EBook: Degrees

Approaching the Master's Degree at Ole Miss:
Editor's Note: The author of this section chose to contrast the description of the Master's degree program found in the Graduate School catalogue with the lived experience of students who proceed through the program. As so often when we chart our course through bureaucratic waters, other pilots are a more reliable guide than the maps. Catalogue copy appears in italic type.
Admissions Requirements:
Admission is competitive and based upon undergraduate transcripts, GRE general and subject test scores, three recommendations, and a writing sample.
Regarding test scores, the department considers only the scores from the Quantitative and Verbal sections of the GRE general test; the Graduate School requires a combined score of 1000 for admission. The average score of students admitted to the program on the subject test is 500.
Course Requirements:
Students must complete 24 hours of course work with a B average and also complete an additional six hours of thesis credit. Students must also take six hours of course work in English or American literature before 1800 and six hours of English or American literature after 1800. Up to six hours may be taken in related disciplines and/or directed reading. It is possible to receive an M.A. with an emphasis in creative writing (fiction or poetry) by completing six hours of creative writing courses and submitting a substantial work of creative writing (a novel, a group of short stories, or a book-length manuscript of poems) for a thesis. Teaching assistants are required to complete ENGL 617: Teaching College English.
How you choose the courses to fill the requirements for a Master's degree depends to a large extent on what you'd like to do with the degree. The Master's is commonly considered a generalist degree--i.e. it should expose you to new areas of literature and new approaches to criticism, allowing you to explore the field in more detail than undergraduate courses allow. If the M.A. will be your terminal degree, you should consider the professional applicability of the degree and adapt your course selections to fit accordingly. If the M.A. is an intermediate step toward the Ph.D., course work should be used to explore and isolate areas of particular interest that will provide background for the more specialized work you will undertake in the Ph.D. program. The average course load per semester for graduate students without Assistantships is nine hours (three classes), although some take as many as twelve hours. Students holding Research and Teaching Assistantships are required to register for nine hours per semester, but often only six hours are classroom time, with thesis or dissertation hours filling the other three.
Foreign Language Requirement:
Students must present evidence of proficiency in one of the following foreign languages before the thesis defense: Greek, Latin, French, German, Spanish, and Italian. Evidence of proficiency ordinarily consists of a grade of B or above in three hours of course work in the literature of the appropriate foreign language (in the original). Students seeking to satisfy the language requirement in a language other than those listed above must petition the Graduate Studies Committee for permission to do so.
If you enter the graduate program with recent experience in a foreign language, you should begin working immediately to fulfill the requirement--get it out of the way early. If you enter with little or no experience, all the more reason to begin work early, as it will take you two years of study in the 100- and 200- level classes to prepare you for the 300-level classes that fulfill the requirement. Many students neglect the foreign language requirement while they are completing their course work in English, and they end up having to study the foreign language while researching and writing a thesis.
There are two ways to complete the department's language requirement. One is by receiving an A or a B in a 300-level (or above) course in the literature of another language. Modern Language Department courses in cultural studies or conversation are not acceptable substitutes. Another option is the standardized Graduate Student Foreign Language Test (GSFLT) which is offered regularly throughout the year at the University of Memphis. You must score at or above the 40^th percentile in order to receive credit and you must take the exam while you are enrolled in the graduate program at Ole Miss. You may take the exam more than once if necessary. The cost is $12.50 per session. Most students opt to take the class rather than the test, despite the greater amount of time involved, simply because the exam requires more fluency and a more exact knowledge of grammar than a literature class--for which one can read, at home, with a dictionary at hand--typically does.
Thesis and Thesis Defense:
Your choice of a thesis topic is again dependent on your career goals and professional aspirations. If the Master's is a terminal degree, the emphasis and focus of your thesis may be different from that of a student planning to go on to the Ph.D. If a Master's candidate were interested, for example, in teaching literature at a secondary school or composition at a community college, the thesis might reflect these specific interests. Some students planning to go on to the Ph.D. apply for admission to the Ph.D. program before writing a thesis, in which case your Master's course work is applied to the doctoral requirements. Yet the majority choose to write a thesis in the belief that the thesis provides an opportunity to research issues, explore concepts, and discuss works to be encountered later--in more depth and maturity--in the dissertation.
A thesis is generally considered to indicate an intensive semester's work, but depending on the topic and the requirements set by the candidate's committee, it may require a substantially larger investment of time. Some students may take up to a year or longer to complete the thesis but the department requires that the degree be completed within five years of admission. Graduate instructors have three years in which to complete the degree with departmental financial assistance.
