Certificate Requirements

All graduate degrees are awarded through departments and, therefore, graduate students wishing to pursue the Graduate Certificate in Population Studies must be first admitted into a departmental program. As certificates are only conferred with a degree, students must also make sure they satisfy all departmental degree requirements (for specifics, please consult departmental staff).

In addition, the Graduate Certificate on Population Studies requires 9-12 credits, dependent upon status as M.A., M.S. or Ph.D. student. The required courses include:

  • two required core courses that focus on population studies theory, methods, and issues;
  • for M.A. or M.S. students, an additional two courses with substantial population studies content (list below). One course must be outside the student’s home discipline;
  • for Ph.D. students, an additional three courses with substantial population studies content (list below). Two courses must be outside the student’s home discipline.

Required Extracurricular Offerings

In addition to coursework, the Graduate Certificate on Population Studies requires participation in extracurricular offerings relevant to population studies. For M.A. and M.S. students, 10 hours of participation in extracurricular activities are required, 15 hours for Ph.D. students. (Please alert the Certificate Director (Lori.Hunter@colorado.edu) of your intention to participate in such events for Certificate credit.)

Such offerings can include:

  • Attendance at the bi-weekly Population & Health workshop in IBS
    Typically 1-hour sessions, check IBS website for schedule.
  • Attendance at CUPC research presentations in IBS
    Typically 1-hour sessions, check IBS website for schedule.
  • Participation in methodological short courses and workshops
    Typically ranging from 4 – 40 hours. ICPSR offers summer workshops in Boulder each year, check their schedule.
  • IBS Center for Research and Computing Services offers these on occasion
    Check IBS events.
  • Annual conference on “Integrating Genetics and Social Sciences” (IGSS)
    Typically held in the Fall. Check IBS events or write Jason.Boardman@colorado.edu
  • Annual Migration-Climate-Health workshops
    Typically held in May. Check IBS events or write Lori.Hunter@colorado.edu
  • IBS’ graduate student Professionalization Seminars (“ProSem”)
    Check IBS events or write Stefanie.Mollborn@colorado.edu
  • CARTSS dissertation writing workshop
    Check IBS events or write Carew.Boulding@colorado.edu
  • Many institutions outside of CU offer workshops as well
    For example, check websites for Stanford, Berkeley

Courses

Two required courses:

Sociology

  • SOCY 6012 (3) Population Issues, Problems, and Policies. Presents contemporary perspectives on relations between population and society. Focuses on mortality, fertility, and migration, the major demographic areas, with reviews of specific demographic phenomena and controversies.

Geography

  • GEOG 6732 (3) Formal Population Geography: Analysis and Forecasting. In-depth introduction to formal demography. In addition to learning the basic demographic tools used nowadays in fertility, marriage, mortality, migration and forecasting/projections, it also looks at some potential links between formal and statistical demographic work that would enable the student to apply some of the methods learnt in an econometric or multivariate setting.

Other potential courses:

For courses not on the list below, please check with Certificate Director to assure sufficient demographic content.

Economics

  • ECON 8686 (3) Labor Economics
  • ECON 8784 (3) Economic Development
  • ECON 8764 (3) History of Economic Development

Geography

  • GEOG 5292 (3) Migration, Immigrant Adaptation, and Development
  • GEOG 5622 (3) City Life
  • GEOG 5642 (3) Seminar: Urban Geography
  • GEOG 5662 (3) Seminar: Topics in Economic Geography
  • GEOG 5852 (3) Health and Medical Geography

Integrated Physiology

  • IPHY 5800 (3): Advanced Research and Study Design for Integrative Physiology

Political Science

  • PSCI 7021 (3) Latinos and U.S. Politics
  • PSCI 7022 (3) Seminar in Political and Economic Development
  • PSCI 7062 (3) The Politics of Ethnicity
  • PSCI 7181 (3) Immigration Law and Immigrants’ Rights
  • PSCI 7203 (3) Political Economy of International Migration and Policy

Sociology

  • SOCY 5071 (3) Social Stratification
  • SOCY 7002 (3) Social Disparities in Health
  • SOCY 7006 (3) Sociology of Sex and Gender
  • SOCY 7012 (3) The Social Demography of Race
  • SOCY 7014 (3) Gender, Race, Class, and Crime
  • SOCY 7017 (3) Population and Environment

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