Graduate Exit Requirements and Graduation

Completing your graduate degree involves more than finishing your coursework. Before you can graduate, you must complete the culminating exit requirement established by your graduate program and complete the required graduation paperwork.

Your exit requirement depends on your graduate program and program of study. Please refer to the Exit Requirement Forms page for further information for required paperwork.

Your Graduation Checklist

As you approach the end of your masters or doctoral program, complete these steps:

• Confirm Your Exit Requirement
  If you’re not sure what your exit requirement is, check your program of study or contact your graduate program.
• Complete any required approvals
  This includes the IRB Process, if necessary, as well as any pre-approval forms for thesis or action research projects. 
• Apply for Graduation
  You should submit the Application for Graduation in Experience by the second Friday of the term in which you plan to complete all degree requirements. Step by step instructions here. 
• Complete your Exit Requirement
  Your faculty advisor will submit approval paperwork on your behalf. 
• Confirm you have met all Degree Requirements
  Check out your DegreeTracks to ensure your coursework is counting how you expect it to. 
• Attend the Graduate Hooding Ceremony
  Celebrate your accomplishments! Registration begins in mid-April each year. More info here. 

Exit Options

• Institutional Review Board Information
• Comprehensive Exams
• Thesis Projects
• Action Research Projects
• Professional Projects

Institutional Review Board

If the proposed exit requirement involves human participants, then the project will require review and approval by the WOU Institutional Review Board before any recruitment or research involving human participants may begin. IRB review and approval is required for all research projects involving human participants, regardless of the level of risk posed to participants.  Students are advised to begin the IRB application process several weeks prior to recruiting human participants for their thesis or field study. All forms and procedures for the IRB application can be found at http://www.wou.edu/irb

Comprehensive Exams

• Comprehensive Examination Schedule and Information
• Comprehensive Examinations Questions (updated each term)

Final written comprehensive examination will be based upon areas of study in the approved program. Subject area questions will be based upon the statement of components, objectives and requirements outlined. Comprehensive written examinations are taken during the student’s last quarter of study or after all courses have been completed for a particular degree. The examination is designed to be taken in the first six weeks of the term via communication with your program coordinator.  Comprehensive exams are not offered during the summer.

Written comprehensive examinations will be graded as follows:

• With distinction
• Pass
• Unsatisfactory
• Fail

If you receive a failing grade, you must retake that section of your examination in a subsequent term. Students only get two attempts to pass their comprehensive exams. If you receive an unsatisfactory grade, a committee of two or three faculty members will schedule a one-hour oral review with you. The oral will focus on the section(s) that were evaluated as unsatisfactory. Every attempt will be made to have at least one member of the oral committee from your program.

Your advisor and/or professors who usually teach courses in your program often write the subject matter or specialty area questions. These questions are based on courses taken as part of your degree. The faculty member who wrote the questions in the subject matter or specialty area usually reads and rates the responses.

Thesis Projects

Thesis attempts to share with the professional community information that may be used to enhance the common knowledge base of a particular profession. The focus of the thesis research is to answer a question that is of interest to the general profession. The results of thesis research are generalized to an entire field. Candidates who elect to write a thesis must follow the procedures outlined in the guidelines which downloaded here.

The master’s student must show familiarity with previous work in the field and must demonstrate ability to organize data and explain results. The format is:

• Rationale for the Project that includes a detailed description of environment for which the study was designed
• Review of Literature
• Statement of Hypotheses
• Methodology
• Analysis
• Results

Action Research Projects

This project is a study of the student’s own practice. This document includes the following:

• Philosophy of Education/Teaching
• Review of the literature
• Methodology
• Results and discussion
• Summary, conclusion, and implications

The structure and format of the Action Research Project should be established by the student’s advisor.

Professional Projects

A Professional Project’s focus is to share with the professional community information that may be used to enhance the common knowledge base of a particular profession.

The Master’s student must show familiarity with previous work in the field and must demonstrate ability to organize data and explain how the end product will add to the previous body of knowledge. Examples of a professional project may include but are not limited to:

• A curriculum design for a particular discipline
• Training programs, or
• Computer programs for a particular application
• Action Research Project

The professional project is a professional paper, which is accompanied by the finished product. The general format of the Professional Project is:

• Introduction
• Review of Literature
• A statement or reason explaining the need for the Professional Project
• Rationale for the design of the Professional Project
• Attachment: Professional Project