The Graduate School
GRS Course Descriptions
(Additional information about GRS courses offered each semester is given in the Course Schedule. Official descriptions are listed in the Graduate Catalog.)
GRS 390C -- Academic and Professional Consulting
This course is designed to show students the ways in which their expertise and experience are valuable in a number of realms, both academic and non-academic. They will also learn to articulate their expertise in concrete ways that make it relevant and useful to clients in business, not for profit, public, and academic settings. They will have the opportunity to participate in a community engagement project (for part of the class) in which they will work with community partners on a "real" problem. They will also develop a portfolio of consulting skills, as well as the ability to identify and pursue consulting opportunities.
GRS 390G - Innovation and Design
It is difficult enough to come up with an excellent idea and even more difficult to make that idea a reality. This course will teach you to do both – develop excellent ideas and put them into action.
GRS 190J - Topics in Professional Development
GRS 390J - Topics in Professional Development
GRS 390W -- Publishing, Thesis and Dissertation, Grant Writing
Designed as a complement for GRS 392W - "Academic and Professional Writing (A Systematic Approach to Academic and Professional Writing)" This course offers in depth and focused instruction on writing grants, writing theses and dissertations, and getting published in both academic and non-academic venues. Along with templates, tools, and other resources, the course will provide an opportunity to interact with professionals from these various realms including successfully publishing scholars/writers, grant recipients, and representatives of publishers and granting agencies.
GRS 390R -- Academic and Professional Ethics
As a professional (academic and otherwise), one confronts many ethical issues. This course assumes that to deal effectively with ethical issues, one must be given the opportunity to think through them, understand different viewpoints on them, and develop strategies for dealing with them. The course will cover key ethical traditions, cases in which questions of ethics and professional responsibility typically arise, and methods by which ethical judgments and choices can be made. Students will learn to identify and develop ways to balance their interests and obligations and methods for heading off or resolving ethical conflicts when they arise.
GRS 390S - Academic and Professional Communication
This course provides a framework for effective communication in a range of academic and professional settings. Among the topics covered are analyzing audiences and situations, making effective presentations, communicating ideas in one-on-one settings, cultivating professional relationships, and working collaboratively in teams. Participants will have ample opportunity to practice their skills while developing a rich communication repertoire.
GRS 390T -- Advanced College Teaching Methods
This course provides innovative techniques for developing and delivering effective curriculum. In the course students will have the opportunity to develop a teaching portfolio that includes: teaching philosophy, insights drawn from interviews with exemplary faculty on and off campus, techniques and assignments that best match the students they anticipate teaching, and at least two syllabi they could use as faculty. We will employ an innovative process of curriculum development patterned on design methods. We will cover topics such as assessing learning and teaching styles, developing learning communities, innovative thinking, promoting curiosity, and the best techniques for assessment, discussions, lectures, experiential learning, etc. This course is intended to be an effective complement to departmental 398T courses.
GRS 390M -- Academic and Professional Uses of Technology
This class investigates how technology and multimedia can promote human understanding. While the use of instructional technology is becoming ubiquitous, we often fail to look closer at the implications and influences of these technologies. Students in this class will read, discuss, critique and create in order to look at how to effectively integrate technology into teaching and learning (in any number of contexts).
GRS 390P -- Multi-Cultural Issues in Academic and Professional Instruction
Exploring Multicultural Communication: Communicating Across Disciplinary Cultures
Critical to one's success during and after graduate school in a world of ever-increasing complexity and challenge is the ability to communicate effectively with multiple audiences in a variety of circumstances and especially between different disciplines and cultures. But effective communication requires developing skillful mental flexibility and a deep understanding of diverse audiences with underlying expectations and world views as well as diverse communities of practice, scientific and humanities disciplines, and their material artifacts, including technology. How we think about knowledge and how we talk, read, and write about it are communication behaviors that affect the kinds of knowledge we construct. As students explore how humans generate and communicate new knowledge, they will develop greater flexibility in their own interdisciplinary communication styles. Discussions led by Expert Guest Faculty will contribute to the interdisciplinary and multicultural design of the course.
GRS 392J - Topics in Community Engagement
This course will provide graduate students with the opportunity to earn course credit, learn project management, conduct independent study research, and apply their knowledge while working on actual problem-based research projects for clients in the public, private, and non-profit sectors. GRS 392J CE Projects is project-based and students can collect and analyze data for conference or publication papers or for their M.A. or Ph.D. research while making a real impact to help their client, impress potential employers, and build lasting bonds with classmates. GRS 392J CE Projects is a practical and experiential professional development program where you can also sharpen your communication skills, apply theory, build your network, and explore career possibilities.
GRS 392W -- Academic and Professional Writing
GRS 392W is open to ALL graduate students. Consent of instructor required. Designed as a complement for GRS 390W - Publishing, Thesis and Dissertation, Grant Writing. In this course you will have the opportunity to practice and master a systematic procedure for effectively organizing and writing graduate-level papers of all kinds: research, conferences, dissertations, master's reports, publication, literature reviews, and other written documents required of students in your own disciplines. You will apply your understanding of this writing system as you learn to integrate academic writing with your reading, listening, speaking, and thinking. The systematic approach you learn in this course is applicable to any future professional or academic writing task.
Internships
GRS 390F -- Professional Internship
Use your expertise and gain experience in business, nonprofit, government, and academic settings.
Use your expertise and gain experience in K-12 setting through teaching, curriculum development, and other possibilities.
GRS 390N -- Preparing Future Faculty Internship
A unique opportunity to work with a mentor at a nearby college or university to gain valuable insight into faculty life, the student population, and the mission of an institute of higher education other than The University of Texas at Austin.