MA seminars

[SamStone]

 I was wondering what graduate seminars are like in an MA setting—in terms of workload (e.g., how many books are typically assigned), schedule, paper length expectations, etc.

 

I am just finishing an MA at Fuller Seminary and have taken PhD seminars here...I am just wondering how different a seminar in an MA-only setting might be. I am assuming that the seminars are not terribly different, but there would probably be some degree of difference since the purpose of an MA and PhD differ. Also, Fuller is on the quarter system, so classes are only 10 weeks long and seem to fly by.

 

So I guess I'm trying to just get a picture of what my school life will look like in the fall. 

 

Anyone with an MA (or MA seminar experience) have any thoughts?

[Monadology]

It will vary from faculty member to faculty member (and from class to class) as far as the workload. There is a seminar on Expressivism at UW-Milwaukee this semester that will have read a few books by the semester's end. I audited a seminar on Hegel where some weeks (though not most) we read ~100 pages from the Phenomenology of Spirit. In other seminars, we read 2-3 journal length papers each week. 

 

I'm not aware of any seminars that had what I would consider a light work/reading load, but workloads can occasionally be heavy. Likewise with assignments, some professors want weekly response papers, some want 3-5 longer response papers (3-5 pages usually), and some don't want anything other than your term paper and participation. With term papers, lengths are usually 12-15 pages or 15-20 pages unless the professor wants or offers the option of a two-paper semester, then you would have two 8-12 page papers (or thereabouts).

 

In summary: it varies, but I can say that I found my experience wasn't especially intense work-load wise (though it was intense in other respects, like with the writing sample and thesis). 

Edited April 15, 2014 by Monadology

[ZiggyPhil]

In my experience, the reading load is significantly higher in historical classes.  In my seminars that focus on contemporary analytic, we've pretty much stuck to 1 article per class session (so 2 per week).  Of course, this may vary widely with different professor styles.

[lesage13]

2-3 articles/chapters per 3 hour class was typical where I did my MA. Assignments varied with the prof, but a 'long' paper was about 15-25 and a 'short' paper was around 10-15. You'll be expected to participate regularly in discussions, but you probably already knew that from your MA. I bet if you looked around, you could find old links to past syllabi and reading schedules on a few department pages or even a prof's personal website...

[Establishment]

 I was wondering what graduate seminars are like in an MA setting—in terms of workload (e.g., how many books are typically assigned), schedule, paper length expectations, etc.

 

I am just finishing an MA at Fuller Seminary and have taken PhD seminars here...I am just wondering how different a seminar in an MA-only setting might be. I am assuming that the seminars are not terribly different, but there would probably be some degree of difference since the purpose of an MA and PhD differ. Also, Fuller is on the quarter system, so classes are only 10 weeks long and seem to fly by.

 

So I guess I'm trying to just get a picture of what my school life will look like in the fall. 

 

Anyone with an MA (or MA seminar experience) have any thoughts?

 

Just to give you a way to see this stuff relative to the courses you've taken already: from my experience at taking graduate courses at my undergrad university which was MA/PhD and graduate courses at my current terminal MA program... the former courses tend to be good because they are strictly limited to graduate students (or at least undergrads need permission to enter). The latter come in two types. Most terminal MA programs I've seen allow open registration into their MA courses by undergrads. These courses tend to be a bit weak. Sure, the assignments are larger for graduate students, but the reading is the same material. Some MA's have some upper division graduate courses that are more or less off limits to undergrads, and these will be closer to the foremost described courses.

[ianfaircloud]

The MA program I attended had a graduate-only seminar that was moderately heavy in terms of readings. You read a few difficult chapters from books that are pretty new (so that few or no students have read them). Otherwise, my MA experience was only difficult because I made it difficult. A good graduate program should only be as hard as you want it to be. That is, you should be setting the pace, in my view. You want to turn out really high quality stuff, over and over? That takes a lot of time and effort. I sacrificed my body to produce good work. This is probably unnecessary.