IvoryTowerDenizen, was that starting from a BS, or an MS? Because in physics, there are two or three years worth of classwork (i.e., not research credits or seminars) that are needed for either graduate degree.
And we did our qualifying exams (we called them “comps”, or comprehensive exams) at the end of the first year, so there were still a few classes to take afterwards. Passing the comps was still the point at which you’d generally join a research group, though (so you’d have a span of time where you were both part of the research group and still taking classes). Most of this time was just getting up to speed on the group’s research, though you might still get a paper out.
From a bachelor’s (for me), but having a masters saved you no time. Everyone started at that point. There were people with masters in program, but since the research is 99% of the degree, everyone needed to put the time in. You needed year one to rotate, choose your lab and develop your project.
My PhD program (biology) included a foundation course taken in the first year to make sure everyone has all the basics. Then we’ve had to take three elective courses in whatever topics we think would be useful. On top of that, we have to do a journal club (seminar where we discuss papers) every semester. But that’s it for coursework. The first year course, obviously, included all of the first year student. The electives I took were either very small classes of a few grad students, or larger courses taken with undergrads. Journal club is usually quite small. The vast majority of my program is doing research.
