Master Of Arts In History

Program descriptionThe Master of Arts in History is taught on the Lethbridge campus and requires both a thesis and substantial coursework. As an MA student, you may complete your degree in either a full- or part-time capacity. Full-time students complete a 24-month program while part-time students complete a 48-month program. Students are encouraged to finish earlier and often do: most of our full-time students finish between 20 and 24 months while one of our part-time students finished in 28 months.Full-time students complete all required coursework in the first two semesters of the program while part-time students will normally complete all required course work in the first two academic years, with, in both cases, the subsequent months committed to continued research and production of the thesis.Graduate work requires close collaboration between supervisor and student. Consequently, it is necessary for you as a candidate to establish contact with potential supervisors prior to application for admission. Applicants who do not have the endorsement of a potential supervisor will not be admitted into the program. Candidates seeking potential supervisors should contact them or the History Department directly. The member of faculty who has agreed to supervise the student usually then approaches other faculty members to form a Supervisory Committee.Courses are determined in consultation with the supervisor before the student begins the program. Students are required to take the equivalent of 3 – 6 full-times courses. All History students take the core graduate seminar in Historiography (History 5000), with the remaining courses a mixture of half-semester courses in Cultural, Social, and Political Thought (CSPT); undergraduate seminars elevated to graduate level; and Independent Studies.Graduate degrees in History are awarded for the successful completion of a satisfactory thesis. This forms the central requirement of the program and expresses the fundamental tradition of academic scholarship, combining the analysis and synthesis of ideas, empirical investigations of primary sources, the construction and articulation of arguments, and writing skills. As a rough guideline, we ask for MA Theses to be 100 pages long, but there are many exceptions.In case of discrepancies between this page and the Graduate Studies Calendar and Course Catalogue, the Graduate Studies Calendar and Course Catalogue shall prevail.