宾州州立大学帕克分校

Graduate instruction at the master's and doctoral degree level is offered in the following areas: United States (19th and 20th century); Europe (Medieval, Early Modern, and Modern); Asia (Late Imperial and 20th century); Latin America (Colonial and Modern).

Only students focusing their course of study on the department’s four primary areas of strength (Latin America, Early Modern Global, 19th-century United States, and Late Imperial and Republican China) are admitted into the graduate program. Courses in all other areas are offered on a regular basis and encouraged as secondary areas of focus.

DEGREE REQUIREMENTS

The Director of Graduate Studies, who supervises the overall graduate program in history and maintains student records, will assign newly admitted graduate students to advisers on the basis of each student's expressed area of interest. Advisers provide assistance in planning courses of study, guidance in choosing scholarly papers and dissertation topics, direction in conducting research, and career counseling.

Students who serve as graduate assistants will be given a variety of experiences as they assist different professors, ranging from paper-grading and administering exams, to preparing and delivering occasional lectures, to conducting review or discussion sections for large lecture courses.

Candidates for the M.A. degree must earn a minimum of 36 credits of course work that can be counted towards a graduate degree, of which 12 credits will be in the student's primary area and 6 credits in one secondary area. At least 30 credits must be at the 500 level, with no more than 6 credits of HIST 596. The only required course is HIST 500. Course work offered by outside departments may be scheduled as part of the student’s program with approval of the student’s academic committee and the Director of Graduate Studies. In some cases, students may be required to take additional credits in order to make up deficiencies in foreign language skills and/or undergraduate coursework.

Reading proficiency in at least one foreign language must be demonstrated no later than the beginning of the second year of residence.

Students are required to convene two separate, formal meetings with their advisers and master's committees: Committee Formation Meeting and the Master's oral examination. The convening of the student’s master's committee must take place no later than the end of the first year in the master's program. Every student should, in consultation with the permanent adviser, select at least two other members of the Graduate Faculty to serve on their master's committee (for a minimum total of three faculty members). There must be faculty representation of each of the students' two fields (selected from the department's list of officially recognized fields). At this first meeting there should be a discussion and approval of the general program plan (seminars, courses and other requirements).

Students must hold a Master’s oral examination. The examination consists of an oral defense of two research papers written while in the M.A. program in two department-defined fields of study (e.g., 19th century US and Modern Europe). The research papers must be of a length, substance, and quality that the committee deems to be of journal article-caliber. Students must submit the papers to the committee a minimum of two weeks prior to the oral examinations; the papers then must be orally presented and successfully defended before the committee in the M.A. examination. Submission and defense of these two research papers constitutes the culminating experience for the Master of Arts degree.