“PHRE Class of 2012” advice for PHRE majors

“PHRE Class of 2012” advice for PHRE majors

“PHRE Class of 2012” advice for PHRE majors

May 2, 2012

Members of the Spring 2012 Philosophy and Religion Senior Seminar recently devoted a class meeting to the offering of advice for PHRE majors.  Included below are some of the bits of sage wisdom that they had:

Senior Seminar preparation

  • Try to get in to the specific required PHRE courses as soon as possible
  • Try to have a light course load in the semester you take Senior Seminar
  • Have the sense of a trajectory toward Senior Seminar so that you are prepared for your Senior Seminar topic
  • Think in advance about the selection of your Senior Seminar thesis director and topic
  • Regularly put files in the Truman portfolio vault for future use
  • Be pragmatic about the direction of your thesis project

Course planning

  • Take early on the courses in logic and Methods & Theories in Religious Studies
  • Take a course early on in the “other” area (philosophy or religious studies) that you don’t think you are interested in (but may be)
  • Take courses from a diversity of faculty, who have differing methodologies and interests
  • Make a multi-year plan using the course listings on the PHRE website
  • Distribute well your LSP, PHRE courses in your plan

General course-taking tips

  • Get comfortable doing a lot of writing
  • Develop a thick skin and a willingness to learn from constructive criticism
  • Write down one comment you want to make / one question you want to ask in preparation for each of your class sessions
  • Budget your time for assignments early on
  • Anticipate the density of PHRE readings, and allow yourself enough time to do the reading slowly and carefully

Research and the general scholarly life

  • Save up for applications for grad school
  • Don’t limit yourself to a single database for research (for example, JSTOR)– take the library science course to learn about the library’s resources
  • Use Google Alerts to keep abreast of new development in your topics of interest
  • Take advantage of the extracurricular activities promoted in the PHREmail email list
  • Go to NCUR
  • Talk to your fellow majors– make friends in the major