What courses are you taking your first semester/quarter?

[Neist]

@klader I outline as I write, but it's time-consuming. If it's a particularly dense source, I might only average 10 pages per hour.

Also, try maximizing reading time during a day, but keep it casual. For example, I'll get up early in the morning and immediately begin to read. I take breaks when I want to, and I'll continue "casually" reading for most of the day. I try to never force myself to read faster or longer; that'll only lead to anxiety and discomfort. For me, it's all about maintaining a steady pace. 

Be the turtle, not the hare.  I can only speak for myself, but the few 10+ reading marathons I've been forced to conduct were nearly always unpleasant.

Edited August 5, 2016 by Neist

[Ocean-Atmos-Climate]

I'm pretty stoked for my courses this fall. Starting up my first semester in a PhD program in atmospheric & oceanic sciences.

I'm taking:

• Atmospheric Thermodynamics and Dynamics
• Introduction to Physical Oceanography
• Partial Differential and Integral Equations

I inconveniently left 2 core classes to take my senior spring of undergrad (this past spring), so I was stuck in 100-level courses I wasn't too excited for. I'm happy to be doing the complete opposite this fall.

[pterosaur]

A secondary question to this: how many courses are you taking?

I've now been in touch with my advisor, and she recommends taking 2 classes the first semester so there's time to get started on research. (My program requires 10 courses total,  I'm guessing the pace has to pick up after that.)  And she also confirmed that the first week is spent "shopping" for classes, which I guess is kind of nice from the perspective that I'll have a better idea of what I'm getting into. 

[Need Coffee in an IV]

I'm super excited for my classes! I'm taking museums collections management, principles of heritage management, and curatorial methodology. @pterosaur My program reccomends only taking three classes ( nine credits). There's no shopping but i'll get more freedom in my second year.

[hippyscientist]

I'm taking 10.5 credits - 9 hours of classes and 1.5 of compulsory seminar. My classes include statistics and research methods for both mechanical engineering and my particular discipline. So nothing really overly thrilling, and the stats and research methods for my discipline shouldn't be too horrible as I already covered them in my masters. 

I'm also fulfilling all my external requirements this first semester and that means that the rest of my course will be based within my department. I'm quite happy with that. I also have to fulfil 10 credits of scholarship integrity training in my first year so I need to understand that a bit more when I get on to campus. 

Kinda hoping to get the boring stuff out the way and then thrive on stuff that will help for my research. Plus my TA assignment is in a very basic area of my discipline and I only have 22 students in my lab section so hoping that won't be crazy demanding! 

[Edotdl]

On 8/7/2016 at 5:46 AM, pterosaur said:

A secondary question to this: how many courses are you taking?

I've now been in touch with my advisor, and she recommends taking 2 classes the first semester so there's time to get started on research. (My program requires 10 courses total,  I'm guessing the pace has to pick up after that.)  And she also confirmed that the first week is spent "shopping" for classes, which I guess is kind of nice from the perspective that I'll have a better idea of what I'm getting into. 

I'm taking 3 classes but 1 is 'independent study' (essentially just research), so 2 real classes. Program requires 15 courses, but we're on a quarter system.

[Pink Fuzzy Bunny]

On 8/6/2016 at 9:22 PM, Ocean-Atmos-Climate said:

I'm pretty stoked for my courses this fall. Starting up my first semester in a PhD program in atmospheric & oceanic sciences.

I'm taking:

• Atmospheric Thermodynamics and Dynamics
• Introduction to Physical Oceanography
• Partial Differential and Integral Equations

I inconveniently left 2 core classes to take my senior spring of undergrad (this past spring), so I was stuck in 100-level courses I wasn't too excited for. I'm happy to be doing the complete opposite this fall.

I see you'll be at CU-Boulder - will you be collaborating with NCAR?

[twinsora]

Will be starting my PhD in Political Science @ UC Irvine.

Four courses in first term:

Qualitative Methods, Foucault, International Relations Theory, Social Science Teaching for TA's.

Stoked!

[Ocean-Atmos-Climate]

15 hours ago, Pink Fuzzy Bunny said:

I see you'll be at CU-Boulder - will you be collaborating with NCAR?

Yep! I've been out here (at CU) on a research position for the summer, and am working with output from one of NCAR's climate model ensembles. My advisor works up there on Wednesdays as well, so there's close communication between our lab and the folks up there. I'll be working primarily with those involved in ocean biogeochemical modeling.

[pterosaur]

I'm currently looking at potential courses for the fall, and one of them the recommended prep includes two engineering courses I've never had ("signals and systems" and "mechanical systems"). I come from a neuroscience/computer science background and haven't gone anywhere near these courses before. But I looked at the descriptions and thought, "Eh, looks like I've kind of vaguely touched on something related to these topics in a bit of my research. I'll be fine!" I might regret this.

[MastersHoping]

I'm in political science, specifically interested in east Asia in the subfield of comparative politics.

So I'm in:

Introduction to Quantitative Political Science

Theories of Comparative Politics

Korean/Japanese histories (outside the department, but relevant class)

anddddd taking Korean pass/fail

[lethalallele]

Tissue Engineering and Biomaterials

[grace@thesmokinchemist]

i am taking 3 classes, plus my lab research is technically a "course" i have to sign up for:

applied nuclear physics

radiochemistry

graduate chemistry seminar

[KyloRen]

This semester I'm taking:

• Neurobiology of Disease
• Graduate Stats for Social Science
• Intro to Therapies

My lab research also counts as a course. So far I feel like it's a good balance between classes and research time... thankfully not too much reading for my courses.