The PhD program is for students who enter UCSB who already hold an MA in English (or closely related field) from another institution. It requires 36 units of graduate coursework (9 courses at 4 units per course), all of which must be taken for a letter grade. No credit for graduate courses can be transferred from other institutions (though courses taken elsewhere may count toward the distribution requirements [see below]). Students in the PhD program will take their first-qualifying exam at the end of their sixth quarter in the program (the end of year two), and must have completed the 36 required units of graduate coursework before the first qualifying exam.

It is university policy that graduate students enroll for at least 8 units per quarter, although you may enroll in up to 12. Particularly when holding TAships, students in the MA/PhD program normally take only two coursework-heavy seminars per quarter; additional units, which require no formal work, may be added to ensure a student remains enrolled at 8 units; the Director of Graduate Studies and/or Staff Graduate Advisor can advise students on how best to proceed with ensuring full-time enrollment.

Students in the PhD program have two years to fulfill an individually tailored version of the MA/PhD distribution requirement described in Section 3.2. Courses taken for a grade at the student’s MA institution count toward the distribution requirement (but not toward the 36 units needed to complete the program) if the following arrangement is made: in an individual meeting with the Faculty Graduate Advisor (DGS), students in the PhD program can use their MA transcript to negotiate a “contract” for fulfilling the distribution requirement. For example, a student who earned grades in graduate-level “Shakespeare” and “Environmental Humanities” courses at their MA institution could be excused from having to take courses in Areas I and V, respectively. Such a student would then need to elect only three courses to complete the distribution requirement, one each in Areas II, III, and IV.

The PhD program is designed to take 5 years. Students in this program will take the first qualifying examination at the end of their sixth quarter of residence. The second qualifying examination must be taken no later than their tenth quarter. University policy mandates that all PhD students advance to candidacy by the close of their fourth year. However, normative progress in the English program requires advancement at the beginning of the fourth year for students entering with the MA. In addition, students must satisfy the foreign language requirement as set forth in Section 7. It is the responsibility of students to ensure that they continue making normal progress in the program – i.e. to complete courses, fulfill language requirements, and pass the first and second qualifying exams in timely fashion. Students should realize that satisfactory progress toward the degree is usually a precondition of assignment to TAships, and that research stipends/summer teaching priority may be offered to students who have remained on schedule. For more information on these policies, see Section 3 of this handbook.

The following table shows how the PhD Program requirements might be arranged in a five-year timeline:

(See Section 3.4)

(See Section 3.5)

(See Section 3.6)

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