Education

Harvard University: Arts & Sciences: Earth and Planetary Sciences

Category Art and Social Sciences, Astronomy, Harvard University, USA, Undergraduate
Tags Arts, Earth, Harvard University, Planetary, Sciences

Understanding our planet will be a fundamental challenge for the scientific community over the next century. Almost every practical aspect of society—population, environment, economics, politics—is and will be increasingly impacted by our relationship with the Earth. Facing these challenges requires approaches that transcend the boundaries of a traditional “geology” department: The Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences (EPS) uses an integrative scientific approach that encompasses and includes many aspects of physics, chemistry, astronomy, and biology.

In addition to the collaborative exchange with other Harvard departments such as astronomy, chemistry and chemical biology, organismic and evolutionary biology, and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, EPS has reciprocal arrangements with Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for graduate students to take and receive credit for courses.

The laboratories, libraries, and lecture rooms of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences are housed in the University Museum and in the David and Arnold Hoffman Laboratory of Experimental Geology. The School of Engineering and Applied Sciences is housed in Pierce Hall, across Oxford Street from the Hoffman Laboratory. The seismograph station is at the George R. Agassiz Station of the Astronomical Observatory in Harvard, Massachusetts, about 25 miles west of Cambridge. Laboratory facilities are available for radiogenic and stable isotope geochemistry, trace element geochemistry, geophysics, X-ray diffraction analysis, mineral analysis with an automated electron microprobe, spectroscopy, scanning and transmission electron microscopy, and sedimentology. The specimen collections in mineralogy, petrology, paleontology, and mining geology are among the best in the world.

Admission Requirements

Requirements for admission are highly flexible and each application is judged on its own merits. Preparation in the related sciences of physics, chemistry, mathematics, and biology is as important as a solid background in geology. Students with undergraduate majors in other sciences are also encouraged to apply. The department does require prospective applicants to take the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) as soon as possible.

Entering graduate students are expected to have received passing grades in at least four half-courses or equivalent of college-level calculus and linear algebra. Students are expected, in the course of graduate work, to complete the second and third year of college mathematics (intermediate and advanced calculus and differential equations).

Financial Aid

The Department of Earth and Planetary -Sciences guarantees full financial support for four years to all PhD candidates. Funding for the fifth year and beyond is considered on a case-by-case basis. Financial support for graduate students comes from a combination of grants, research assistantships, teaching fellowships, and outside support.

Each graduate student is required to teach two sections. This requirement is generally completed during the second and third year of graduate work. Funding from this required teaching is a part of the first two years of support. In addition, special summer scholarship funding is available for students to do research-related work in the field. The department usually funds all summer fieldwork proposals.

Prospective students are encouraged to apply for outside funding from agencies such as the National Science Foundation, the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation, Office for Naval Research, and NASA. Often international students must apply for outside funding such as the Fulbright and Knox fellowships before coming to the United States. Information on these agencies is available in more detail in a separate booklet issued by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Financing Graduate Study.

Degree Requirements

Residence
Minimum of two years; see The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Handbook. Students should normally plan to complete all requirements for the PhD degree within four years of their enrollment at Harvard.

Appointment of Advisors
In September, all new students are assigned a preliminary advisor who along with the Graduate Studies Committee (GSC) will help first-year students decide which courses to take during the fall term. At the start of the spring term, first-year students submit a Plan of Study listing the courses they plan to take to meet academic requirements and proposing their choice for an advisor and advisory committee (usually three faculty from the department). The Director of Graduate Studies meets individually with each student to review the Plan of Study, to finalize the appointment of the advisor and advisory committee, and to discuss summer research plans. As students’ research interests evolve, the composition of their advisory committee can be adjusted.

Plan of Study/Course Requirements
All students are required to take at least 16 graduate-level half-courses in fulfillment of the PhD degree. Four of these half-courses must be letter-graded at the 200 level in earth and planetary sciences or related courses at a suitable level in other disciplines such as applied mathematics, applied physics, astronomy, biology, chemistry, engineering sciences, mathematics, or physics. Two letter-graded half-courses must be Applied Math 105a and Applied Math 105b, or other equivalent courses approved by the faculty.

To ensure that graduate students gain exposure to the many areas of earth sciences, they must fulfill a breadth requirement. Students are required to take at least two letter-graded EPS courses outside of their main area of research interest. These courses must be approved by the student’s advisor. By petition to the GSC, courses with an earth or planetary science component in other departments at Harvard may count towards the breadth requirement, provided the course is a lecture course with an exam or a term paper designed for graduate students. Selection of the remaining eight courses is determined by the student in consultation with his/her advisor and can be either at the 200- or the 300-level.

The requirements outlined above are a minimum standard and students will usually take additional courses in both their selected field and others. Students normally satisfy the eight-specified course requirements in the first two years of graduate study in preparation for their qualifying oral examination, however, students need not fulfill these requirements before beginning research and should not put off research on this account.

All degree candidates must receive a grade of B or better for a course to count toward graduate credit, and they must maintain an overall average of B or better to continue in the program.

Qualifying Oral Examination
All candidates for the PhD degree are expected to take the qualifying oral examination by the end of their fourth semester in the program. The purpose of the oral examination is to determine a student’s depth and breadth of scholarship in a chosen area of specialization (not necessarily their prospective dissertation research), as well as the student’s originality, capacity for synthesis and critical examination, intensity of intellectual curiosity, and clarity of communication.

Progress Reports
In the third and subsequent years of study, students are required to submit to the department, via their advisory committee, a summary of the status of their thesis research, detailing their accomplishments for the past year, and goals for both the coming year and the period until completion. These Progress Reports ensure that students, their advisors, and the Graduate Studies Committee have the same understanding of students’ progress toward the PhD degree.

Final Examination/Dissertation Defense
By the end of the fifth term at Harvard, candidates are required to submit to the department, via their advisory committee, the subject and general objectives of the proposed dissertation research. The dissertation subject must be approved by the department; details may be modified as the investigation progresses, but any major change in the subject and scope must be approved by the department. Candidates must submit the dissertation not more than five years after having passed the Qualifying Oral Examination.

The object of the dissertation is to show that candidates have technical mastery of the field in which they present themselves and that they are capable of independent research. The subject should be distinct and limited, and the writer should be able to formulate conclusions modifying or enlarging some aspects of present knowledge.

The final exam is usually held within a month after the dissertation has been submitted. There are two components to the final exam: the first is a private defense before a small faculty committee; the second is a public presentation to the department as a whole.