In the United States, students must complete about 120 credit hours of coursework to graduate with a bachelor’s degree. In my scenario, imagine Monica wants to earn her B.S. and PhD in chemistry at a flagship university, such as MIT or Cal Tech. ChatGPT gives wildly different answers on total coursework needed, but it appears Monica would need: 1. Bachelor of Science (B.S.). She must complete 10-15 major-specific courses, plus several elective courses (these may or may not relate to chemistry) plus about 60 credit hours of “core courses” in subjects ranging from English and history to government, etc. MIT’s graduate website says, “In general, candidates for the PhD degree in chemistry are expected to have completed at least 48 units of subjects approved for this purpose by the department with a grade of B- or better.” Does this mean 48 courses, and does that 48 units mean undergrad AND grad-level courses? 2. Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD). I’m assuming Monica goes straight from a undergrad to MIT’s doctoral program, without getting her master’s degree in chemistry. Yesterday, GPT said Monica would need to complete “15-30 courses” at the PhD level. Today, GPT said, “At universities like MIT, a PhD in chemistry typically requires students to complete about 4 to 6 courses at the graduate level.” Clearly, the second answer is wrong.
GPT’s hugely varying answer of 15-30 doctoral/grad courses suggests it has no idea what its saying. I cannot believe there would be that much variance among the big flagship programs.
I do know that some uni’s allow students to enter a PhD program with their B.S. degree, bypassing a master’s degree. I realize a significant portion of doctoral programs entail doing original research focused on completing a dissertation, but the idea of a doctoral student needing to complete 30 courses AND do all the research for a dissertation, that seems extraordinary, as 30 courses is about 3 years of coursework at 5 courses per semester.
I had to take a couple of classes a semester for 2 years in my PhD program. Honestly I don’t remember exactly how many, but 4-6 is not far off. Past my first two years, I was spending all my time researching.
Now, part of the confusion might be how my research time might be classified. Its possible some universities identify pure research time as ‘classes’, and others don’t count it as ‘classes’ or coursework.
The OP said they assumed Monica went straight from the bachelor’s program into the doctorate program. Assuming *Monica" does that, does the doctorate program require her to take any courses to “bring her up to par” with those who entered the doctorate program after earning a master’s? Or is that not a thing in the field?
This is what MIT identifies for an S.B. (Scientiae Baccalaureus) Degree in Chemistry:
Required Lecture Subjects
5.03 Principles of Inorganic Chemistry I
5.07 Introduction to Biological Chemistry
5.111 or 5.112 Principles of Chemical Science or equivalent
5.12 Organic Chemistry I
5.13 Organic Chemistry II
5.601 Thermodynamics I
5.602 Thermodynamics II and Kinetics
5.611 Introduction to Spectroscopy
5.612 Electronic Structures of Molecules
Restricted Lecture Electives (select two)
5.04 Principles of Inorganic Chemistry II
5.08 Fundamentals of Chemical Biology
5.43 Advanced Organic Chemistry
5.62 Physical Chemistry II
Required Laboratory Subjects (URIECA)
Module 1 (5.351) Fundamentals of Spectroscopy
Module 2 (5.352) Synthesis of Coordination Compounds and Kinetics (CI-M)
Module 3 (5.353) Macromolecular Prodrugs
Module 4 (5.361) Recombinant DNA Technology
Restricted Elective Labs (choose at least three)
Module 5 (5.362) Cancer Drug Efficacy (CI-M)
Module 6 (5.363) Organic Structure Determination
Module 7 (5.371) Continuous Flow Chemistry: Sustainable Conversion of Reclaimed Vegetable Oil into Biodiesel
Module 8 (5.372) Chemistry of Renewable Energy
Module 9 (5.373) Dinitrogen Cleavage
Module 10 (5.381) Quantum Dots
Module 11 (5.382) Time-and Frequency-resolved Spectroscopy of Photosynthesis (CI-M)
Module 12 (5.383) Fast-flow Peptide Protein Synthesis
Elective Labs
All remaining URIECA modules, or:
5.39 Research and Communication in Chemistry (CI-M)
So, it looks like Monica pursuing her bachelor’s of chemistry at MIT will need to take 9 required courses + 2 lecture electives + 5 semester-long laboratories + 3 or more elective labs = At least 19 courses/labs, meaning about 1/2 of her total undergrad coursework will be in chemistry.
