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PhD Program Course Requirements
The first year of the program consists of basic coursework in microeconomic theory, econometrics, and mathematical methods.  It consists of the following courses: Students must earn a “B” or better (including “B-“) in each of these courses. If necessary, students can re-take these courses one time to achieve this standard. The first-year course requirements account for 20 credits (3 credits each for ECON 603, ECON 604, AREC 620, AREC 610 plus 4 credits each for AREC 623 and AREC 624).

First-year students are also expected to attend additional instruction during January and a workshop in June at the end of the first year. The January instruction involves learning econometrics software and the basics of writing journal papers. The June workshop helps students develop their research for publication in academic journals as well as oral presentation.  This workshop is useful for fostering the completion of the required research paper.

The second year of the program consists mainly of elective field coursework.  The normal second-year course load is 20 credits (6 courses of 3 credits each plus two 1-credit dissertation proposal preparation classes). All PhD students are required to complete one of the three following two-course fields in the Agricultural and Resource Economics Department:

Agricultural Policy

AREC 832, Agricultural Policy Analysis
AREC 825, Advanced Economic Welfare Analysis

Development Economics

AREC 845, Environment and Development Economics
AREC 846, Development Microeconomics (formerly AREC 869E)

Environmental and Resource Economics

AREC 785, Advanced Economics of Natural Resources
ECON 781, Environmental Economics

Additionally, each PhD student is required to take four additional 3-credit Departmental graduate courses of his or her own choosing. Two of these must be selected from those offered by the Department while the other two can be chosen from those offered either by the Department, the Economics Department, or supporting departments on campus with adviser approval.

During each semester of their second-year, students are also required to take a 1-credit course intended to help students develop a written dissertation proposal (AREC 869J and AREC 869K, Introduction to Prospectus Writing I and II, respectively).

The final course requirement is AREC 869P, Advanced Topics in Agricultural Economics (3 credits), which consists of more intensive preparation for writing a dissertation prospectus.  It is normally taken during the fall semester of the third year.  This requirement is waived for any student who has completed a dissertation prospectus and passed a prospectus examination before the fall semester of the third year.

For more specific information on these courses, see Course Descriptions.

For more information, contact webmaster@arec.umd.edu

Last updated: 03/10/2009