The manual issued by the Graduate School describes the thesis as a
...less comprehensive doctoral dissertation. In the master's thesis, the candidate demonstrates ability to accomplish a research project of more limited scope and far less originality than that demanded of the doctoral candidate.... In the master's program the emphasis in the thesis is placed more upon the candidate's ability to handle the techniques of research and to communicate results than upon the discovery of new knowledge.
Some committees require that a thesis represent an extension of thought beyond the bounds of a seminar paper; others may require more extensive research and exploration. Page lengths reflect these various demands, but generally masters theses range from 60-150 pages. The format and style requirements of the completed thesis are dictated by a manual available at the Graduate School. This manual will also describe the costs associated with the printing and binding of your thesis, which will become part of the library's permanent collection.
Your thesis defense is going to seem like a really big deal to you before you do it and it is an important part of your education insofar as it marks one of the last obstacles you must hurdle before you attain your degree. Keep in mind though that its function is largely ceremonial and ritualistic. Although this may differ according to the personality(ies) of your particular committee, the defense is largely a formality. If they have fulfilled their responsibilities as your mentors, your committee members will have provided you with the feedback and support and recommendations for revision that you need along the way; and they probably won't pull any fast ones on you at the defense. You do however, need to head into the defense with a clear head, prepared to address questions relative to your thesis topic, both minuscule and general in scope. Keep in mind that this type of situation will pop up again in your academic career, in your oral exam, for example, or your prospectus defense, or your dissertation defense, or in job interviews. Professionally speaking, you need to be able to articulate your ideas clearly and knowledgeably, in person as well as in writing, and the defense is good practice for this.

Approaching the Ph.D. in English at Ole Miss:
Introduction: The Ph.D. in English is a professional degree. Recognize it as such from the beginning of your program and keep the ends always on your mind as you choose the means of getting there. You should enter the doctoral program with some sense of your goals and interests. From day one, ask yourself: Where do I want to be? and How do I get there? All of the decisions you make in the course of your degree program--beginning with the choice of classes and continuing into the creation of a committee, the choice of comprehensive exam areas, the construction of reading lists, the completion of exams, and the writing of the dissertation--require an increasingly clear picture of the professional you want to be when you graduate.
Choosing your classes: There are several goals you pursue during your course work. First, you want to discover or clarify your own academic interests and methodology. Second, you want to familiarize yourself with the faculty members whom you might want to work with in the later stages of your degree. If you enter from the BA, you will take more classes and therefore have more time to experiment with different areas and approaches. Those entering from the MA should be more focused, taking only those classes that serve their needs. We suggest that students take 500-level classes only if you need additional grounding in a particular area. Otherwise, your time is better spent in the more focused 600-level seminars. Be sure to watch for classes that offer a particular scholarly method that you might find useful as well as courses whose content matches your needs.
In regard to the theory requirement, if you have not had a course in literary theory we suggest that you take one as soon as possible. Push the department to offer ENGL 591: Recent Literary Criticism on a regular basis. In the past, many graduate students have fulfilled the requirement by taking courses such as Studies in Gender Theory, Southern Literature and Literary Theory, and various offerings in Rhetoric and Composition.
In regard to the foreign language requirement, we have very little to add to what is said under the MA. Complete the requirement as soon as you can. Be aware that certain fields will require particular language training. You might want to speak to professors in your area to ask what sort of language training they might require. Ultimately, each student's committee determines his or her language requirement, but most of us find ourselves taking language courses before our committees are formed.
Many students find it helpful to take courses in other departments. If you are thinking of using an interdisciplinary approach, you will want to be aware of what the other departments are offering. You will need an outside reader for your dissertation anyway...why not look around now? In recent semesters, students have found the offerings in the Departments of Southern Studies and History quite useful to fleshing out their understanding of literature's cultural context.
Creating your doctoral committee: The English Department has a relatively small faculty to support relatively large undergraduate and graduate programs. In addition, the faculty tend to be disproportionately bunched in certain areas, with Southern Literature--at the time of writing--the area in which the largest number of faculty are working. As you prepare to form your committee, you should have a coherent plan for your comprehensive exams and dissertation, and you should choose faculty members who can best guide that project. Because of the personnel limitations, you may not find three professors in your specific period, so also look for professors whose theoretical or methodological approaches coincide with your own. In addition--and here we must be blunt--you should look for professors you enjoy working with. Sometimes compatibility of personality is more important than similarity of ideas or fields.
