F. A. Q.

M.Sc. students should register for 3 in-class courses; 1 of them should be either PN1 (NEUR 630) or PN2 (NEUR 631), and then 2 electives. Alternatively, they may register for both PN1 and PN2, and choose 1 elective. Ph.D. students should register for 4 in-class courses: both PN1 and PN2, and 2 electives.

Yes, you can register for courses not listed on the IPN website as long as they are graduate-level courses and the IPN office (ipn [at] mcgill.ca) receives an e-mail from your supervisor giving you permission to take the course.

Yes, the graduate-level course will count towards your degree.

You can only register for an undergraduate course once you get the permission from your supervisor. You must then complete a form to indicate that this course will be counted as an extra course and will not count towards your degree. 

Only M.Sc. students register for thesis courses (NEUR 696, 697, 698 and 699). Please note that you cannot register for more than two thesis courses in a semester.

You only need to register for the thesis courses once.

Yes. Read more on our course exemptions web page.

The IPN office requires students to have 2 committee members, but can have a maximum of 3. Please note that all the committee members must attend all the annual meetings, the seminar, and the candidacy exam for the Ph.D. students.

A committee member should have knowledge in the area of your research. This person can be from the IPN, other departments within McGill, from other universities within Montreal, or even doctors and clinicians.

For the Ph.D. students, you should plan to complete your candidacy exam by the end of 24 months if you started as a Ph.D. 2.

Ph.D. 1 students come to the program right after their Bachelor’s degree, and Ph.D. 2 students are those who already have a graduate degree and come in as Ph.D.s.

 If you started as a Rotation student or as a Ph.D. 1 student,  the candidacy exam must take place 36 months after joining the IPN program.

The transfer from M.Sc. to Ph.D. must be completed by the end of M.Sc. year 2.

You should register for NEUR 700 in the term that you plan to do the candidacy exam.

The external examiner reads and evaluates the thesis and then gives out a report. This person does not have to attend the Ph.D. Oral Defence. On the other hand, the external member must attend the defence. The oral defence committee must include at least one person whose primary appointment at the University is outside the Unit (can be from IPN but not in the same building as the supervisor) in which the student is registered and who has not been involved in the thesis research. External members should have sufficient knowledge of the discipline to read the thesis and question the student at the oral defence, but are not required or expected to be experts in the field of the student’s research. An important role of external members is to ensure that the written thesis and the student meet the standards of McGill University.

Yes, a member of your advisory committee can serve as an internal examiner. The internal examiner will read and evaluate the thesis and also give out a report. They must attend the Ph.D. Oral Defence.

Only 1 committee member can be on the oral defence team. This member can serve as an internal examiner or as an internal member (additional faculty member) for the defence.  If this person is already serving as the internal examiner, then you will have to look for someone outside of your advisory committee but from within the IPN to serve as the internal member for the defence.

This should be your mentor. They will be chairing the oral defence. Please note that they are not supposed to sign the oral defence form. Once you and your supervisor sign the oral defence form, you should e-mail the form to ipn [at] mcgill.ca, and the Director of the program will sign it.

This should be done as soon as you receive the blank oral defence form from the IPN office. Please check the date that is indicated at the bottom of the form. Note that it is your responsibility to organize the defence and submit the completed form to ipn [at] mcgill.ca at least 4 weeks before the defence date.

Once you get the blank oral defence form, you can send out a Doodle to all the members of the defence team to set a date. In doing this, you are not contacting the internal examiner directly.

GPS usually sends the oral defence form at least 2 weeks after the initial thesis submission. Once the thesis is received, GPS sends it to the examiners and they are given about 4 weeks to review it and send a report to GPS.