MALAS COMPREHENSIVE
EXAM UPCOMING DATES
Spring 2018
Deadline to send the MALAS Graduate Director
your three areas of emphasis, booklists, and
names of the three Professors supervising
your three areas of emphasis and authoring your
MALAS comprehensive exam questions: February 1, 2018
Exam date: Friday, April 20, 2018, 8am-2pm
Summer 2018
Deadline to send the MALAS Graduate Director
your three areas of emphasis, booklists, and
names of the three Professors supervising
your three areas of emphasis and authoring your
MALAS comprehensive exam questions: June 1, 2018
Exam date: Friday, July 27, 2018, 8am-2pm
Fall 2018
Deadline to send the MALAS Graduate Director
your three areas of emphasis, booklists, and
names of the three Professors supervising
your three areas of emphasis and authoring your
MALAS comprehensive exam questions: October 1, 2018
Exam date: Friday, November 30, 2018, 8am-2pm
|
|
MALAS Comprehensive Exam INSTRUCTIONS
Updated September 27, 2017
In Fall 2011, the MALAS Program instituted another culminating option for graduation: the MALAS Comprehensive Exam. It is your choice to
either choose
the MALAS Comprehensive Exam or to complete a Thesis or Project, and
there are pros and
cons for each choice.
There are TWO specific courses on the online catalog
that pertain to the Comprehensive Exam option. The first, MALAS 795, is
the most important as graduate students who elect to pursue the MALAS
Comprehensive Exam option must have MALAS 795 on their Program of Study
in order to take the exam and to graduate. The second, MALAS 799C only
comes into play if a MALAS graduate student fails the comprehensive
exam:
IMPORTANT
MALAS 795. Studies in Liberal Arts and Sciences (3)
Cr/NC
Prerequisite: Graduate standing. Individual preparation for comprehensive
examination for students taking the Master of
Liberal Arts and Sciences under Plan B.
RARE
MALAS 799C. Comprehensive Examination Extension (0)
Cr/NC
Prerequisite: Completion or concurrent
enrollment in degree program courses. Registration required of students whose only
requirement is completion
of the comprehensive examination for the master’s
degree. Registration
in 799C limited to two semesters.
The MALAS Comprehensive Exam is offered in the Fall and Spring semesters, and
is available also in the summer for qualified graduate
students.
What is the difference between the Exam and
the Thesis?
The Thesis needs to be published via standard
publishing guidelines
found online.
The MA thesis is an in-depth research document focused on a topic of
your choosing; people who are extremely worried about publishing
deadlines or writing an exceptionally long, challenging paper may wish
to shy away from this option. Note: the average length of a MALAS
Master's Thesis is anywhere from 60 to 100 pages including
bibliography, footnotes, etc.
This is where the MALAS Comprehensive Exam comes in. To put
it simply, at the
end of the semester of your choosing (at which time
you enroll in the
above MALAS 795 class), you take an exam based on three areas of emphasis
of your choosing
(which is great for eclectic MALAS students). These
areas can be
independent of each other or interrelated.
The MALAS Comprehensive Exam uses a Distinction/Pass/Fail standard and is administered all on
the same day over
six hours; each exam is an hour and fifty minutes
long, with a break between each question.
Here are the specifics of how the Comprehensive Exam
works:
You (the MALAS student) meet with the director to
discuss your choice
between the Comprehensive Exam, the Thesis or the Project. Ideally, at this point, you will know
the three areas that you want to focus on for your Comprehensive
Exam. You’ll be informed that you need three Faculty supervisors that
are willing to oversee one of each of the areas, for a total of three
advisors. The advisor is the one who authorizes your final list of
selected texts for one of your three test subject areas and authors the
questions you will have on the exam and grades the test at the end--so
keep that in mind for your choices. Note that your area supervisors do
not need to be tenured or tenure-track Assistant, Associate, or Full
Professors at SDSU, but it is preferable that they are and especially
important that they are experts in the area of study you have
developed. Lecturers at SDSU
are welcome to serve as area supervisors but please let the MALAS
Director know about this via email as soon as possible.