When asking a professor to serve on your committee, bear in mind that you are asking of them to make a significant investment of time in you and your project. It makes sense, therefore, to form relationships with the professors in your field well in advance of this stage by taking their classes. Take classes from anyone you see as even potentially serving on your committee. You can also get to know the faculty by checking into the work that they have done: read their articles and books, find out what they have taught in the past. You should also ask around and find out what other graduate students are working with the professors and speak with them about the professors. The Ph.D. requires that you work closely with your committee and that the professors on that committee work with each other. We suggest that you get the essential people, starting with your chair, signed up first. Then ask their help in building a committee that will work well together. Be aware that different committees work differently. On some, the chair handles all the interaction with the other professors. You deal with the chair, s/he deals with the other members. In other situations, the graduate student meets and negotiates with each professor separately.
Choosing the areas for your Comprehensive Exams: As the graduate handbook explains, you will be choosing a literary period and two of the following three areas for your comprehensive exams.
A. The literary period. The concept of a literary period remains vaguely defined, and you should work this to your advantage. In the past, graduate students have chosen a literary movement, a half-century, a century--but others have chosen fields as narrow as Twentieth-Century Southern Women Writers. The definition of the "period" is up to you and your committee, but of course they have the final say. It seems that the period exam was conceived as a guarantee to insure that we would be able to place our more specialized work into a literary-historical context, and so the more narrowly defined periods will not always serve you best, even though there is a real temptation to specialize, to narrow the fields as much as possible.
B. The genre. In recent years, graduate students have been defining their genres very closely--studying, for instance, Women's War Writing, Travel Writing, and Women's Autobiography rather than, say, The Novel. If your project requires an investigation of form, you may find yourself doing a more traditional genre such as the lyric poem.
C. The single author or group of related authors. While fewer and fewer single-author dissertations are coming out every year, this remains a popular choice for the comprehensive exams. Author lists tend to be manageable and can easily form a chapter of the dissertation or a stand-alone article.
D. Special topics. This area covers everything else, essentially. Many students choose theory lists to help themselves bone up on their methodology. Recent topics include Business Women in the American Novel, History of the American Frontier, Race Relations, and the Carnivalesque.
Constructing the reading lists for your comprehensive exams: When you have chosen your three areas, you will then develop a reading list for each. Most committees prefer that you submit all three lists at once, though some students have proceeded one list at a time. It is more efficient perhaps to get all three lists approved at the start, and so we recommend that you get your committee together in a meeting to discuss and approve the lists. This process always involves some negotiation, so come prepared to deal but also come prepared to justify the areas you have chosen and the texts you have added to each list.
Many graduate students spend a lot of time worrying about how many works to put on each list. There are conflicting desiderata in the construction of the lists: you want to become competent in the field, but you also want to complete the exams in a timely fashion. The final word rests with the committee, of course--they must approve of your list. But you should also bear in mind the time line for the completion of the Ph.D. You are expected to complete one exam per semester. How much work are you capable of doing in one semester? Let that be the standard. Most students will take two courses, reading approximately thirty books and writing two papers. With only one paper or a test we can perhaps do more reading, though the writing is held to a higher standard. Many professors recommend that you include works that you have read before on your lists, and so perhaps the numbers will climb as high as fifty. Some lists will naturally be shorter, such as a single author list; others, particularly that for the period exam, will run longer. Theory lists should be shorter because of the difficulty of the reading. Some graduate students advise that you turn in a list shorter than you believe you can complete because most committees feel duty bound to add to lists. Remember, just because a book is not on a list doesn't mean you can't read it later. Each exam is a discrete task; don't plan a lifetime of work. Be professional and ambitious, but also be reasonable about your expectations. The Ph.D. is a long road; be gentle with yourself.
Completing the comprehensive exams: If you haven't met with your entire committee as a group yet, now is the time. Discuss your options, present them with a plan, set tentative deadlines. We can't overemphasize the importance of getting your committee members talking--not just with you, but also with each other. The exams consist of four hurdles: two papers and a timed, written test, followed by an oral exam. Most of us have done the exam first, and most of us have chosen to do the exam on the historical period. The reason for that is that it is easier to generate a paper out of the more focused reading areas. But remember, you are in control of your own destiny. Present a coherent, logical plan to your committee and argue for what you want. Most committees will let you plan your own course of testing. There are two options for the test: a 24-hour take-home version, and a four-hour seated version. There are advantages to each. Most committees will allow and expect you to consult your books when you take the 24-hour version; you also have the advantage of your word processor, spell check, and coffee machine. You are, inevitably, held to a higher standard of polish in this version. Those who take the seated exam are quick to point out that while they experience four hours of extreme stress, they finish twenty hours earlier than the others. A few people who took the 24-hour version swear they would do it differently if they had to do it again, though in fairness we need to say that some liked the 24-hour format just fine.
