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General Requirements for Graduate Degrees

 

Time Limit

Students working toward the MA degree must complete all requirements no later than five years from the date when they entered the degree program.

Students working toward the PhD degree must complete all requirements no later than nine years from the date when they entered the degree program. Students have fiveyears to reach candidacy, and four years post-candidacy to complete their degree.

Credit Hours

All MA programs in the Department of English require 54 graduate course credits.

The doctoral program in the Department of English requires 135 overall hours. This includes Teaching and Research hours, 54 hours of doctoral course credits, and either 45 credits from non-UC master’s course work or 54 credits from UC master’s course work.

 

No more than 16 credit hours in workshops may count toward the 54 course credits for any program.

Teaching Experience

Candidates for the master’s degree in the Literature and Creative Writing tracks and Doctoral candidates must have classroom teaching experience. This is arranged in cooperation with the Director of English Composition. Exceptions to the teaching requirement are noted for the MA Professional Writing and Editing track.

Foreign Language

Candidates for the MA in the Literature and Creative Writing tracks must demonstrate a reading proficiency in one foreign language. Candidates for the PhD must have basic reading knowledge of two foreign languages or an in-depth knowledge of one. In depth is defined as the ability to read literature in that language with a minimum of aids at the baccalaureate level of a major in that language.

The usual foreign languages for the MA are French, German, Spanish, or Latin; for the PhD, at least one of the languages should fall within the Indo-European group. Students can also take one of the Celtic languages (Modern Irish, Old Irish, Welsh, or Scots Gaelic) or Old English.

Exceptions to the foreign language requirement are noted under the MA Professional Writing and Editing specific requirements.

Students can fulfill a foreign language requirement in the following ways:

• complete a language sequence within the Department
• complete a graduate level reading language sequence in another department at UC followed by a proficiency exam
• submit evidence to the Graduate Director that one has completed a graduate language requirement in another program
• submit a transcript showing that, as an undergraduate, the student completed a language sequence resulting in proficiency
• complete a foreign-language reading exam at UC