Once you have your subject area supervisors, you will come up with a
reading list of 7-12 books, critical articles, anthologies, movies,
etc, that your professor/area supervisor agrees constitutes a
Masters-level bibiliography for the selected area. Some of these may be
drawn from your graduate work in MALAS seminars, but it is also
important for you to add to what you have experienced
in seminars with
your own findings/discoveries/researches.
Over the course of the semester, you will be expected to carefully read
and research the agreed upon items from your three subject areas--it is
up to you and your supervising professor for each subject area whether
you meet to discuss your progress on the reading list during the term.
About two weeks before the exam, it is recommended you break contact
with your supervising professor in your three selected areas of
emphasis--at that point, the MALAS director will directly communicate
with your supervising scholars. The director will direct your
supervisors to come up with 2-3 questions for the Comprehensive Exam
based on your approved reading lists (although you will respond to only
ONE of these provided choices per area of emphasis. NOTE: you do NOT get to know what the questions are
beforehand.
The
Comprehensive Exam is not an easier choice than the Thesis and, in
general, it does not have less value than the thesis if you are
considering going on for a Ph.D. You must demonstrate mastery of the
material to the point of being able to pull specific examples from as
many of the works as you can to support your case without having them
in front of you as reference. The best part of selecting the MALAS
Comprehensive Exam over the thesis or the project? It is over in one
day, and the task of chasing down your three thesis committee member
professors (sometimes an onerous chore) to agree on your final thesis
draft is not part of things-to-do list!
Sample Case Histories:
Example #1: Richard Grant Muir
Richard Grant Muir had been taking courses on Social
Justice through
MALAS and the Women’s Studies Department. After discussing his areas of expertise with Dr.
Nericcio, Richard
decides on the following areas to be tested on:
1. Cultural Studies
2. Gender Studies
3. Sexuality Studies
This is an actual case history, and appears here with Mr. Muir's permission.
The MALAS Comprehensive
Exam was a better choice for Mr. Muir than the Thesis
because, as he was
completing the MALAS program in only one year, said circumstances
did not give him
enough time to write a Thesis--so he opted for the
Exam.
Example #2: Destiny "La Xochi" Sánchez
Janille started the MALAS program to pursue a wide variety
of study
options; she had completed her Dual B.A. in Music
Education and Biology
at her previous university, and she wanted a way of
focusing on each in
her Master’s Program. Janille decided on the following
areas of focus
for her Exam:
1. Academic benefits of Music
Programs in inner city middle schools
2. Auditory stimuli and the effect
on brain functions
3. Matching Musical Instruments to
kids of varying personality types
While some of the areas could easily have some overlap, this option enabled her to focus on the
areas of her
academics that she was the most passionate about.
Indeed, the fact that
the questions were so different made writing the Exams
easier, as she
was not confusing sources!
Example #3: Jerome Tran
Jerome had spent his undergraduate degree getting a
general education
in Liberal Arts, with a Minor in German. The MALAS
program seemed like
a fantastic choice, as it enabled him to pick from
many different
classes and fields of study that peaked his interest.
Because of his
varying interests in many different things, Jerome
felt that the Exam
option enabled him to be as diverse as he could, while
still showing
off his knowledge skills. After deliberating with the
MALAS Director/Graduate Advisor, he decided on the following areas:
1. How Transcendentalism impacted
immigrants in the 1800’s
2. The Surreal art movement of South
Korea in the 1990’s
3. Evolution of the Germanic
language in propaganda from World War I through World
War II.
Really, none of these questions had overlap, but that
is exactly what
Jerome wanted! The Exam truly enabled him to be able
to highlight
specific areas of competency, while also illuminating
his being a
relative Jack of all Trades.
Five actual past MALAS Comprehensive Exams
appear below as reference; do NOT feel the need to mirror exactly off
of the examples provided--every MALAS graduate student is different and
so expect exams to vary widely.
William A. Nericcio
Director/Graduate Advisor | MALAS
bnericci@mail.sdsu.edu
|
