|
Columbia expects to enroll 20 to 25 students each year in the doctoral program in history. Although there is considerable variation in the nature of our program from field to field, certain basic elements of our curriculum are common to everyone. Most students spend the bulk of their first two years taking formal courses and preparing to fulfill their language requirements. After students have completed their coursework and fulfilled their language requirements, they must take an oral examination, usually sometime in the third year. Typically within six months of taking the oral exam, every student is expected to present a prospectus for a dissertation and to defend it before a committee of faculty. Students then research and write their dissertations under the supervision of their sponsors and, when they have finished, defend the dissertation before a committee of the faculty. The following texts explain each of these stages in greater detail.
Coursework. Most students will take ten courses for credit during their first two years at Columbia, usually six courses in the first year and four in the second.
During the first year, entering students are required to take an introductory colloquium in historiography (G8910) which is designed to introduce them to the history and current state of historical scholarship. This colloquium is intended to acquaint students with an array of interpretations and analytical tools, to sharpen their critical skills, and to help create a sense of community among graduate students in different fields. Students will ordinarily take a number of other colloquia (G8000-8999) in their first two years. Colloquia involve intensive reading and discussion of secondary material. They usually involve some writing, but do not ordinarily require original research. Every student is also expected to take at least two semesters of organized research and writing, usually in graduate research seminars (G9000-9999). In seminars, students work on research projects of their own devising under the supervision of a faculty member. These projects ordinarily involve extensive research in primary and secondary sources and the preparation of an original paper modeled roughly on scholarly articles in professional journals. The faculty understands that students will seldom be able to produce work comparable to most published scholarship within the time constraints of a seminar, but many seminar papers do eventually become the basis of published articles, dissertations, or books. Students applying for Advanced Standing are not exempt from any first-year course requirements, and must complete all course work (including required research papers).
In addition to colloquia and seminars, students may, with the permission of the Director of Graduate Studies, fulfill their course requirements with upper-level undergraduate lectures (W3000-3999) or seminars (W4000-4999), normally with additional work required; courses from other departments at Columbia; and courses at other universities. Columbia is part of the Inter-University Doctoral Consortium, which entitles our students to take courses, at no additional cost, at many major New York area universities: the CUNY Graduate Center, Fordham, the New School, University, New York University (including the Institute for Fine Arts), Princeton, Rutgers, and Stony Brook). In some circumstances, students may fulfill part of their course requirements through independent reading and research projects under the supervision of members of the faculty, with the permission of the Director of Graduate Studies.
The M.A. and the Master’s Essay. To proceed in the program, students without Advanced Standing status (see below) must complete the requirements for and apply for the M.A. Degree by the end of the fourth semester. The requirements for the M.A. are the completion of six courses for credit, passing one language examination, and the submission of a Master’s Essay. These requirements are normally met during the first year. Students who have not fulfilled these requirements by the end of the fourth semester may be removed from the program.
Students normally use a paper written in a research seminar as the Master’s Essay, although the precise nature of the work should be discussed with the student’s advisor. Students must submit a copy of the Master’s Essay to the Graduate Administrator. The Essay must include a title page with the student’s name, the advisor’s name and signature, the date, the title of the essay, and the following statement: “This essay is submitted to the Columbia University History Department in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts.” Master’s Essays should not exceed 50 pages.
Announcements about application deadlines for the M.A. Degree are sent to all students via e-mail several weeks prior to the deadline. The application and Master’s Essay must be deposited with the Graduate Administrator at the end of September for an October degree, or during finals week of the spring semester for a May degree
Advanced Standing. Students who have earned a master’s degree in history or a related field before enrolling at Columbia may apply for Advanced Standing. Students with Advanced Standing are excused from the second year of coursework, and thus must complete only six courses for credit rather than ten to proceed in the program. Students with Advanced Standing do not submit a Master’s Essay and do not apply for the M.A. degree; they must, however, fulfill all language and other field-specific requirements.
