Middle Eastern Studies - MA orientations?

[kylebellows]

I'm looking at a range of MES masters programs right now. Judging from the posters here, it looks like lots of people who enrolled in MES programs in the new semester are people who didn't get in to their top-choice PhD programs.

Is this a safe assumption to make? For all intents and purposes, I'm looking at the MA as a terminal degree (assuming I get accepted somewhere, insha'allah). Am I in the minority here? Do schools orient their programs as either PhD prep or professional prep? Would this affect the program's competitiveness?

Thanks all, good luck.

[Balatro]

I would imagine most schools orient their programs to work as either a terminal masters or as a foundation to further graduate study. I've come to know a couple of individuals that did the MA in Middle Eastern studies at Chicago (http://cmes.uchicago.edu/index.html) through their Division of the Humanities. Some were serving in the military and were granted approval by their branch for the study, others went on to work for non-profits that catered to the middle eastern community in Chicago and NYC, some were clergy and used it was a focus for their inter-religious work, and others used it as springboard to get into a PhD program at Chicago or other schools.

There does seem to be a trend amongst the board that individuals who didn't get into their top choice schools, opted to pursue a Masters in order to make their application stronger the next time around. The general trend of this forum seems to be that most of its users are ultimately interested in PhD work but there are some strictly Masters applicants. Also, it's becoming more the norm that PhD programs require you to have a Masters (or at least seem to prefer applicants with one) so the individuals with a PhD in mind (either for the future or already attending) are bound to have a treasure trove of information that will benefit you.