Humanities PhD—at a point where I am not sure what is the purpose of my PhD coursework is?

[fossati]

Hi guys,

I am really sorry if my title sounds a bit entitled, but I am at a point where I am not sure what the purpose of my coursework is anymore? 

As a humanities phd in film and media studies, it seems like my coursework is really loose in what I can take, not only that, but classes fill up really easily so it doesn't seem like a big deal if I cannot get into a particular class. 

I've also done a Master's degree and a year of coursework (right now I am finishing my first year). 

I have a strong idea about the fields I want to enter into and have taken coursework related to them.

I feel like I am at a point where first, my classes are inhibiting my research and writing and second, I have a strong overview of my fields and interests that I can start doing the research on my own to get a deeper dive.

I also feel as if my classes are kind of a surface impression of a field or a discipline, but are not giving my a deep dive into the topics (which would be kind of impossible over the course of the semester). 

Does anyone have advice or impressions on taking and signing up for courses? What type of classes should I be signing up for? Not sure if anyone else has been at this point. 

(For example, do job applications look at your coursework?) 

Edited April 28, 2022 by fossati
Typo

[AP]

In the humanities, where research plays the most important part of your degree, coursework is that moment to build your fields. This is the moment to read things you won't read in the years doing research and writing the dissertation because your focus will be very narrow. Coursework reminds you of the big picture as you dive into your research and as you come out of it. It reminds you of your interlocutors. 

However, PhD programs vary from program to program and courses vary enormously even within the department. So your courses should be useful to you. How can you tell if they are useful? Well, you asked about employers. That's one way of thinking about it although I have never heard of anyone asking for courses taken in a PhD for employment purposes (it may vary in your field). 

Courses at the graduate level can provide: 

• Mentorship. Sometimes we take courses to work with a professor that we want to include in our committee and who might eventually write a LoR. I took courses with specialists outside my department to bolster potential letter writers for the job market. 
• Diversity of assignments. In my program, several courses had non-traditional assignments which really helped me down the line. Eg, a course midterm was an annotated syllabus and in addition to the final project we had to write a grant application. It was the first draft I ever wrote and helped get started.
• Networking. Depending where you are taking courses, you can encounter students from fields that you wouldn't have found otherwise. Interdisciplinarity helped me better hone my project for audiences outside my discipline. I've also known people that because they took specific courses, they found out about internal grants that eventually funded their dissertation writing years. 
• Methods. Some courses offer good exposure to methods that maybe you won't use in your project but it is worth knowing they exist. In my case, this is more methods in textual analysis. 

YMMV

[fossati]

2 hours ago, AP said:

In the humanities, where research plays the most important part of your degree, coursework is that moment to build your fields. This is the moment to read things you won't read in the years doing research and writing the dissertation because your focus will be very narrow. Coursework reminds you of the big picture as you dive into your research and as you come out of it. It reminds you of your interlocutors. 

However, PhD programs vary from program to program and courses vary enormously even within the department. So your courses should be useful to you. How can you tell if they are useful? Well, you asked about employers. That's one way of thinking about it although I have never heard of anyone asking for courses taken in a PhD for employment purposes (it may vary in your field). 

Courses at the graduate level can provide: 

• Mentorship. Sometimes we take courses to work with a professor that we want to include in our committee and who might eventually write a LoR. I took courses with specialists outside my department to bolster potential letter writers for the job market. 
• Diversity of assignments. In my program, several courses had non-traditional assignments which really helped me down the line. Eg, a course midterm was an annotated syllabus and in addition to the final project we had to write a grant application. It was the first draft I ever wrote and helped get started.
• Networking. Depending where you are taking courses, you can encounter students from fields that you wouldn't have found otherwise. Interdisciplinarity helped me better hone my project for audiences outside my discipline. I've also known people that because they took specific courses, they found out about internal grants that eventually funded their dissertation writing years. 
• Methods. Some courses offer good exposure to methods that maybe you won't use in your project but it is worth knowing they exist. In my case, this is more methods in textual analysis. 

YMMV

Thank you so much, this was really helpful!