If you have already taken or plan to take courses outside of the normal departmental offerings that you would like to substitute for the departmental methods and/or research design requirements, it is important that the department has an official record of this. It is best that the changes be made as soon as possible so that there are no surprises down the road. For example, if you are an incoming Ph.D. student and have taken one or more graduate-level methods or research design courses during your master’s work that you feel should fulfill our methods requirement, please do the following:
- Discuss this with your adviser as soon as you can and get approval that a course can count as a substitute to a particular requirement. Provide a syllabus or other documentation of course content if requested by your adviser.
- If necessary, discuss with the Graduate Program Coordinator.
- On the Graduate Student Data Update form used for the annual review, please use the Course Substitutions section of the form to list the course(s) you are substituting and the requirements that they are fulfilling. Do this in the current year so that we have an updated record.