If you don't pass your exams, I expect you could still stay in school. At that point you might not be required to take any particular courses. I don't know ab

If you don't pass your exams, I expect you could still stay in school. At that point you might not be required to take any particular courses. I don't know about your school, and I was not a CS major. But at UCSC, the qualifier exam is given just once a year, shortly _before_ the start of classes in the fall. That's meant to enable really smart students to get out of taking any classes at all - if you pass the quals, you get an instant Master's Degree. But yes, before we took the quals we did have specific course requirements. Very difficult ones. I left graduate school because I became psychotic, not because of my grades. I'll tell the story but not just now.