Another question, this time about a Course History listing.

[amyinwyoming]

Sorry about the multiple posts folks.  I noticed the program I'm applying to does not want a CV, so I just spoke to an admissions officer who informed me that if I want to send a CV that's fine.  She then started listing off other "common" supplementary materials that students often send in, and she mentioned that some students submit a list of

Comments

[homericlaughter]

What's the difference between this and a transcript?

Sometimes the course title on your transcript tells the reader exactly dick about what the course was about. For example, in undergrad I took three different courses called Special Topics in Classical Civilization. Or, as it read on my transcript "Sp Tpcs: Classical Civ". Each one of those courses was completely different but that's definitely not clear from the transcript at all.

If you submit a list of courses, then you can list the full course title, the topic, maybe even a description. This also helps in dealing with extremely ambiguously or stupidly titled courses.

Should I make it in a table-type of format on Word?

I have a Relevant Coursework section in my CV. If you're interested in doing it that way, reply and I'll let you know how I structured it. If it's a separate document, I don't think it much matters as long as it's legible.

Also, is it going to backfire? In reading a lot of the course descriptions for this specific program, it seems like many of the courses

[amyinwyoming]

Thanks so much! I think I may include the coursework on my CV -- do you mind sharing how you structured the Relevant Coursework section in your CV? That would be great. Thanks in advance.

[homericlaughter]

Sure. Under the education section of my CV, I have the programmes I've graduated from listed in reverse chronological order. Under it, I have a section called Relevant Coursework.

To do this, I made a list of courses I've taken that are relevant to my area of study. Then, I broke down those courses into general categories. What categories you use will depend on what the important streams in your field are. Once I had the categories worked out, I entered everything into the Relevant Coursework section, changing the names of the courses into something more descriptive, if necessary. I find that the category approach works for me because it allows me to demonstrate my background in a way that isn't immediately evident on a transcript. I'm interdisciplinary, too, so it also allows me to pull courses from multiple disciplines and demonstrate how they fit together.

Actually, it might be easier to e-mail you my CV so that you can see what I'm talking about, so if you want, just e-mail me at homericlaughter@gmail.com, and I'll send it to

[mallyns]

I would love to also see what a good CV looks like. A few on the web have things like age, gender and so forth which I don't think belongs on a CV at all. Would you mind sharing your CV with me as well?

[tisiphone]

The course list is useful if you have nondescript or misleading course names, or if you want to include your reading lists of other relevant information. For example, in my program the actual content of the capstone courses change all the time, and the foundation survey courses are very eclectic in their coverage. So I have a course list that tells people what I actually took, that "Junior Seminar II" Is "traditional and modern social movements" and "Senior Seminar I" is "Media and politics in the global south" and so on. I wouldn't worry about listing the materials you've already covered though- you can expect to have some overlap, and they won't be the same as in undergrad.

[fullofpink]

Also, is it going to backfire? In reading a lot of the course descriptions for this specific program, it seems like many of the courses are pretty much the same as what I took as an undergrad (obviously more advanced, but the core concepts taught will be a review for me). I don't want them saying "Oh this girl already took these classes, let's admit someone who hasn't

[thruyourveins]

If anything, in your SOP I would point out that you've already taken classes in this similar manner and that with this background you would make a fine candidate.

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