Graduate Certificate

The CDH offers a Graduate Certificate in Digital Humanities that trains the next generation of humanities researchers in cutting-edge theories, methods, and computational approaches that are transforming fields ranging from medieval history to media studies.

Certificate students have the opportunity to expand their methodological toolkit, and to build a community of praxis that helps them imagine the expanded applications of humanistic thought.

The Certificate also equips Princeton graduate students to be interdisciplinary, forward-thinking researchers in a competitive academic job market. Certificate students are primed for careers on the tenure track as well a broader range of positions in cultural heritage institutions, industry or the public sphere.

A student who obtains a Certificate in Digital Humanities will have the qualification appear on their University transcript, demonstrating that they have met standards of competency in the field.

Please note that the CDH is not a degree-granting unit. In order to join the Graduate Certificate in DH, students must first apply and be admitted to a home department's PhD program via the Graduate Admission Office.

Admission to the Certificate is open to PhD students enrolled in a Princeton humanities department (including History and History of Science) who are interested in applying concepts from critical data studies and media theory, or in using quantitative, data-intensive, or coding methods in their research. Students must be in good academic standing and have the written support of their academic advisor or the director of graduate studies in their department. There are no prerequisites.

The Certificate has three components. Progress toward the candidate’s PhD must continue while completing the three requirements below.

1. Two graduate-level courses: students must receive a grade of B or better in each course. Candidates are permitted to have their two certificate courses also count toward their degree progress. These two courses include:
   1. One required core course, CDH 507 / HUM 507 “Data in the Humanities.”
   2. One elective course from a list approved by the Certificate directors. This course must be taken outside the candidate’s home department.
      1. Certificate directors will publish an approved list of elective courses each semester. Students may petition for an additional graduate course to be included on that list.
      2. Periodically, relevant courses are offered by Inter-University Doctoral Consortium (IUDC) partner institutions in the tri-state area. IUDC courses may fulfill the Certificate’s elective course requirement. (For reference, a list of relevant IUDC courses for the Spring 2024 semester is available on the CDH website.)
2. Original research requirement: a significant portion of the student’s dissertation must demonstrate proficiency in critical-data and media theories or data-driven methodologies relevant to the humanities.
3. Colloquium series participation and presentation: candidates will present their research in a CDH-sponsored Graduate Colloquium, open to attendance by the university community.
   1. The student’s presentation will be related to their dissertation, and should involve engagement with humanities data, code, visualization, empirical or quantitative methods, media theory, and/or digital editions and exhibits.
   2. Candidates are required to give one presentation, serve once as respondent to another presenter, and attend each event in the colloquium series for at least two semesters.
4. (optional) Participation in Pedagogy or Project Management Workshops: these workshops will complement the student’s participation in the colloquium series.