Assignments are likely to involve multiple, short oral presentations and papers that require a moderate amount of research. However, the special demands of the subject, or of particular students, may warrant longer papers in certain courses. These courses are limited to fifteen students, although they usually have six to ten. This size permits them to run as seminars that allow advanced and concentrated work in more particularized areas of study. Students will often be assumed to have basic prior experience in the field, and some seminars may have prerequisites.
Seminars can help students work toward the specialization entailed in writing the dissertation.
For this reason, professors will usually provide students with more extensive bibliographical and research aid than in a 500-level course. A limited number of outside courses may be taken in other graduate departments at Rutgers, at the New Brunswick Theological Seminary, or in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Princeton University. Students are encouraged to take outside courses after their first year of course work in the Graduate Program. Independent Studies are subject to the same course-work deadlines as apply to courses. To receive course credit for an Independent Study, by the end of the registration period preceding the semester of proposed study, the student must come to an agreement with a faculty member on the nature and requirements of the proposed study and present the faculty member, the adviser, and the Graduate Director with a proposal outlining the terms of the agreement.