Language Requirements. All candidates for the Ph.D. are required to demonstrate proficiency in foreign languages (candidates for the M.A.-only, unless they are in United States history, are subject to this requirement as well; see below, section 3). Language requirements vary considerably from one field to another, both in their number and in the particular languages required (see below, section 2) All students must fulfill their language requirements before advancing to the next stage of the program, so that, for example, any student whose program requires successful completion of one or more language examinations in the first year will not be advanced to the second year and will not receive the M.A. unless that requirement is met.
For most students, fulfilling a language requirement involves passing an examination that requires the translation from a foreign language into English of a passage of historical writing. Except in the case of some East Asian languages, coursework itself does not fulfill the language requirement, which can only be met by passing the department’s language examination. Students may take language courses to help them prepare for the departmental language exams, but such courses do not substitute for courses required for the degree. Native speakers of languages other than English may petition the department to accept their native language as partial fulfillment of their departmental language requirement (that is, without taking an examination). Non-native English speakers may also petition the department for permission to translate passages into their native languages, rather than into English.
First-year Ph.D. students in fields requiring more than one language must take an exam in at least one of their required languages before the beginning of classes in September. Language exams are offered again twice during the year, and students may take the exams as often as they need until they pass them. In exceptional circumstances, the Director of Graduate Studies may authorize a special exam for a student, upon the recommendation of the departmental officer supervising language exams.
In the examination, dictionaries may be used, but no other aids are permitted; computers are forbidden. Exams are evaluated by individual faculty members and assigned pass/fail grades. No exam will be failed until it has been read by at least two faculty members who agree on that assessment. Students may, if they desire, discuss a failed exam with the departmental officer in charge of language exams or with the faculty members who graded the exam. The exam is graded principally for accuracy, and students are urged to provide translations that track the original text closely. At the same time, the passage should be translated into grammatical and comprehensible English, so that odd idioms or convoluted constructions of the original text should be rendered in their closest English equivalents and not translated entirely literally. Students should review their exams to make sure that their translations make sense in English; if they do not, they cannot be correct. Sample language exams are available on the Department of History website.
The Oral Examination and the M.Phil. Once students have completed their coursework and fulfilled their language requirements, they are ready to prepare for and take the oral examination: a two-hour examination in four fields before four members of the faculty. The purpose of the oral exam is to help students develop a general knowledge of several broad areas of history, to deepen their knowledge of their own particular fields, to acquaint them with a range of interpretations of critical issues in their fields, and also to prepare them to teach and perhaps also to write in areas beyond their specific research interests. Three of the fields are usually within the student’s principal area of interest (e.g. Europe, the United States, East Asia, etc.) and are known collectively as the “major field.” A fourth area, the “minor field,” must be in an area of history substantially different from the student’s own, or in a discipline other than history.
Beginning in the second year, all students should assemble orals committees of four members of the faculty, one for each field on the oral examination and should prepare reading lists for each field. Such reading lists will ordinarily include both material students have already read, in courses and elsewhere, and new material read specifically for the oral examination. Students should consult reading lists prepared by graduate students who have already taken the oral examination, some of which are available on the Graduate History Association (GHA) website. The length and character of the reading lists are determined in consultation with the appropriate members of the faculty. During their preparation for the oral exam, many students meet periodically with the members of their committees to discuss their progress. Many students also form reading groups with other graduate students to facilitate their preparation. The faculty expects students to prepare extensively for these exams, but no one can be expected to prepare exhaustively. The examination itself, usually taken in the third year, is divided into four half-hour segments, one for each field.
No element of the graduate curriculum creates more anxiety among students (at Columbia and all other graduate schools) than the oral examination. But the vast majority of students pass the examination the first time they take it. The few who do not pass the first time are entitled to take it again.
Students are expected to file a “Statement of Plans for the Oral Examination,” in the first few weeks of the term in which the exam will be taken. The form is available from the Graduate Administrator in the department office.
After completing all course and language requirements and passing the oral exams, students receive the degree of Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.). Many universities do not offer the M.Phil., which simply signifies that a student has reached the stage widely known as A.B.D. (“all but dissertation”). Students must apply for the M.Phil. by the end of the fourth year (or the third year for students with Advanced Standing); failure to do so may result in removal from the program.
