Graduate studies in literature allow and require students to undertake advanced coursework and substantial intellectual projects. They also prepare post-baccalaureate students for teaching positions in universities, colleges, and high schools. A graduate program that suits you will offer you more of the kinds of reading, writing, and thinking you have enjoyed as an undergraduate English major. However, graduate programs expect students to be strongly self-motivated and to have intellectual goals that are independent of simply fulfilling program requirements. Students who undertake graduate study only for its credentialing function—only because the degree sought will allow them to apply for certain kinds of jobs—may find themselves at odds with the experience, because being a graduate student usually involves taking up fundamental questions about what literary studies ought to entail.
Introduction and Overview of Degree Programs
More than undergraduates, graduate students participate in the forms of scholarship and intellectual exchange that characterize the work of faculty members. Graduate courses in literary fields typically ask students to write long essays (perhaps 20-25 pages) that make use of students’ independent research and reading. Graduate students can pursue opportunities to present work at conferences and publish work in scholarly journals. Graduate students in PhD programs often teach undergraduate courses, as do some graduate students in MA programs. For all these reasons, graduate students can find themselves actively involved in determining what kinds of intellectual work best serve their field at the same time they are working to earn a degree.
This document, designed for Pitt’s English Literature majors but open to any interested reader, offers information about graduate degree programs and application processes in literature and related fields. Because it is relatively uncommon for students to take graduate and undergraduate degrees at the same institution, we mention Pitt’s graduate programs only as instructive examples close at hand: we do not encourage you to apply to Pitt in particular. As the authors of this document (a set of Pitt faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates), we hope that this information will lead you to other sources of information and help you begin to make decisions and plans. Especially, we encourage you to talk to faculty members you’ve gotten to know through coursework about where your interests, commitments, and abilities might take you.
For information about careers in primary and secondary teaching as well as other opportunities to teach in the U. S. and abroad, consult the Literature Program’s companion document: About Teaching Opportunities.
MA and PhD Programs for Literary Studies
The work of an English Literature major can provide a foundation for graduate study in a number of fields. Anglophone (English-language) literature can be studied in departments of English, American Studies, Comparative Literature, Commonwealth Literature, Humanities, Modern Thought and Literature, Composition Studies, Cultural Studies, and Rhetoric (and no doubt there are others). Be alert for the many kinds of departments and programs in which the work you hope to do might be located, although this document will focus on the case of graduate study in an English department.
The two most common graduate degrees in literary fields are the Master of Arts (MA) and the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)(see below for further discussion of these degrees). Both MA and PhD programs require students to engage in similar kinds of scholarly activity, but the PhD is the more advanced degree. However, an MA is not necessarily a prerequisite for a PhD, and universities set up these degrees in a variety of ways. Some universities offer only an MA degree; some offer only a PhD; some offer MAs and PhDs in separate programs; and some offer PhDs with the option of acquiring an MA along the way.
Keep in mind that if you are accepted into a university’s free-standing MA program, you may not automatically be accepted into its PhD program. If you might be interested in moving from one program to another, find out about the application process involved. Ask how often applicants from the school’s own MA program are admitted into its PhD program.
Graduate students in English, especially within PhD programs, usually specialize in particular areas of literary studies (such as 18th-century British literature or Anglophone Caribbean literature or modernism) by the time they are finished. However, many degree programs allow students to develop additional special areas of expertise through concentrations or certificate programs in areas such as Gender Studies, Film Studies, Rhetoric and Composition, and Children’s Literature. It is possible to earn a PhD in American Studies and a certificate in Children’s Literature, for example, or a PhD in Rhetoric and Composition and a certificate in Film Studies. Certificates and concentrations allow students to make secondary areas of expertise legible on a transcript or resumé (or acurriculum vitae, an academic resumé abbreviated as CV).
MA Programs
MA (Master of Arts) programs in English offer students one to two years of advanced study. The kinds of work undertaken by MA students vary by school and department, so be sure to research degree requirements for each program you consider. Usually, MA students take graduate-level courses alongside PhD students and must fulfill similar foreign language requirements, demonstrating a reading knowledge of one or two languages. Some schools require MA students to pass a qualifying exam and/or write a master’s thesis.Qualifying exams are generally the same for all students in the program and are based upon a reading list of common texts selected by the department. Master’s theses are research projects based upon topics of the students’ choosing and are similar to dissertations, but shorter (often 50-100 pages).
As a professional credential, an MA degree prepares students to teach in some private high schools or at some junior and community colleges. Four-year colleges and universities are unlikely to hire people whose highest degree is an MA. However, the demanding kinds of thinking, reading, and writing required in an MA program are valuable in many other kinds of employment, just as BA-level work in English literature signals to many employers that a job candidate not only writes and reads well but also has experience in analytic and synthetic kinds of thinking. As an advanced degree, an MA is a credential that many employers consider in hiring and making promotions. Because there are so many kinds of work beyond the academy (in business, communications, administration, and even more specialized industries and professions) for which an MA in English—in combination with other interests, abilities, and experiences—might be a valuable credential, this website cannot offer more specific guidance about post-MA careers.
Many students also find an MA valuable as a preliminary to a PhD program. Students who do not feel well prepared for the work of a PhD program or who have not been admitted to their PhD programs of choice may use the work of an MA program to prepare to make better applications. However, one important disadvantage to pursuing a separate MA is that departments typically have lessfunding available for MA students than they do for PhD students.
PhD Programs
An MA is not necessarily a prerequisite for a PhD, although many people who earn PhDs earn MAs first. If you know that you definitely want to pursue a PhD, you may apply directly to many doctoral programs. Applying directly to a PhD program means that your coursework and progress to degree will be more streamlined than if you apply first to an MA program and subsequently to a PhD program. Also, you are more likely to receive funding in a PhD program.
However, pursuing a PhD is a serious commitment. The average number of years it takes to complete a PhD is seven. PhD students generally spend their first 1-3 years taking graduate level courses and studying one or more foreign languages, very much as MA students do. After completing their coursework, PhD students begin preparing themselves for their comprehensive exams in one or more fields of study, usually under the supervision of a committee of faculty members with appropriate expertise. The exams usually include oral and written components, and some schools require separate written work to be completed along with exams.
After successfully completing exams, each PhD candidate develops a prospectus, or dissertation proposal, in consultation with a supervising committee. Once the committee approves the prospectus, the student moves on to composing the dissertation. A dissertation is a work of original scholarship that contributes to one or more academic fields. The work of a dissertation can take so many different forms that it is difficult to offer examples of dissertation topics that are genuinely representative. However, the average dissertation is just over 200 pages long. (You can browse dissertation titles and abstracts—and even look at recent dissertations—by logging on to the Digital Dissertations database available through Pitt’s University Libraries System.)
Students who thrive in PhD programs tend to value the work of earning the degree for the learning and thinking they do, not just as a means of getting a credential. As a credential, a doctorate is the degree required for most academic and administrative positions in four-year colleges and universities. However, the job market for tenured or tenure-stream positions in four-year colleges and universities is extremely tight. Acomprehensive study by the Modern Language Association in 1997 determined that fewer than half the people who earned PhDs in English in the early 1990s were placed in tenure-stream jobs in the year they received their degree, and the placement rate for PhDs has declined since then. People who hold PhDs in English are also usually eligible to teach in private high schools and to move into administrative positions in primary and secondary schools.