Graduate students at Northeastern are eligible to enroll in the Graduate Certificate in Digital Humanities while completing degree requirements for their doctoral and master’s programs. Most DH Certificate classes will also fulfill a requirement or elective in a student’s home department curriculum. Students from a range of disciplines and fields—including History, English, and Journalism—have completed this certificate. Prospective students can also apply to the certificate as a standalone program.
Students typically complete the program within two years. Students who arrive with a clear plan for the final project, and are prepared to work intensively on it, could theoretically complete the certificate in two semesters. Students in PhD programs sometimes take additional time to complete the final project, particularly if it is integrated into their dissertation work.
Faculty and courses in the program come from a range of fields, including literary studies, history and public history, journalism and media, women’s/gender/sexuality studies, network science, political science, computer science, art and design, and sociology.
Current Northeastern MA and PhD students can signal their intention to pursue the Certificate by enrolling in the NULab Project Seminar (INSH 7910). Students who wish to pursue the standalone Certificate option will find information on how to apply here.
There is no formally required order for completing the courses in the DH Certificate. That said, it is generally helpful to take the introduction course prior to the elective, since the introduction will provide an opportunity to learn foundational skills that can then be more fully developed in the elective. The two semesters of the NULab Project Seminar course should be taken at whatever time you will best be able to make progress on your final project.
The program’s courses do not assume any specific digital skills, although most students who are interested in the program tend to have some basic background in this area. The level of technical expertise and the specific skills needed to complete the program will vary depending on what kind of project you want to build. If you’re a complete novice, we can offer mentoring and additional learning opportunities to help you get up to speed.
As part of the certificate, students will develop a project that involves a substantive design or implementation component, using digital methods to address a significant research question in the student’s field of study. Currently, students may follow two potential project types: a project “artifact” (that is, a single item such as a digital exhibit or edition) or a project “portfolio.” Regardless of which option the student chooses, it will be accompanied by a written project description and reflection (around 3,000 words), covering the project methods and justification, data, tools, standards, and other details of implementation. Students also share their projects with the NULab community in fifteen-minute presentations, typically scheduled for April in the year that the student completes the certificate. For more information about these guidelines, see here, and to view sample projects, see here.
For information about upcoming courses for the DH Graduate Certificate, please see the Upcoming Classes page on the NULab website. This page is updated regularly as information becomes available.
For information about DH projects happening at Northeastern, please visit the projects page. Additional projects that receive funding through the NULab can be found on the NULab seedling grants page. For other digital scholarship initiatives at Northeastern, visit the Digital Scholarship Group (DSG) project page. For ongoing and past projects from the Networks Science Institute at Northeastern, visit their research page.
The DH certificate is an interdisciplinary program with courses taught by NULab faculty from many different departments and schools. Students in this program can take classes from outside of their home departments. However, each department has a different registration process for classes outside the department, which might include a request form available either online or through a graduate coordinator. For information about all the classes from different departments that can be used to meet program requirements, please see the certificate requirements. Additional information regarding upcoming classes is available here.
For more information about this program, please email the Graduate Certificate Coordinator, Sarah Connell, sa.connell[at]northeastern[dot]edu.
-
Type of Program
- Graduate Certificate
-
Links and Resources
