We eradicated boring lectures. The seminar method of instruction was introduced in the United States by a Johns Hopkins University postdoctoral student.
American students have historian Herbert Baxter Adams to thank for today’s give-and-take classroom vibe between professors and students. A postdoctoral fellow in history, Adams imported the seminar method to the United States from Heidelberg University in Germany, where he earned his doctorate in 1876 prior to starting his career at Johns Hopkins. Adams championed the idea that graduate students would learn more by conducting their own research and then presenting it in class for critique from both the professor and fellow students, rather than the old-school style of listening to lectures and taking exams. Adams’ philosophy subsequently caught on at colleges and universities across the country.
That spirit of inquiry fostered by Adams and his colleagues is alive today at Johns Hopkins, where the university’s nine academic divisions offer full-time graduate programs that provide rigorous coursework and research opportunities with world-renowned faculty. For working professionals, there are also numerous part-time and nondegree programs available.
Throughout the university’s campuses locally and worldwide, more than 21,000 full-time and part-time graduate students study in 180 fields.
The Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and Whiting School of Engineering offer 36 different full-time graduate programs.
Graduate students in the Krieger and Whiting schools collaborate at the Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute to protect people, structures, and the planet by advancing the fundamental science of materials and structures under extreme conditions. They develop science-based tools for academia, industry, and the government.
Faculty and graduate-level researchers collaborate with government and industry to address the nation’s cybersecurity and privacy issues in the Whiting School’s Information Security Institute. It has been designated as a Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance by the National Security Agency.
Students pursuing a Master of Arts in international studies from SAIS’ Hopkins-Nanjing Center complete coursework and a thesis entirely in Chinese. This demands a high level of Chinese language proficiency and well-developed cultural sensitivity.
The School of Education offers a full-time Doctor of Philosophy program, an interdisciplinary approach to address policy and practice challenges associated with improving children’s classroom success from preschool through high school.
The Peabody Conservatory’s graduate-level conducting program is highly competitive: The acceptance rate is only about one in seven.
Students in the full-time Master of Public Health program spend 11 months interacting with faculty at the Bloomberg School of Public Health who are renowned for teaching, practice, and ongoing research around the world.
The School of Medicine was the first major medical school in the U.S. to admit women. Today, approximately 50 percent of the students in the school are women.
In the School of Nursing’s Simulation Center, graduate students get hands-on experience without risk to patients. Instead, they may first practice their skills with “Sim Fam” members like Harvey, Noelle, and Sim Baby.
Candidates for a Global MBA at the Carey Business School take a yearlong course called Discovery to Market, where students work with inventors and entrepreneurs to commercialize actual scientific discoveries.
‘U.S. News & World Report’ graduate rankings:
Bloomberg School of Public Health: 1
School of Education: 14 (tie)
School of Nursing: 1
School of Medicine: 3 (tie)
Biomedical engineering: 1
Internal medicine: 1
Surgery: 1 (tie)
Radiology: 1
Anesthesiology: 2