Course Requirements

For students of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Tibetan Studies

The student must take six one-semester content courses (in addition to EAAS GR6990 and GR6991, see below) for a letter grade of B or higher. Classes taken for Pass/Fail or for ‘R’ credit do not count toward the degree. This will give the student a total of 24 course credits according to the normal counting of credit/hr. All courses must be at the 4000-level and above. 4000-level courses in EALAC are graduate/advanced undergraduate seminars. 6000-level, 8000-level, and 9000-level courses in EALAC are graduate colloquia and research seminars. Students can expect the level of difficulty and amount of material in the target language to increase from the 6000 through 9000 levels. The student is strongly urged to take higher (6000-level and above) graduate level courses when possible.

Any combination of EALAC graduate courses will count toward the degree. Classes can be outside the student’s area of specialization. Students may also take relevant courses in other departments, but these courses must be approved by the MA Program Director prior to registration if they are to count toward the content course requirement. Students must submit a brief rationale, the course name, instructor, course description, and syllabus (when it is available). If the course is in addition to those required by the department, no special permission is needed.

EALAC offers two methodology courses in the spring semester designed for students in the EALAC MA program: EAAS GR6200, “Workshop in East Asian History”; EAAS GR6400, “Critical Approaches to East Asian Studies.” These courses will familiarize EALAC MA students with the critical approaches necessary to analyze East Asian history, literature, film, and culture in a comparative framework. These courses will also provide students with strategies for writing research papers and the MA thesis. The student is required to take the methodology course appropriate to his or her discipline, to be determined in consultation with the MA thesis advisor. The required MA methodology course does not count for one of the six required content courses. It must be taken in addition to the six content courses. 

Students may apply up to two semesters of Classical Chinese, two semesters of Classical Japanese, two semesters of Classical Tibetan, or one semester of Advanced Korean in Mixed Script (Korean GR8010) toward the six required content courses. One year of modern languages (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) in the fourth- or fifth-year level can also be applied toward one of the six required content courses if the student is a non-native speaker. The total number of content courses than can be fulfilled through language courses cannot exceed two. One methodological course in language pedagogy may be accepted towards the six-course requirement.

The choice of courses must be approved by the MA Director.

For students of Chinese Pedagogy

Students of Chinese pedagogy must take seven one-semester content courses for a letter grade of B or higher. All courses must be at the 4000-level and above. Additionally, all students must register for the MA Thesis Research and MA Thesis Writing independent study courses (2 credits each, see item 2 below). This brings the total course credits to 32.

Students may take relevant courses in other departments, or at Teachers College, but these courses must be approved by the Chinese Pedagogy Program Director prior to registration if they are to count toward the degree. Students must submit a brief rationale, the course name, instructor, course description, and syllabus (when it is available). If the course is in addition to those required by the department, no special permission is needed. Below are the required courses:

  1. CHNS GU4301 Intro to Classical Chinese I
  2. CHNS GU4302 Intro to Classical Chinese II
  3. CHNS GU4019 History of the Chinese Language
  4. CHNS GU4904 The Acquisition of Chinese as a Second Language
  5. CHNS GR5001 Chinese Linguistics and Language Pedagogy
  6. (1) Chinese history course [elective]
  7. (1) Chinese literature course [elective]
  8. EAAS GR6990 MA Thesis Research
  9. EAAS GR6991 MA Thesis Writing