Still uncertain about coursework at the PhD level.
It completely depends on the department. In some fields, it can be virtually unheard of to enter with a master’s; in others, it’s quite common, but the master’s may not be in the same field, so coursework may be called for either way
ChatGPT is the wrong tool for answering this question. What you need is the university’s course catalogue, which is almost always freely available online, and will list requirements for all of their degree programs. Individual department websites will also have this information. For example, here are Caltech’s requirements for a degree in chemistry, showing a selected plan of courses. MIT’s are here. They’re both a little confusing because of the “units” terminology, which may be what’s throwing some of the computer-generated answers off. It’s very clearly not synonymous with “courses” – it would be absurd for an undergraduate degree to require 147 courses in the major! It looks to me like a “unit” is roughly the number of hours per week you’re supposed to spend on the course – hence, most lab sciences are listed as having 12 “units,” while other courses are listed as having 9. So, 3 units = 1 credit hour.
This looks like the Chemistry Department requirements. The School of Arts and Sciences and/or the University likely have additional requirements (history, English, etc.) to ensure that you’re not completely maladapted to the real world (admittedly, MIT is likely less concerned about that than many universities).
That’s pretty variable. It might be 6 courses like @Sigene or 12 or 13 like me (seven of those were “core” classes that everybody took and the remainder were picked in consultation with my dissertation advisor to best support my research).
Either way, I agree with @Sigene that class work is a minor element of a PhD; it’s generally done within the first year or two, whereas the research takes years.
Might be out of date, but for reference my MSEE was 24 credit hours classwork (typically eight courses) plus six credit hours thesis (which had its own course number). PhD EE was 30 credits hours classwork (ten courses) plus 30 credit hours dissertation (also had its own course number). I think there was one person I met who skipped the master’s, he ended up taking 60 credit hours classwork plus the dissertation. It’s a risk, if he didn’t finish his dissertation he would have had no graduate degree at all.
A lot of students their master’s thesis work is the starting point for their PhD research, so it comes along the way.
Some schools (I think MIT is one) give you a certificate if you complete the classwork (beyond master’s) for your PhD but never finish your dissertation.
In addition to a few classes, there is genrally an extensive reading list provided by your dissertation committee. It will be basically all the published research they think is relevant to your research question. Its my understanding most programs require both a formal literature review of that list and ypu take a series of comprehensive exams over them. These are long free response queations requiring you to synthesize the research to answer a specific question. (typcially, you have a few days, I think).
If you are wondering when Ph.d candidates actually learn things, it’s there. You are expected to be able to teach yourself from the source, not need it processed through a professor.
A bit off topic: One of my grandsons is trying to graduate with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. I say “trying”, because despite the fact that he’s been at uni for four years, he’s been unable to earn enough credits to graduate. It’s not for lack of trying, but because the school either doesn’t have enough teachers or they deliberately limit class size to extract more money from students down the road. Most scholarship programs only allow for four years of schooling, so he (his dad and I) are on the hook for the cash to allow him to finish. I wrote a check for $7K a couple weeks ago so he can finish up.
I want to point out that STEM degrees are often a bit more than 120 hours. IIRC the BS in Computer Science that I got back in the mid-90s required something on the order of 135 credit hours.
Usually there’s a list - when I was in school, we had some leeway on our core curriculum stuff, but it was all well bounded. For example, we had a liberal arts requirement, and if we say… took a 100 level history course, we had to take a 300 or 400 level history class to satisfy the rest of that particular requirement. Same for the others. But if I had taken an upper level history course first, I could have taken another upper level political science course to satisfy it.
We also had some leeway in science as well- we had to take something like 16 hours of science from a short list, but unlike the other engineers, we weren’t locked into chemistry and physics. So I took geology and biology.
As far as the major core courses (those with the same department name as the major) go, something like 15-17 courses and 50-ish hours is pretty normal.
I concur with the others- the course catalog is the final reference for this sort of thing. These days, they’re online so you can go look it up. There are also undergraduate and graduate advisors who are basically degree plan counselors who you go talk to and they help you navigate all this stuff.
