CMS students may request to complete an individual reading or research course with a faculty member of their choice who must have a graduate faculty (SGS) appointment through CMS. Barring exceptional circumstances, directed reading courses will be authorized only for students in the second year of registration, on topics directly related to their main research areas, and for which CMS or one of the cognate departments has no comparable offering.

The student is responsible for finding a faculty member who is willing to work with the student. (Browse the list of CMS Faculty.) Together they will create the learning goals, deliverables, resources, timeline, and mechanism for feedback. With input from the supervising faculty member, each student will submit the SGS Reading and/or Research Course form along with a brief course outline that includes all of the following: course title (maximum 60 characters) and a paragraph describing the body of work to be studied; learning goals and objectives; required readings (journal articles, book chapters, (non)governmental documents, etc.) necessary to meet learning goals and objectives; assignments with corresponding due dates and relative weights; a statement regarding the penalty for late submission of work; and planned contact with instructor and mechanism for obtaining instructor feedback.

The form and outline should be submitted to the Graduate Administrator, for approval by the PhD Coordinator, at least one week before the sessional deadline to enrol in courses.