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English Graduate Information |
FIRST STAGE OF THE PH.D. PROGRAM
All graduate students in the First and Second stages of the program are required to take a minimum of 12 units per quarter. All students are admitted directly into the Ph.D. program, and the Department does not have an MA program, as such. (In the event that you have to leave the Ph.D. program, however, you can leave with an MA if you complete nine letter-graded English courses and write an acceptable thesis.) Fourteen letter-graded courses are required. These courses must be English department courses at the graduate level (200 or above) or equivalent courses offered by English department faculty in other departments or programs. With the approval of the Vice Chair, Ph.D. students may apply to the fourteen course requirement up to three courses offered by faculty in departments other than English (such as literature in another language, history, art history, Afro-American studies, film, women's studies). Students pursuing the doctorate take English 596 (Directed Individual Study) each quarter, either under an individual professor or the Vice Chair. If you elect to write an MA thesis, you will take English 598 (MA Research and Thesis Preparation) each quarter. Students at any stage of the program may take courses for S/U grading, but such courses cannot be used to satisfy degree requirements. The work required to receive a grade of Satisfactory must be agreed on in advance with the instructor of the course. FIRST STAGE EVALUATION: At the beginning of your second year in the program, the Graduate Committee reviews your file, which includes the faculty's written reports on your course work as well as your grades, and instructs the Vice Chair to advise you as to your progress in the program. Students who entered the program with an MA may petition the Committee to grant credit toward the fourteen-course requirement for graduate courses taken elsewhere; at the Committee's discretion, a maximum of six such courses may be credited toward the UCLA degree. Each first-year student will be advised by a two-person committee composed of the Vice Chair for Graduate Studies and another faculty member. One of these faculty members, either the Vice Chair or the other member, will be as close as possible to the student's stated field(s) of interest; the other may be from an allied or more distant field, insofar as such diversity in perspective may be useful. Normally, the second member will be selected from the Graduate Committee; but, depending on the student's interests and needs, it may be appropriate to assign a member not from the Graduate Committee. The Vice Chair will make the assignments. The purpose of this two-person committee is to begin, and to provide an ongoing venue for, a critical discussion of the aims and methods of the student's program—a discussion which will continue in other forms until completion of the doctorate. The student will meet at least quarterly with these faculty in order to discuss coursework, language exams, and related matters, and to outline a path to the degree. The faculty will monitor the student’s progress and also, at the end of the first year, evaluate the student and make a recommendation to the Vice Chair (and the Graduate Committee) about the student's progress and continuation in the program. The evaluation will be based on performance in coursework, the accumulation of Incompletes, and satisfaction of the language requirement to date. The Vice Chair and the Graduate Committee will make the final determination about whether the student should continue in the program. ADVISING IN THE SECOND YEAR THROUGH THE PART I EXAM: By the end of the first year (and no later than the beginning of the second year), each student will form a three-person Mentoring Committee, whose members will have three principal duties: continued advising about coursework, language exams, and other matters; oversight of the student's composition of reading lists for the Part I exam (see below); and a more focused discussion of the student's individual aims and critical ambitions. Near the end of the first year, students will be advised by the Vice Chair about identifying and approaching prospective members of the Mentoring Committee, whose membership will be approved by the Vice Chair. There is no expectation that the second member of the Advising Committee will also be a member of the Mentoring Committee. The chair of the Mentoring Committee will be from the student's prospective field of specialization, but other members need not be. The student will consult at least quarterly with members of the committee in order to discuss progress toward the degree and related professional issues. As the student's interests evolve and gain focus, it may be appropriate to alter the membership of the committee. Likewise, sabbaticals and other interruptions on the part of faculty members will sometimes make it necessary to alter the membership. There is no requirement that all members of the Mentoring Committee serve on the student's Part I exam, but it will be normal for some, if not all, members to do so, and the membership of the Part I exam committee must be finalized in advance of the exam reading lists being approved. The Part I committee will be approved by the Vice Chair after consultation with the student and (if necessary) the Mentoring Committee. In composing the Mentoring Committee, students should bear in mind that not all faculty teach graduate courses each year (some even less often) but that such faculty may well be the most appropriate committee members. The structure and conduct of the exam will remain much the same, consisting of two historical periods (as currently defined) and a third field, which may be an additional historical field, one modeled on those currently approved, (e.g., African American literature, literary or critical theory, media studies), or one devised by the student. Each field's reading list will consist of approximately 30 primary texts (or bodies of work, as in the case of poems, short fiction, essays, etc.) and 10 critical texts that have been important to the development of the field, and it is expected that the historical periods will continue to require the inclusion of a substantial number of canonical works by major authors. The third field list will consist entirely of works not appearing on either of the two historical field lists. Because the student will be responsible for composing the lists for examination in the three fields, there will no be set lists. (The Graduate Program office will maintain, for reference, comprehensive historical period lists of primary texts and sample topic lists that have been approved in the past.) By the same token, student-composed lists for the historical periods may closely resemble one another in their choice of authors and texts, and it should be understood by faculty and students alike that the first purpose of the exam is to test the student's understanding of the principal works and contours of at least two historical periods. The third list should be broad in nature, while at the same time it is presumed (though not required) that it will point toward the prospectus and the Part II exam. Although each list may be put together in consultation primarily with an individual faculty member of the Mentoring Committee, the whole committee must approve the three lists taken together, and they must do so at least two quarters (six months) in advance of the exam. To ensure a rough equivalence in reading requirements, the Vice Chair will review all exam lists once they are approved by the committee; any significant deviations will be addressed. Part I exams should be completed no later than the end of the third year of study and preferably earlier. In order to schedule the exam earlier, students will be permitted to take the Part I exam before they have finished coursework so long as, at the time of the exam, they have satisfied the language requirement, have no more than two required courses remaining, and have no outstanding incompletes. The current stipulations about the number of times the exam or parts of it may be taken will be retained. Faculty will be reminded of their responsibility to conduct a rigorous exam, to be willing to judge that a student has failed, and to be willing, when a second failure has occurred, to instruct the Vice Chair that the student not be permitted to continue in the program. If you elect the thesis plan for the M.A., after a maximum of two years in the program, you will request a committee from the Vice Chair a minimum of two quarters before completion of the program. The committee will consist of three faculty members who will meet with you as a group to consider the thesis proposal. The thesis will be not less than forty pages (10,000 words) or more than sixty pages (15,000 words) in length. If you elect the thesis option, the thesis must be filed no later than the tenth quarter after admission. If you are in the Ph.D. program, you will receive the MA after you have satisfied one foreign language requirement and passed the First Qualifying Examination. |
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Guide to Graduate Study
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| Last Modified: October 23, 2007 | |||||