must be submitted to the Graduate Program Director (GPD) Dr. Gerben Zylstra at least one week before the following School of Graduate Studies deadlines:
- October 1, 2024, for an October (2024) dated degree (due to GPD by Monday 9/23/24)
- January 6, 2025, for a January (2025) dated degree (due to GPD by Monday 12/30/24)
- April 1, 2025, for a May (2025) dated degree (due to GPD by Monday 3/24/25)
- October 1, 2025, for an October (2025) dated degree (due to GPD by Monday 9/22/25)
1) You must follow all of the School of Graduate Studies requirements found at https://grad.rutgers.edu/academics/graduation/masters-degree-without-thesis.
2) You must have the appropriate amount of course credits for graduation. Please have Dr. Zylstra calculate these for you before you meet with your committee. Requirements for graduation are also on the M.S. Degree Information page.
3) You must write a review paper with a faculty member as your advisor. Dr. Zylstra can give you example review papers from previous Microbial Biology students.
4) You must have an examination committee. In consultation with your advisor you need to choose at least three professors (including your advisor) for your committee. All three professors must be members of the Microbial Biology Graduate Program (the list of faculty is on the Faculty Research web page). Dr. Zylstra needs to approve the members of your committee so when you have chosen the people please email him their names for approval.
5) You need to schedule a defense date. Work with your research advisor to schedule a date, time, and place for your defense. You need to schedule a conference room for at least two hours for the meeting with your review committee. Please make sure that you email Ms. Lindsay Vasy and Dr. Zylstra the date, time, and place of your defense at least one month in advance. The defense is not a public event but Ms. Vasy and Dr. Zylstra need to know when and where you have scheduled the defense. You can have a virtual defense on Zoom with your research advisor's permission. In this case you need to provide the Zoom information to Ms. Vasy in place of the room information for your defense (again, at least one month ahead of your defense). You can also have a hybrid thesis defense with both in person and virtual participation. In that case both the room information and the Zoom information need to be provided to Ms. Vasy.
6) You must email Dr. Zylstra a PDF copy of your review paper at least one week before your defense. He needs to check your review paper for plagiarism and provide a report to your review committee.
7) At your defense you should present a 45 to 60 minute Powerpoint presentation of your review paper. During and/or after the presentation the committee will ask questions on your review paper. The committee has the option to ask any relevant question concerning general microbiology knowledge.
8) You must bring the completed M.S. Degree Application Form to your defense (this form is sometimes referred to as the Candidacy Form). Please make sure that the courses you list on the Degree Application Form are in chronological order. At your defense the committee must sign the Degree Application Form that you passed. Your advisor must sign Section B and the entire committee (including the advising professor) must sign Section C. If you have a virtual or hybrid defense then please email your M.S. Degree Application Form to Dr. Zylstra and he will collect electronic (DocuSign) signatures from your committee. Please make sure to use the standalone version of Acrobat to fill out the M.S. Degree Application Form. Using the PDF editor in web browsers (especially on an Apple computer) do not always result in a PDF readable by other computers.
9) Bring (or email in the case of PDFs) all of the documents needed for your graduation to Dr. Zylstra by the deadline above. He will email all of the documents to SGS with a cc to you. See the Checklist for the nonthesis M.S. Degree for SGS paperwork needed for graduation. In summary you need to email Dr. Zylstra TWO documents:
(1) PDF copy of the M.S. Degree Application Form (in the case of forms signed in ink Dr. Zylstra will scan the form when he signs it)
(2) PDF copy of the Diploma Application
Important: Remember that Dr. Zylstra must receive these documents at least five days ahead of the SGS due date! Dr. Zylstra will electronically submit all the documents to the SGS by the due date.