Editing Introduction to Graduate Research (Fall 2023) (section)

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

The course has two main components that will be woven together in weekly class sessions: a survey of research involving TSB and MTS program faculty and an instructional seminar focused on challenges related to professional development. The course will proceed through weekly in-person seminar meetings and activities/assignments conducted outside of class time.

The class sessions will 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 their recent research as well as some of the work that has influenced them. We will also pursue readings, discussions, and written assignments related to the professional development challenge. 

For our guest speakers, we might open with the following questions/prompts:
* 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?
* Please tell us about the relationship of your research to the work that influenced you that you shared with us.
* Please tell us about your approach to the professional development challenge we are discussing today.


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.
* Interdisciplinarity (or maybe anti-disciplinarity?) as a way of life.