Coursework Students take at least ten subjects in the doctoral program prior to taking general exams in their third year.
Students also choose two foundation courses designed to provide substantive, disciplinary knowledge.
Foundation courses are offered in history of technology, history of science, ethnographic methods, social studies of science, and history of medicine. Five other seminars complete the Program's ten-subject requirement. Options exist for substituting either statistics or competence in a field of science or engineering, when necessary for dissertation work, for one of the languages. The second-year paper should be a research paper of publishable quality. Students take general qualifying exams when they have completed coursework, usually at the end of the second year or beginning of the third year.