Below is an overview of the guidelines for the marketing doctoral program at the Fuqua School of Business.
Advice and Guidance
Each student will be assigned two academic advisors before the beginning of the first year. These advisors constitute the major mechanism for providing advice and guidance regarding course selection, research, and other matters.
One of the major roles of the advisors during the first year is to assist with course selection, because the program calls for developing a course plan consistent with, and tailored to, each student’s background and goals. Course selections should be consistent with the student’s research interests and made in consultation with their advisors.
In addition to course selection, the advisors also provide guidance to the student regarding involvement in research and teaching assistantships and other matters as appropriate throughout the first year.
Finally, the advisors provide an important source of feedback to the student to ensure they stay on track toward the timely completion of their paper and proposal requirements.
Throughout the PhD program, students are expected to take full advantage of the faculty expertise and intellectual environment at the Fuqua School. During the first year, students should meet with faculty members one-on-one to learn about different faculty members’ research interests. Students are also expected to attend all seminars in the marketing seminar series throughout their time in the PhD program. These seminars are a central feature of intellectual life here and a valuable opportunity to interface with colleagues from other top programs.
Progress Guidelines
An important part of any doctoral program is providing students with timely and accurate feedback on their progress in the program. Although course grades and informal conversations with faculty members provide some of this information, more formal procedures ensure that each student has the benefit of as much feedback as possible about their performance.
Each year, the marketing area faculty will gather information about each student’s performance. Sources of information will include the student’s advisors, course instructors, and faculty with whom the student has been doing research or TAing. In addition, the student will provide an annual report discussing their accomplishments, shortcomings, and areas of interest.
An important component of the first year is the first-year paper. The paper should represent the student’s best work at this stage of the doctoral program. It may be empirical, theoretical, or a review. Most important is that the paper represents work that the student feels best demonstrates his or her capabilities at that point in time.
At the beginning of the second year, each student will find one or two marketing faculty willing to serve as their academic advisor(s) and form a second-year paper committee. The second-year paper should be a written piece of original research, such as an empirical paper (e.g., based on experiments, surveys, secondary data, or scanner data) or an analytical or other quantitative model. The research may be done jointly with faculty; in fact, joint work with faculty is strongly encouraged. The aim is to have a paper which is potentially submittable to a proceedings or journal. The student will also present the paper at a brown bag seminar.
During the third year, each student will form a dissertation committee and begin formulating a dissertation proposal. The student will choose a chair or two co-chairs for the dissertation from this committee. From this point forward, the dissertation committee monitors progress and provides feedback.
After year 3, developing the idea for and implementing the dissertation are the focus.
Research and Teaching Assistantship
A critical part of the doctoral program is forming relationships with faculty members and learning about research and teaching processes. To encourage the early formation of such relationships, the marketing doctoral program requires that each student engage in research and teaching assistantship activities in the first year. The student’s advisors will also provide advice and guidance to help the student become engaged in activities that match their needs and interests with those of the faculty.
Conference Funding
Another critical dimension of PhD education is forming broader networks with academic scholars. In order to facilitate these networks, the Marketing group has set aside funds to cover a student’s expenses for attending conferences.