To earn a graduate certificate at Washington University, a student must be currently enrolled in an applicable Washington University PhD program; apply and be accepted to the graduate certificate program; complete all courses required by the academic unit offering the certificate; maintain satisfactory academic progress; fulfill all academic and residence requirements; and apply for program completion (graduation) via Workday Student. Graduate certificates are not standalone programs and are only available to current students in applicable Arts & Sciences doctoral programs. Thus, graduate certificates are conferred at the same time as the student’s PhD.
Program Requirements
- Total Units Required: 15
- Certificate Length: Varies
- Students will be awarded the certificate at the time of completion of their PhD. Therefore, time to completion varies based on the length of their program.
- Note: Students must be enrolled in 9 graduate credits each semester to retain full-time status. As students complete their coursework, if enrolled in fewer than 9 graduate credits, they must enroll in a specific Arts & Sciences graduate course that will show 0 units but does count as full-time status. Students should connect with their department to ensure proper enrollment prior to Add/Drop.
- Grade Requirement: 2.7, Students must earn a B– or higher in each course for it to count toward the certificate.
Required Courses
The goal of the certificate is to ensure that students have a solid basis in probability and statistics, inference, and quantitative research design as well as some depth of experience in a more advanced topic area. As such, students completing the certificate are required to take at least five courses, the categories of which are shown below. Some courses appear in more than one area, but a course can only be used to fill one of the requirements. In consultation with the certificate advisor, students may substitute equivalent courses or more demanding mathematical treatments of the same course material. Students must earn at B– or higher in each course for it to count toward the certificate. For programming prerequisites, visit our Quantitative Data Analysis website.
Core Area Courses
Students must choose at least one course from each area:
Probability and Statistics
Inference and Quantitative Research Design
Focus Area Courses
Students must choose at least two courses from one of these three areas:
Longitudinal and Time-Series Data Analysis
Multivariate and Machine Learning Analysis
Data Mining and Specialized Research Tools
Course List
| Code |
Title |
Units |
| BSDC 8008 | Structural Equation Modeling | 3 |
| BSDC 8011 | Propensity Score Analysis | 3 |
| CSE 5104 | Data Mining | 3 |
| CSE 5107 | Machine Learning | 3 |
| ECON 8110 | Applied Econometrics | 3 |
| | 3 |
| PSYCH 5631 | Introduction to Computational Cognitive Science | 3 |
| PSYCH 8167 | Applied Bayesian Statistics for Psychologists | 3 |
| SDS 5310 | Bayesian Statistics | 3 |
| SWPM 6076 | Foundations of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for the Applied Social Sciences | 3 |
The fifth course can be from any of the three focus areas, or it can be a second course from the Probability and Statistics group.