That’s highly fucked up and suspicious. Every now and again a class wouldn’t “make” because there weren’t enough people signed up, but we never had issues with having enough teaching- that’s what PhD students are for. Of course, I went to a large, well-funded state university, but I can’t imagine a school that’s actually putting in any effort legitimately has that problem.
OP used chemistry as an example and I can speak to that specifically, having applied to many graduate programs, completed one PhD, and worked at several universities.
What can be confusing here is that schools will often have students register for seemingly bogus classes while they’re doing nothing but research. So I have no idea how many credits my transcript shows, but I only took six semester-long traditional lecture classes, all completed in my first year, which was sufficient for a Master’s.
Other schools may have a couple more classes, and may spread them out over two years.
The chemistry programs I’m familiar did not have sequential masters and doctoral programs. You applied directly to the doctoral program, although didn’t necessarily become a “PhD candidate” until you jumped some hoops in your second year. Requirements for a consolation master’s varied. I just had to pass five classes. Other schools distinguish between a coursework vs research master’s, which may be an MA vs MS, respectively.
Most people who received a PhD from these programs did not receive an MS along the way. I asked for one, which involved walking into an office and filling out a form. I got a diploma in the mail a few weeks later.
I believe other physical science programs are similar. I’m less familiar with life sciences. Engineering can be a different beast. And I haven’t a clue about arts, humanities, etc.
It’s been a long time for me, but my EE PhD was typically two years of classes, culminating in a day of “orals”, in which students were quizzed by a variety of professors on their depth of knowledge. Passing allowed one to continue on in the PhD program. I believe that students could take their orals without having taken any classes (during the orals I was part of, a professor had a circuit problem on his whiteboard that had two solutions, the first was straightforward but took a lot of time, the second was obscure, but quick. During orals, one student showed him there was a third way.)
In fact, the scenarios for earning a PhD are varied and sometimes colorful. I worked with a scientist who was quietly proud of the fact that they had no Bachelors degree. Apparently, during his senior year, he got involved with a research group in Physics and the professor was so impressed by the student he inducted him into the PhD program.
A final observation: Earning a STEM graduate degree really does depend on the discipline and the school. Engineering Masters have value in the job market and tend to be goals in their own right. If you run into someone with a Masters in Physics, it means they flunked out of the PhD program.
Well, this one sure does, and apparently it’s an ongoing issue there. Pretty sure he’s at U of MN in Duluth. If he hadn’t bulked up on math courses early on, he’d have another full year. As it is, I believe it’s one more semester.
When I was going for my BSEE (shortly after electricity was invented ) the only way to graduate in 4 years was to take overload credits (more than allowed without getting permission) and/or taking summer classes. (Quite a few also took the 4 credit optics course in the summer because that all that was needed for a physics minor)
Some also took an internship which also delayed graduation.
Brian
(took 10 semesters, but I was not a diligent student, and also had to take Differential Equations more than once…) back then tuition was < $/2000/semester
My son’s degree was in Microbiology. He also went straight from a B.S. to a PhD program. and his course load was similar. He said if you bomb out on your research, they give you a Master’s degree and tell you to teach high school.
That jibes with my experience at the University of Wisconsin in the 1980s. I had a number of friends who were getting undergraduate engineering degrees, and while the university considered 16 credits/semester to be a “full load,” the engineering programs required significantly more than 128 credits (16 x 8 semesters) for graduation. They all had to do some combination of summer classes, carrying more than a full load during semesters, or taking a fifth year.
Also, credits were 1 per hour (actual was 50 min IIRC) of lecture and 1 per 3 hours of lab.
I can tell you I spent WAY more than 3 hours/week in my 4 credit EE classes. .Easily 12 hours some weeks. (and I was not alone in doing so). No way could I handle even a max non-overload course load (even with “blow off” classes) (but some folks could)
IIRC 12 hours was the minimum for full time student – I didn’t go much beyond that.
) the only way to graduate in 4 years was to take overload credits (more than allowed without getting permission) and/or taking summer classes. (Quite a few also took the 4 credit optics course in the summer because that all that was needed for a physics minor)