Editing Introduction to Graduate Research (Fall 2021) (section)

=== Structure, topics, and themes ===

The course has two main components that will be woven together in weekly class sessions: a survey of current research conducted by TSB and MTS program faculty and an instructional seminar focused on challenges related to professional development. The class sessions will all be structured around one research domain and one professional development challenge. Every week, we will host 1-2 faculty guest speakers working in the research domain and engage with one piece of their recent research. We will also pursue readings, discussions, and written assignments related to the professional development challenge. The course will proceed through a combination of weekly in-person seminar meetings and activities/assignments conducted outside of class time.

For our guest speakers, we will open with the following questions:
* Please tell us your "concise" (academic?) biography" (3 minutes or less?).
* Could you share something important to you or about you that we might not know or expect?
* What stands out in your memory of your first year as a Ph.D. student?
* What do you work on these days?
* How does the piece of research you shared fit into your career and/or a broader research agenda?


In addition to the professional development challenges that we will discuss each week, there will also be some major themes throughout the course, including:
* Ethics (especially of research and design).
* Diversity, equity, inclusion, justice and their opposites.
* "The two cultures" and other ways of knowing
* Research institutions and institutional legacies
* Windows of opportunity. Career leverage points, strategy, tactics.
* How to <> *in a pandemic*
* Interdisciplinarity (or maybe anti-disciplinarity?) as a way of life.