Individualized Programs

A student may be admitted to the Ph.D. in Management program for an individualized program with the approval of a department in which the student will take at least a 3-course minor, the designation of a potential faculty mentor (not necessarily in that department), and the approval of the program director. Such an individualized program will normally be in an area that does not overlap significantly with any of our regular programs of study but is central to the interests of at least one RBS faculty member.

When a student is admitted in an individualized program, the program director will appoint a mentoring committee consisting of at least three faculty members to design the student’s program. At least two of the faculty members will be members of Rutgers Business or NJIT faculty appointed to the faculty of the Graduate School-Newark; the third may be outside these units but must also be appointed to the faculty of the Graduate-School Newark. The student and the mentoring committee will decide how to satisfy the various requirements of the Ph.D. in Management Program. The membership of the mentoring committee may change as the student progresses, but the student must work at all times under the supervision of a formally constituted mentoring committee.

Students should apply for admission to the Individualized Doctoral Program only after obtaining the support of a potential faculty mentor. The expertise of a faculty member is required in order to put together a coherent set of of courses outside an existing program. The faculty member must identify relevant and available courses from the other schools in the university and may also need to design and teach reading courses needed to fill gaps. These are both very demanding activities, requiring strong belief on the part of the faculty member that providing the individualized program would be an important contribution to management knowledge. For these reasons, application for an individualized program is accepted only when accompanied by a detailed plan developed in cooperation with a member of our faculty who agrees to mentor the student and undertakes to make sure any necessary reading courses are provided.