The Dissertation Prospectus. After receiving the M.Phil. (and occasionally even before, when a prospectus is necessary for grant applications), the next step is to prepare a brief prospectus for a dissertation and to defend it before a committee of the faculty. This is the point in the program at which students, if they have not done so before, must choose formal advisors (the sponsor and second reader), who will be the principal supervisors of their dissertations. For the prospectus defense, students must also choose several other members of the faculty who, along with the sponsor, will read the prospectus and engage the student in a discussion of it. Prospectus committees normally consist of four or five members of the faculty. The prospectus itself should be approximately 15 double-spaced pages in length. It should include:
- A clear statement of the topic and a formulation of the particular historical problem that the project will address. It should position the topic within existing historical literature, explain the research approach or methodology to be used, and discuss the sources to be consulted.
- A tentative outline of chapters, with brief summaries of their proposed contents.
- A preliminary bibliography, listing the principal secondary sources and the major archival or other primary sources to be used.
- A tentative schedule for research, writing, and completing the project.
The Dissertation. Students should think of writing a dissertation as the first step in writing a book, which most Columbia dissertations eventually become. Students work on their dissertations under the supervision of their sponsors, and most also seek help from other members of the faculty, often including the members of the prospectus defense committee. There are also both formal and informal dissertation-writing workshops for students in many fields. Maintaining a continuing relationship with the sponsor and other members of the faculty is an important part of the process of developing a dissertation. So is sharing work with other graduate students. There is no fixed length for a dissertation, although it should approach—in both length and scope—the expectations of a published book. Successful dissertations take many forms, but virtually all are based largely on primary sources and set out to make original contributions—empirical, interpretive or, ideally, both—to the field.
Progress Reports. All students beginning in spring of the first year will be required to complete a progress report each year until they are ready to distribute their dissertation. The progress report must be completed online by the student and the sponsor. Reports are submitted to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Students should familiarize themselves with both Department and Graduate School rules concerning satisfactory progress.
The Dissertation Defense. The last step before receiving the Ph.D. is the formal defense of a completed dissertation. No defense will be organized unless the sponsor and second reader have signified that in their judgment the dissertation is acceptable and thus warrants a defense and final examination. It is the responsibility of the sponsor, not the student, to choose the members of the defense committee, but sponsors will ordinarily consult with students about who would be appropriate for the defense. A defense committee ordinarily includes five people, three of them members of the History Department faculty, and two of them “outsiders,” either from departments other than history at Columbia or from other universities. “Outsiders” from other universities may be historians.
Students intending to defend the Ph.D. dissertation must file an Application for Dissertation Defense . This document should be picked up by the student at the Dissertation Office in Low Library, filled out by the student and sponsor, and delivered to the Graduate Administrator. The Dissertation Office then schedules the defense. It is important to submit a defense application early in the term in which the defense is expected; students should consult the Graduate Administrator for the relevant deadlines.
Despite the confrontational name of the exercise, the defense is usually a collegial conversation between the student and the faculty members of the committee during which the candidate is asked to explain aspects of the work and to answer questions about it. Often, the members of the committee see their task as offering advice on how to revise the dissertation for publication. The student begins the defense with a brief explanation of the project before fielding questions and comments from the members of the committee. A defense ordinarily lasts approximately two hours.
Once the dissertation is successfully defended, it must be converted into what the Graduate School considers acceptable physical form and officially submitted to the University, along with a submission card (provided to the student at the defense) signed by the sponsor and the department chair. The Graduate Administrator can sign the submission card on behalf of the chair if the chair is not available. Students have six months from the time of the defense in which to make further revisions, but many students submit almost immediately after the defense—particularly if the defense is close to the time of Commencement. The submission of the completed dissertation is the last step before the awarding of the degree
Time to Degree. The time it takes students to complete the requirements for the Ph.D. varies considerably. A very few students complete their degrees in four or five years. Most take six or seven. Some take considerably longer. The official time limit for receiving the Ph.D. is seven years, and students who exceed that limit must petition the department and the Graduate School for an extension each year. Extensions are not automatic. Students who request extensions must present evidence of significant progress toward completion.
|
