A total of 16 course credit units (CUs) are required for graduation. Up to four appropriate course credits can be transferred from another graduate institution, with the approval of the student’s advisor and of the PhD coordinator. This section outlines the remaining requirements for all PhD students in OID.
Departmental Core Courses
All first-year PhD students take a seminar course (OIDD 901) that introduces them to a broad range of OID faculty. The 1 CU seminar meets roughly once a week and runs for the full academic year. In each session a faculty member presents work that is related to his/her own research and is of potential interest to PhD students in all three areas.
Each student must also take at least one of three 1-CU departmental courses that introduce OID’s core research areas.
- OIDD 900 Foundations of Decision Processes;
- OIDD 940 Operations Management; and
- OIDD 955 Research Seminar in Information Systems.
Based on the interest piqued by the first-year seminar, students may decide to take more than one core course.
All students must take and earn a grade of B+ or better in the departmental core courses that they take.
Statistics Requirement
The Wharton School requires all PhD students to demonstrate proficiency in the material covered in two 1-CU statistics courses. Students typically complete their statistics requirements during their first year, before their qualifying exam.
OID Department PhD students can satisfy the Wharton requirement in a number of ways. Some common sequences of courses include the following:
- Decision Making students often take STAT 500-501;
- Information Systems students often take STAT 520-521; and
- Operations Management students often take STAT 520-521 or ECON 705-706.
The specific course sequence a student takes may vary, depending on the student’s background and interests, with the approval of the OID PhD Coordinator and of Wharton’s Statistics Department.
Students may demonstrate proficiency by either earning a grade of B- or better in each course, or by passing a waiver exam administered by the Statistics Department, or by transferring a comparable graduate-level course from another institution.
Economics Requirement
All OID PhD students must also take two 1-CU, PhD-level economics courses. Many students fulfill this requirement by taking traditional courses in microeconomics (ECON 681 or 701) and game theory (ECON 682 or 703). Other worthwhile PhD-level economics courses include Experimental Economics (BEPP 904) and Behavioral Economics and Policy Analysis (BEPP 915).
The specific course sequence a student takes may vary, depending on the student’s background and interests, with the approval of the OID PhD Coordinator.
Students may demonstrate proficiency by either earning a grade of B- or better in each course, or by transferring a comparable graduate-level course from another institution.
Additional Course Requirements
Beyond the 6 CU’s of department-wide requirements described above, Decision Making and Information Systems students are free to take electives that support their particular research interests.
To build a solid methodological and conceptual foundation for their research in the field, Operations Management students must complete the following additional course requirements:
- 1 CU on current research, typically a ½-CU seminar that students take twice;
- 1 CU of optimization courses, approved in advance by the PhD Coordinator; and
- 1 CU of stochastics courses, approved in advance by the PhD Coordinator.
Operations Management students may demonstrate proficiency in optimization and simulation by either earning a grade of B+ or better in these courses or by transferring a comparable graduate-level course from another institution.
Teacher Development Program
The Wharton School requires all PhD students to complete its Teacher Development Program (TDP). Students should complete this program before entering into dissertation work. Wharton grants waivers of the TDP under the following conditions: prior teaching experience, recognized teaching awards, college-level education courses.