A secondary field can help you broaden your intellectual and professional portfolio
The Graduate School added two new secondary fields to its roster of offerings last year, bringing the total lineup to 17 (listed below). These secondary fields represent a chance for PhD students to broaden their intellectual and professional portfolios as they move through their degree programs. They help to demonstrate tangible achievement and to suggest range as a scholar and teacher.
Secondary fields, listed on a student’s transcript when completed to satisfaction, typically consist of four or five graduate courses in a discipline, interdisciplinary area, or intellectually coherent subfields. Students are encouraged to talk with their advisors and the directors of the secondary field they’re interested in to develop a plan to incorporate the coursework into their existing obligations. Rather than posing an extra burden, these courses can, with planning, become a coherent extension of one’s home program — one that will result in an additional credential. And depending on the discipline, secondary fields offer opportunities to take part in symposia, workshops, or other special gatherings, expanding interdisciplinary networks and the reach of one’s scholarly work.
Read application instructions, deadlines, and program descriptions.
Secondary Fields in PhD Studies:
- African and African American Studies
- Celtic Medieval Languages and Literatures
- Classics
- Comparative Literature
- Computational Science and Engineering
- Critical Media Practice
- Film and Visual Studies
- German
- Historical Linguistics
- History of American Civilization
- Linguistic Theory
- Medieval Studies
- Mind, Brain, and Behavior
- Music
- Romance Languages and Literatures
- Science, Technology, and Society
- Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality