Most of these courses require students to start to develop their own research projects, either in the form of a research design paper or a seminar paper. The point of these requirements is to make it easier for students to make the transition to the original research needed to complete a Ph.D. dissertation. Students in the political science program are required to select two fields of study. One reason the international relations-comparative politics link is so strong is that seminars taught by Jeff Hart, Karen Rasler, and Mike McGinnis cover material traditionally assigned to the subfield of comparative politics. Instruction Beyond the Classroom More of a student s graduate education occurs outside the seminar room than faculty are usually prepared to admit.
Students learn a great deal from each other and in informal discussions with faculty.
Each student will work closely with his or her faculty mentor and dissertation advisor, as well as other members of the student s progress review and dissertation committees. Students can learn a great deal about how to go about doing research by working as a research assistant or in explicit collaboration with a faculty member. IU also has a long-standing tradition of collaboration between faculty and students sharing a common interest on some particular research project. There is, of course, no guarantee that each student will be able to collaborate with a faculty member, but the possibility is always open. Students also have many opportunities to observe research presentations by members of the IU faculty and by visitors from all over the world.