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Curriculum Outline
Fall:
Advanced Science Writing Seminar (24 units)
Elective (12 units)
Thesis (12 units)
Spring:
Advanced Science Writing Seminar (24 units)
Elective (12 units)
Thesis (12 units)
Summer:
Internship (12 units)
 
The Seminar
The Advanced Science Writing Seminar is the core, the intellectual
home, of the Graduate Program. This "megaseminar,"
meeting six hours a week across the whole year, earns 24 MIT
units per semester, making it the equivalent of at least two
regular courses per term. It offers students workshops and
critiques of their own writing, and that of published books,
articles, and essays; discussions of ethical and professional
issues; analysis of recent events in science and technology.
In Seminar, students might as likely discuss parallels between the internet and nineteenth century telegraphy, hear a distinguished science writer tell of her latest book, or hear a biotech entrepreneur lament how a recent best-seller distorted her field. They might learn of the latest research in communications theory, analyze a book's overall structure, or focus on a single paragraph in a single student's work.
No aspect of science writing falls outside Seminar's range. Students will learn to draw on all the tools of research, conceived in its broadest sense, to enrich their
information-gathering skills—interviews, web sites, archives, scientific journals, personal experience.
They will sample daily science journalism and the culture of the newsroom, sometimes writing on daily or hourly deadlines, learn to sniff out news stories and separate the "revolutionary new discovery" of too many press releases from what is genuinely new and important.
They will explore the rich possibilities of the essay, applied to science, technology and medicine, in all the elasticity of its myriad forms, from formal, even academic, to light, personal, idiosyncratic.
They will be encouraged, too, to push the essay beyond its traditional confines, into more imaginative, creative, and literarily ambitious paths.
Students will be exposed to research on what the public knows of science, and what they don't know, and how they learn what they learn; about quasi-science and pseudo-science, and the science writer's responsibilities to the reader, to the public, to science, to her sources, to herself.
Seminar also features a Lab Experience Requirement, as part of which each student spends time in one of MIT's hundreds of laboratories, seeing its work up close and absorbing its life and culture.
MIT's is a one-year master's program, designed to cover
much ground in a limited time. It is conducted at a rapid
pace, and requires the energy and devotion of student and
faculty alike. The Advanced Science Writing Seminar is designed
to maximize the educational value of that year. It lets faculty
more intimately integrate instruction on the essay, research
methods, journalism, etc, with workshops and critiques in
those subgenres. It permits a rich program of guest speakers
and case studies all across the year. Treating the seminar
as a whole, from the very beginning, as a unified academic
experience, reduces the redundancy inevitably found among
distinct but potentially overlapping courses. Seminar makes
sure our carefully selected students get all of what they
can get out of the year, and enhances the prospects for a
unique bonding experience among each year's class.
The Television Segment
Recent Guest Speakers
Electives
The program's electives will help accommodate the wide range
of education and experience of our students. Electives might
fill a specific hole in the student's background; allow him
or her to pursue a scientific area of particular interest;
or grant a humanistic or arts perspective that will enrich
his or her writing. One student, with a strong background
in the necessary mathematics, might wish to enlarge his exposure
to the hard sciences through coursework in physics. A second
student might study science fiction, either through the Writing
Program, or through Literature, or both. A third student with
a special interest in the colonization of space, might take
an ethics or philosophy course in the fall, aerospace life
support engineering in the spring. You may see a partial list of subjects taken by previous students here.
The student's previous educational background will often
suggest options; it may, however, limit them as well. Each
elective choice will emerge through discussions among student
and faculty, sometimes in consultation with the department
in which a student hopes to take a subject. Many students
will find that offerings from MIT's Science,
Technology, and Society program, which includes courses
in the history of science and technology, are particularly
appropriate.
Thesis
The thesis is a substantial and ambitious piece of writing
about science or scientists, completed over the course of
the academic year; normally, it is around 10,000-12,000 words.
While demanding the intensive research of a traditional academic
thesis, this writing project is aimed at general, rather than
academic, readers. It can be journalistic, literary, investigative,
historical, even personal -- so long as it meaningfully bears
on science, technology, or medicine. In any case, it tackles
the subject with greater depth and thoughtfulness, and to
a higher degree of polish and refinement, than normally possible
in a regular classroom setting.
At first frequently, then less so over the course of the
year, students meet in Thesis Seminar (a class distinct from
the Advanced Science Writing Seminar) to discuss, refine,
and develop their thesis projects. About six weeks into the
fall semester, they are assigned individual thesis advisors
with whom they meet regularly for the rest of the year.
Candidates for the Graduate Program should have in mind,
even at the time they apply, several ideas about the sorts
of topics or approaches they might wish to pursue.
2007 Thesis Excerpts
2006 Thesis Excerpts
2005 Thesis Excerpts
2003-2004 Thesis Excerpts
Internship
With the help and under the direction of an advisor from
within the program, the student will secure an internship
for the summer following the regular academic year. Tailored
to the background and interests of the student, and intended
to broadly complement his or her classroom experience and
career goals, the internship can take a variety of forms but
must always include substantial writing. The student might
find a place with a newspaper or popular magazine, a book
publisher, a television or radio station, a science publication,
a museum, or even a working independent science writer. In
some circumstances, students might complete their internships
by working with one of our core faculty on a writing project.
Another alternative is to secure a regular science writing
position, the first ten weeks of which would satisy the internship
requirement. The internship is monitored by the faculty advisor
during the summer, earns academic credit, and is graded pass-fail.
List of Previous Internships
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