Doctor of Philosophy | Art, Design and Media

ADM Research Areas | School of Art, Design and Media | NTU Singapore

To apply to the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) programme, applicants need to meet these minimum requirements:

• A master’s degree from a recognized institution which is relevant to the proposed areas of research.

• A bachelor's degree with minimum of 3.5 out of 4.0 or its equivalent in a field of study that is relevant to the proposed research topic from a recognized university.

• The standard technical proficiency tests (GRE/GMAT/GATE) are strongly encouraged and not mandatory for admission to our postgraduate programmes.
  

• Applicants whose native language is not English must meet the University’s English language proficiency requirement. A minimum IELTS score of 7.0 or TOEFL score of 105, obtained within the last two years, is required at the time of application. This requirement may be waived if the applicant has completed at least three years of tertiary education with English as the medium of instruction.

• Include a research proposal, artistic portfolio (if applicable), samples of academic writing and a personal statement to demonstrate their ability to pursue academic research.

• For applicants whose master’s degrees are completed in 1 year or less, scholarly/academic writing samples in the English language should be submitted to demonstrate the level of English proficiency.

For more information about admission procedures (including the list of required supporting documents and application fees), please visit NTU Graduate Admissions.

PhD students are required to pass 6 graduate courses (or earn 18 Academic Units) with a minimum CGPA of 3.50 within 18 months of the candidature. These comprise 1 core graduate course and 5 elective courses. At least 2 electives must be taken within ADM, and the other 3 electives from ADM or other Schools within NTU. All electives should be relevant to the student’s thesis and approved by their respective supervisors.

The compulsory core graduate course is:

AP7049 Proseminar in Art, Design and Media

With this course, the Graduate Programmes by Research ensure that all our candidates embark on their graduate studies with the requisite level of advanced knowledge and research competence to undertake research at graduate level.

Other Mandatory Courses

To complete and pass the following:

• HWG703 Graduate English (unless exempted) and​​
• HWG702 Teaching Assistants Programme (mandatory for students on scholarships)
• RI-ERIC Epigeum Research Integrity Course
• Communication/Writing Training (See below components)

Compulsory component 1

ADM PhD students must take at least 2 of the following 3 courses:

1. CI8001 Speaking Academia
2. HWG705 Academic Writing in the Humanities & Social Sciences by the Language & Communication Centre (LCC)
3. HWG706 Publishing in the Humanities & Social Sciences by the Language & Communication Centre (LCC)

Each course is 19.5hours (half a semester) in duration. Each course is planned to be offered in both Semester 1 and Semester 2. All PhD students need to read at least 2 out of the 3 courses to fulfil 39 training hours.

Important Note:

No academic units are awarded for courses listed in the Other Mandatory Courses section. These courses are graded on a pass/fail basis and will appear in the student transcript.

Compulsory component 2

All PhD students must attend the 3MT Symposium organised by Graduate College.

Optional component

A PhD student may opt to undertake one-on-one tutoring/mentoring at the Language Communication Centre (LCC).

For more information on Grade Point Average (GPA), click here.

Additional Information

Students who wish to convocate within the year must meet all requirements and pass their oral examination by the stipulated deadlines. To be eligible for convocation in July–August, the deadline is typically around May.

After fulfilling their coursework requirements, PhD students are required to take a Qualifying Examination during the 18th month of their candidature (for full-time students) or by the 24th month of their candidature (for part-time students). The key objectives of the Qualifying Examination are to ascertain that the thesis is a distinct addition to the knowledge in the chosen field and that the PhD student possesses the level of competency required to proceed to the next stage of the candidature. PhD students who pass the Qualifying Examination will continue with their candidature.

Thesis Examination and Oral Examination

To graduate, PhD students are required to submit their thesis for assessment by examiners from NTU and other universities by the end of their candidature.

After they are assessed to have passed their PhD thesis examination, all PhD students need to successfully defend their thesis during the Oral Examination before a panel of examiners.

The theoretical component of the thesis should offer a substantial critical and/or technical contribution to the chosen field of inquiry. At the end of their programme, doctoral candidates will submit an approximately 80,000-word thesis under the supervision of a faculty advisor in their chosen field of research. 

Students could select this option if the intellectual investigation undertaken cannot be fully expressed in words. The creative component will be vital in complementing and developing the theoretical research undertaken. It should not merely be an illustrative of the thesis but also make an original contribution. Doctoral candidates undertaking this option will submit an approximately 60,000-word thesis under the supervision of a faculty advisor in their chosen field of research.