An important note: For the more up-to-date information pertaining M.A. program, check the Graduate Study Guide.

What lies ahead of you when you finish your coursework? MA Thesis or Examination

Obtaining an MA in ELS involves two steps: the coursework and the MA thesis or examination. Thus after you complete your coursework, you have the option to either write an MA thesis under the direction of an ESL faculty member or take the MA Examination of the Department of English. The drawback of the MA examination is that is tests literature knowledge besides the knowledge in the field of ESL which is in this case is your area of specialization.

The MA Thesis
If you decide to write a thesis to obtain your MA diploma, the wonderful side-effect is that you get to work with your major advisor. The two of you decide on a topic for your thesis—a really exciting one—and the approach of how to conduct your research. You need to take into account the limitations you have for writing your thesis. Even though your thesis needs to be similar to a doctoral dissertation regarding topic strength, quality, as well as other aspect, it should be restricted in range and scope.

At the beginning of the thesis writing process, you also need to identify the faculty members to serve on the Advisory Committee. They will advise you on all questions you have regarding your thesis, and more. Do not ignore asking for help with even small detail-like questions like format requirements or citation style. The Manual for the Preparation of Graduate Theses contains all the formatting policies required for the final version of your thesis. If you know all necessary information from early on, they will save you time in the long run.

Now that you have started working on your dissertation, keep in mind the further deadlines. You need to plan ahead for your thesis defense, and since the last week of classes (dead week) is out of the question (no final examinations be conducted during that week), you need to plan the defense sometime before that. When you have decided on the date, you have to actually request for that time. And there is a deadline: you must schedule your thesis defense at least two weeks prior to the actual defense by completing Graduate School Form GS-8 “Request for Appointment of Examining Committee”. You hand it in to the English Graduate Office from where it will be forwarded to the Graduate School.

Another important deadline again is that you also need to distribute your thesis to the three members of your committee at least two weeks before the day of the defense. The committee members need to inform the English Graduate Office that they received it in a timely manner. There is a departmental foreign language requirement that needs to be fulfilled before you can defend your thesis, however, as far as I know, a foreign language knowledge is a prerequisite for being accepted, so you’re good there.

So, you have finished your thesis and you’ve defended it! Congratulation! On last step to get out from the way is to deposit your thesis. For this, you need to make a final deposit appointment with the Thesis/Dissertation Office in the Graduate School so that your thesis is officially deposited. You also need to deposit a copy with the English Graduate Office.


The MA Examination
Your other choice for getting your MA degree is taking the MA esamination. Now you have to know that this option is more restricted than wiring the thesis. The M.A. Examination is given only twice each year. The deadline is announced each semester, but you need to sign up in the Grad Office before that to take the exam.

The M.A. Examination is a four-hour sit down exam of two parts: Part I consists of essay questions in a) literature (based on British and American texts), and b) the student’s area of specialization; Part II is extemporaneous explication of poems. The problems in the exam are not random selections from all literature known. There is an MA Reading List posted on the bulletin board outside of the Graduate Studies Office that you need to prepare for. As an ESL student, time wise you will have one hour on a question or questions dealing with any book on the reading list, and two hours on ESL-related questions.

Now you have two weeks from the exam to get your results. You can get “High Pass”, “Pass”, “Low Pass”, or “Fail” for this exam. If you fail the MA examination, you may take it a second time within that calendar year; however, you don’t have the option to switch to writing a thesis instead of retaking the exam. You may want to see how you performed on the exam or if failed, you might want to make an appeal. However, keep in mind that this needs to be done within two weeks from when you were reported the grade