12-15 credits (4-5 courses) in 1-2 departments or programs outside of the major Ph.D., selected to provide a background in another field of cognitive science and, with research and advanced training in the major field, to form a coherent interdisciplinary area of specialization. Georgetown Ph.D.’s require a range of 16 to 54 credits (for example, 16 for Biology, 40 for Neuroscience, 45 for Philosophy, 54 for Linguistics). Normally, students pursuing the CogSci concentration will need to take no more in total for their Ph.D. than colleagues not taking this concentration; other requirements will be waived in order to stay within what is normal for the relevant Ph.D. program, and electives will be used to include the 4-5 courses outside the major. See Courses.
Interdisciplinary advisory committee consisting of 3 faculty from at least 2 departments. One of the faculty will serve as the student’s primary advisor; the other 2 will provide additional interdisciplinary breadth in areas of cognitive science relevant to the student’s specialization.
Participation in Cognitive Science core course (ICOS-710), a fall semester seminar in which important topics in cognitive science are taught by participating Georgetown faculty, and the Cognitive Science seminar (ICOS-712), a spring semester seminar in which students and faculty in the concentration jointly read recent articles of importance.
All students in the concentration will additionally be expected to carry out interdisciplinary research, preferably throughout their Ph.D. training and for their dissertation. Students will be supervised in their research activities by the 3-person interdepartmental committee representative of the fields in which the student wishes to obtain training; individual Ph.D. program requirements for thesis committees must also be fulfilled. The CogSci training will be acknowledged on the student’s degree, which will be titled “PhD in X (the primary department) and Cognitive Science”.
