Throughout your graduate career, you will conduct scientific research under the supervision of a Principal Investigator at the Department of Cognitive Sciences. This research is part of the graduate program, and it has a course code: COGS 299. After you advance to candidacy, the course code becomes COGS 290. These courses can be taken for a variable number of units (up to 12), which will be especially convenient when you need 12 units of coursework to be a full-time student.

Importantly, directed research courses come with a research syllabus: A document with quarterly research goals and milestones that you and your Principal Investigator set together. At the end of each quarter, the PI will evaluate whether you met the goals and award you a commensurate letter grade.

You can take directed research courses in any quarter, and with any faculty member.

Requirements for the research syllabus

Syllabi for directed study (COGS 290 and 299) should contain, at a minimum, a regular meeting time associated with the course and a set of written expectations of the student. Such expectations should be concrete and to the extent possible associated with concrete outcomes or goals. The amount of work should be commensurate to the number of course units the student is taking (one course unit is two hours of work per week).

Ideally, research syllabi also contain additional information that is relevant to the course or the expected work. It might be worth considering adding a reference to a lab handbook (a document with standard operating practices that won’t change much from year to year), the School’s Code of Conduct, and relevant lab resources.

Please send your 290/299 syllabi to the Department Office before the end of Week 2. At the end of the quarter, the grade assigned for a 290/299 course should reflect the student’s performance in light of these written expectations.