What do you think about course requirement?

[geichat]

Now that i've heard back from most of the schools, regardless of what the status is, i've started exploring their websites a bite more and comparing their course requirements and curriculum. I was somewhat surprised to find out how much schools/programs differed from each other in terms of their course curriculum design.

Specifically, I've found UChicago to have not only the largest number of requirements (but we should also take into account the fact that they're on a quarter system unlike the other schools i've compared it to), BUT also the most rigid curriculum. by rigid i mean there doesn't seem to be as much flexibility in the sequence of courses or room for other courses. well i've always heard about how UChicago has the most demanding courseload, but i had always thought that only applied to undergrad.

Now compare UChicago to NYU. NYU is a totally different story. Not only do they have fewer course requirements, but they also seem to be (at least judging from what they say on the website) more flexible and relaxed about the curriculum design, and allow more freedom to the students and their advisors to design their own sequence of courses. And UMich tends to fall somewhere in between.

Now does anybody feel the same way? To me, coming from an extremely small liberal arts college, I am actually looking for a school where I can take more classes, so I'm not saying this is a bad thing. I just wanted to throw this out there and see what other people think.

Have you heard anything about the course loads at any schools (def not limited to UChicago and NYU)? What do you tend to lean towards?

[socialpsych]

This is an important thing to be checking into. Ask the grad students at each of these schools how they feel about their coursework, and whether they feel it is too much -- and ask profs to sell you on the curriculum at their school.

I don't think coursework per se is good or bad. It depends on how it's set up and how relevant it is to your growth as a researcher. I ended up in a program that's fairly light on required courses. On one hand, I'm really glad I have so much time to devote to getting my research started. I was a little scared of it and thought I would be craving more structure, but I'm not. On the other hand, the courses that I am taking, I love (for the most part). They are really focused on giving us the background and information that we will need to use throughout our lives as academics, and little is irrelevant, which I really appreciate.

All this is to say that, while required coursework can be hugely helpful or a huge pain in the ass, the sheer amount of coursework will not always tell you which one of those it's likely to be for you. Asking students about the requirements is a better way to find out.

[Crystalizedjade]

Now that i've heard back from most of the schools, regardless of what the status is, i've started exploring their websites a bite more and comparing their course requirements and curriculum. I was somewhat surprised to find out how much schools/programs differed from each other in terms of their course curriculum design.

Specifically, I've found UChicago to have not only the largest number of requirements (but we should also take into account the fact that they're on a quarter system unlike the other schools i've compared it to), BUT also the most rigid curriculum. by rigid i mean there doesn't seem to be as much flexibility in the sequence of courses or room for other courses. well i've always heard about how UChicago has the most demanding courseload, but i had always thought that only applied to undergrad.

Now compare UChicago to NYU. NYU is a totally different story. Not only do they have fewer course requirements, but they also seem to be (at least judging from what they say on the website) more flexible and relaxed about the curriculum design, and allow more freedom to the students and their advisors to design their own sequence of courses. And UMich tends to fall somewhere in between.

Now does anybody feel the same way? To me, coming from an extremely small liberal arts college, I am actually looking for a school where I can take more classes, so I'm not saying this is a bad thing. I just wanted to throw this out there and see what other people think.

Have you heard anything about the course loads at any schools (def not limited to UChicago and NYU)? What do you tend to lean towards?

Oh you heard back from UChicago? Hmm...but you are social psych. Do you know if they make the decisions for each track separately? Argh, I wish these schools would just reject me already. When I don't hear back from them they give me hope, lol, but if I haven't gotten an interview by now, I dunno what it means :S