What's an "Area Exam?"

It's an exam that is taken midway through the computer science Ph.D. program at MIT. It involves studying some research area (other than the student's main research area) in depth over a one-month period and then presenting a report reviewing it.

I did my area exam (successfully) on the subject of quantum computing. My committee was:

• Silvio Micali, from the cryptography group
• Norman Margolus, who has worked on quantum computing
• Tomas Lozano-Perez, of the AI Lab

Mike Frank, 3/7/96