The reading exam consists in a 30-minutes presentation on one of five papers chosen by the PhD student (including questions on any of the five papers.
The thesis proposal presentation consists in a 45-minutes (including questions) presentation.
A methodology seminar is proposed at the ISI every year. As an alternative, the PhD student can also attend a methodology seminar organized by another institute of Unil, EPFL or any other university with the explicit agreement of the thesis adviser.
A reading can be either a conference or journal paper, or a book section or chapter.
The personalized program is a set of classes or projects each PhD student must attend during the first phase. It is personalized in the sense that each PhD student has potentially a unique program, proposed by her/his adviser. The workload of the program should roughly correspond to 12 ECTS credits.