Ph.D. Degree Requirements
Regions & Themes
Academic Requirements Overview
To qualify for the doctoral degree, students must meet the requirements of both the Jackson School Ph.D. Program and the Graduate School.
The Graduate School doctoral degree requirements can be found on this webpage.
The Jackson School Ph.D. Program requires students to complete a minimum of 100 credits to earn their degree:
- up to 30 credits may be transferred from prior work in a Master’s program,
- 45 credits of required and elective Ph.D. courses, and
- 27 dissertation credits.
The JSIS Ph.D. Program recognizes that incoming doctoral students might have previously taken courses that align closely with our program. In this case, the student can petition the Ph.D. Committee to request a waiver for specific requirements. Such a petition should be undertaken in consultation with the student’s Faculty Adviser and the Graduate Programs Adviser.
All final determinations and approval of individual student petitions regarding appropriate program coursework and/or course credits rests with the Graduate School.
Overview of required courses and credit for the JSIS Ph.D. Program (100 credits minimum)
- JSIS 501 – Comparative International Studies (5 cr.)
- JSIS 511 – Research Methods-Research Design (5 cr.)
- JSIS 510 – Data Literacy for Interdisciplinary Studies (5 cr.)
- Qualitative Methodology from any campus unit (must be approved by JSIS PhD Committee) (5 cr.) OR any approved course from the list of QUAL Methods Courses.
- 2 required JSIS Area Studies courses (10 cr.)
- 1 required JSIS Thematic Course (5 cr.)
- 40 elective credits (with up to 30 credits coming from electives courses taken during previous MA degree)
- 27 dissertation-writing credits