3 ms·

Class hours are a substantial requirement of many phd programs. You can't do independent research without knowing what's come before. :)

chrisseaton 9y ago
You learn about what's come before by reading papers and reproducing experiments. I can't imagine how a class for PhD students works - everyone has such focused research topics that how can you find something relevant to teach to more than one person at a time? When I did my PhD on optimising dynamic programming languages I would guess there were maybe ten other students in the entire world doing something vaguely similar at the same time. How do you do a class for that in one institution?
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  I could see how CS/similar degrees would be that way. I'd assume most STEM are? For political science in at least one program it was 30-36 credit hours for a master's degree. PhD was the same thing with an additional 18+ elective hours and another 30+ combined class/dissertation hours, and then the actual dissertation. Classes with few exceptions consisted of "workshops" and "seminars" over various topics (terrorism, multinational corporations, etc), which almost all involved weekly topical readings (5-7 journal articles and book selections) and weekly/frequent writings on those readings with a substantial paper for the final, sometimes with a midterm. Independent hours were also common with 1 on 1 work with one of the professors over a chosen paper topic. As I said, discussion in class was expected, so you couldn't really wing it, and you had to be prepared or it would be obvious in front of your professor an another 5-20 students. I'm guessing this format is semi-common in the humanities/social sciences, it was for a linguistics program I looked into. Tons of reading and writing with the intent of guiding your towards a weird unexplored niche.
- eternauta3k 9y ago
  It's a fact that PhD students do a few courses, at least in Physics and Electronics. The students I've met found few classes related to their research. So they signed up for whatever sounded good.
  - haeffin 9y ago
    It varies a lot by country and field (if they do classes or not). I didn't have to do classes when I did my PhD.
- comicjk 9y ago
  Most PhD programs involve some classes at the beginning - especially programs which don't require a master's degree first. The classes are graduate-level progressions from similar undergraduate classes. Typically, PhD research goes on more slowly during the first year or two of the program while classes are taken, and the dissertation research topic is not completely fixed. For example, a PhD student planning to research programming languages would take the most advanced language classes available, plus math and optimization classes, for at least a year while doing preliminary research before choosing a dissertation subject.
- newen 9y ago
  Of course PhD students take classes. Most universities make you do 36 credit hours before you can pass your qualification exams. They just don't have courses on specialized topics but there are plenty of relevant graduate level courses you can take in the department that end up being very useful for you.

chrisseaton 9y ago

You learn about what's come before by reading papers and reproducing experiments. I can't imagine how a class for PhD students works - everyone has such focused research topics that how can you find something relevant to teach to more than one person at a time? When I did my PhD on optimising dynamic programming languages I would guess there were maybe ten other students in the entire world doing something vaguely similar at the same time. How do you do a class for that in one institution?

aaron-lebo 9y ago
I could see how CS/similar degrees would be that way. I'd assume most STEM are? For political science in at least one program it was 30-36 credit hours for a master's degree. PhD was the same thing with an additional 18+ elective hours and another 30+ combined class/dissertation hours, and then the actual dissertation. Classes with few exceptions consisted of "workshops" and "seminars" over various topics (terrorism, multinational corporations, etc), which almost all involved weekly topical readings (5-7 journal articles and book selections) and weekly/frequent writings on those readings with a substantial paper for the final, sometimes with a midterm. Independent hours were also common with 1 on 1 work with one of the professors over a chosen paper topic. As I said, discussion in class was expected, so you couldn't really wing it, and you had to be prepared or it would be obvious in front of your professor an another 5-20 students. I'm guessing this format is semi-common in the humanities/social sciences, it was for a linguistics program I looked into. Tons of reading and writing with the intent of guiding your towards a weird unexplored niche.
eternauta3k 9y ago
It's a fact that PhD students do a few courses, at least in Physics and Electronics. The students I've met found few classes related to their research. So they signed up for whatever sounded good.
- haeffin 9y ago
  It varies a lot by country and field (if they do classes or not). I didn't have to do classes when I did my PhD.
comicjk 9y ago
Most PhD programs involve some classes at the beginning - especially programs which don't require a master's degree first. The classes are graduate-level progressions from similar undergraduate classes. Typically, PhD research goes on more slowly during the first year or two of the program while classes are taken, and the dissertation research topic is not completely fixed. For example, a PhD student planning to research programming languages would take the most advanced language classes available, plus math and optimization classes, for at least a year while doing preliminary research before choosing a dissertation subject.
newen 9y ago
Of course PhD students take classes. Most universities make you do 36 credit hours before you can pass your qualification exams. They just don't have courses on specialized topics but there are plenty of relevant graduate level courses you can take in the department that end up being very useful for you.