The oral exam comes at the end. You will sit with your committee for two and a half hours and face a variety of questions that draw from each of the three reading lists. In preparation for this exam, many students take notes during their reading for the first three exams. Otherwise, you have quite a bit to review or reread. While the oral is designed to test the breadth of your knowledge, your committee will expect you to be able to talk in depth about the texts on your lists--not all of them, surely, but at least a few. Additionally, the oral exam expects you to show an ability to think on your feet in front of people--essentially the same skills we use in seminars and in the classes we teach. Recommendations from students who have passed orals in the last year: "Don't BS too much; tell them when you don't know an answer." "Don't worry about saying that you don't remember everything--they will push you until you reach your limit anyway." "Try to turn difficult questions around to something you can talk about." "Try to have your friends give you practice exams so you can get accustomed to talking about these texts and can try out a few answers."
The prospectus defense: Your director will describe the type of prospectus s/he expects you to turn in. Essentially, the prospectus outlines the dissertation project, spelling out the texts you will examine, the methodology you will use, and some reasons for choosing the project (why it is worth pursuing). Most will include a chapter-by-chapter outline and a brief bibliography. At the defense, you will discuss the document with your dissertation committee, which will now include an additional member. Each dissertation committee includes a reader from outside the English Department whose function, institutionally, is to safeguard the integrity of the degree. (That is, they watch over the rest of the committee to ensure that you are being held to a reasonable standard.) The outside reader should also serve as an active member of your committee, making recommendations about your project and the work as you complete it. You have the right to request a particular outside reader, though they are formally appointed by the department chair.
The dissertation: The best advice we've heard about a dissertation is this: "Don't get it right; get it written." Set a regular schedule of working hours for yourself; churn out the material, finish a draft, then go back and fine tune. One student who recently completed the big D suggested the need to look ahead to the tremendous financial burden associated with the process. According to her calculations, for instance, it is far cheaper to buy a laser printer and use it for all of your drafts and the final printing than to pay a commercial copying service. Plus you get to keep the printer when you're done.
Conclusion: This description of the Ph.D. program is meant to offer suggestions for getting through the degree, rather than to proscribe a single method. The Ph.D. program deliberately leaves a lot up to the student and committee to negotiate, which is why a clear idea of who you are and where you want to be is absolutely imperative. As you consider the hurdles that lie before you, take comfort in this: Even though it may feel like it at times, you will not be going through the program alone. There are many people going through the program a step or two ahead of you. Use your colleagues as a resource. Ask other people about everything: which classes they recommend, how they structured their exams, which professors they are working with and why. Many students in the exam stages rely on their colleagues for feedback and support. It is our opinion that the English Department needs more organized support at the later stages of the degree program, for instance a dissertation seminar or student-organized reading group. Look for and create such opportunities for yourself. Good luck.
 

Appendix: The Graduate Studies Committee's Ph.D. Timeline
December 8, 1995
To All Faculty and Graduate Students:
Various graduate students have expressed their wish for some kind of time line for completion of the Ph.D. Realizing that different students have different situations--that, for instance, some are ready to pass the foreign language requirement right away, and others will complete a dissertation prospectus immediately after completing their comps, while others may have family obligations that hold them up for a while--here is a time line based on a completion time of six years from the M.A.
Two years: Course work in English (24 hours). --Any necessary foreign language course work is additional, and may be completed either while taking English courses or later, depending on the student. Note that the foreign language requirement must be complete before advancement to candidacy. Note also that the student should confer with the Graduate Director regarding the Ph.D. committee by--at the latest--the final semester of course work.
Two years: Completion and committee approval of three reading lists. Completion of comprehensive exams, including the oral exam. --Note that while it is advisable to work toward completing the reading lists while one is still taking courses, so that one does not succumb to the notorious dead time, which so often has occurred between finishing courses and starting exams. [Editor's note: this was a real problem when the current Ph.D. was first implemented. It has become less a problem with each passing year.]
One semester: Completion of a prospectus and the prospectus defense. --Note that some students defend their prospectuses immediately after completing their comprehensive exams. That is fine, too.
One and a half years: Completion of a dissertation.
Let me repeat again that each student has his or her own obligations and rhythms, and these are meant as guidelines and suggestions as to what constitutes timely progress toward the completion of a degree.

Ann Fisher-Wirth Director of Graduate Studies, English