<p>Hey everyone, I'm just looking ahead to the courses I'll be taking through the rest of my undergrad experience, and there are a lot of courses that I want to take, but won't be able to because it would extend my undergrad too much. So, how many elective courses does a typical doctoral program allow you to take? I'm a physics/math double major, and will be going to grad school for physics. There are some required courses such as advanced quantum mechanics, advanced EM, advanced classical mechanics etc...but beyond that, how many extra courses will I be able to take? There are other advanced math courses and several other physics courses that I really want to take. Are grad students allocated a certain number of credits per semester that they can use for elective classes?</p>
<p>If it makes any difference, the schools I'm mainly looking at for grad school are UIUC, UChicago, UC Berkeley, and Caltech.</p>
<p>[physics</a> @ berkeley - Expected Progress to PhD](<a href=“Home | Physics”>Home | Physics) describes a PhD student’s progress to the degree. Presumably, a PhD student in the research phase after completing first and second year course work could optionally take additional courses of interest (probably most commonly seminars on current research topics), time permitting.</p>
<p>Thanks for the link. So, from what I’m seeing, part of the PhD program at Berkeley actually requires 19 elective units beyond the 19 units for the advanced quantum mechanics, and electromagnetism etc. So, I would still have some spots open for more advanced courses. I can’t really see any mention of whether or not the 19 units here is a “cap” or if that’s just a minimum requirement. The 19 units amounts to roughly 5 courses from what I’m reading, but realistically there will probably still be like 10-12 courses that I want to take in grad school. My main concern is just whether or not I’ll still be able to take them, but it sounds like I should be able to.</p>
<p>I’m looking at the UIUC physics PhD program, and they have a cap of 81 credits total for courses within the doctoral program. </p>
<p>The electives I’d want to take as far as physics goes would be things like general relativity, field theory, some particle physics and some more advanced astrophysics/cosmology courses. I’d also want to 4 or so additional upper level math courses in things like partial differential equations and topology.</p>
<p>At this point though, I think Berkeley is my main target. Grad school is a long ways off still though, so I’ve got plenty of time to figure it out.</p>
<p>Probably the biggest constraint on taking additional course work as a PhD student is the time needed for research activity after the early years, even though there may not necessarily be a formal limit on the course work.</p>
<p>Typically your ability to take extra units after hitting your minimum required number as a PhD student hinges on the permission of your advisor. Some are happy to have their students expand their horizons and learn about everything they’re interested in (I had a friend that took a class every term even after he was “done” with classes.) while others won’t want you to do anything outside of lab. This is definitely something to consider when choosing a lab to do your PhD in. If you really are interested in taking those classes you’ll want an advisor that supports you.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice. I’ll keep that in mind when it comes time to apply for grad schools, and I’m looking for a lab/adviser. I’ll definitely be focusing more in self-study and thesis research, but I still want to take a course or two per semester for the first couple years to broaden my horizons a little more. </p>
<p>I’m looking at Berkeleys graduate program, and in the course requirements section, it mentions that the minimum requirement for graduate students is 12 units each semester. Are these 12 units pertaining more to thesis research/self study, or does this imply courses too?</p>
<p>[physics</a> @ berkeley - Course Requirements](<a href=“Home | Physics”>Home | Physics)</p>
<p>If I’m seeing things right, the individual study for doctoral students can take up a maximum of 8 units per semester. So, I guess I’d have 4 units left to fill up anyway. They recommend taking a couple of the special topic seminars to fill the other units, but I imagine I’d be able to substitute a course in instead.</p>
<p>It looks like they weight their grad classes as 4 units each, so just taking 3 classes would fulfill the course requirement. If you have one or two classes that are 3 units, they have a 2 unit seminar to get you up to 12 units.</p>
<p>Once you finish with your classes you’ll enroll in a course with a title similar to “Supervised Research” or “Thesis Research” for however many units to stay a full time student. In my case, I’ve been taking 36 credits of Thesis Research for every quarter for the last four years. Makes my transcript look a little silly.</p>
<p>Here’s a more thorough look at Berkeley’s requirements for grad students in physics: [physics</a> @ berkeley - Expected Progress to PhD](<a href=“Home | Physics”>Home | Physics)</p>
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<p>[physics</a> @ berkeley - Graduate Courses](<a href=“Home | Physics”>Home | Physics) indicates that Physics 299 (Research) can be taken for 1 to 12 units.</p>
<p>Note that Physics 300 and 301 (teaching, as in TA) are also probably typical “courses” for PhD students.</p>
<p>Whoops, I missed that. I just saw the “individual study for doctoral students” at the bottom and assumed that it was the thesis research “course.” </p>
<p>It looks like 251(Intro to Graduate Research) is a required first semester course, and it’s showing 300 as a required “course” for both first and second semester. I assume that 300/301 will be a requirement every semester during the PhD process though. If nothing else though, there will still be 19 hours of elective credit as part of the degree. That’s about 5 courses, and there would probably be another 5 or so on top of that I’d want to take. I’ve still got plenty of time to get it all figured out. </p>
<p>The UIUC physics PhD program has around 40 hours of required courses, plus another 40 hours of elective credit. That’s an enticing point for UIUC for me. UIUC is where I’ll be finishing my undergrad though, and I don’t know if I’d want to do grad school at the same place or not.</p>
<p>You don’t. Go somewhere else, meet new people, get exposed to different ideas on how things work.</p>
<p>Most students I knew took the graduate research course during their first year as a sort of insurance policy. If something goes wrong and you need to drop a class, you still have your research credits keeping you full time.</p>