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Context and Conversation in a Stand-alone MA Program - Differentiation and Individuation PDF-NOTE: Internet Explorer Users, right click the PDF Icon and choose [save target as] if you are experiencing problems with clicking. Print

Students in a stand-alone MA program are making their initial foray into graduate education. This means professors must help students identify and develop the skills they need to succeed at this endeavor — and understand that these are different skills than those required for success as an undergraduate. As I often tell students, while curiosity and passion may be sufficient to distinguish oneself as an undergraduate, an enhanced level of discipline and rigor is required at the graduate level. Or, more pointedly, I tell them that most A-level undergraduate work is B-level graduate work. Grasping this distinction is tougher in a stand-alone MA program. Because such programs often teach undergraduate and graduate students in the same courses, MA students are surrounded by undergraduates from whom they must distinguish themselves. This can be especially challenging for students who go “straight through” or who enter the MA program at their undergraduate institution — weeks prior, they may have been an undergraduate, perhaps in the same room with the same teacher among the same colleagues. As they begin to grasp the difference — realizing they are more familiar with key concepts, have more effective strategies for engaging difficult texts, possess greater sophistication in formulating questions — it can also be a challenge to understand that surpassing undergraduate expectations is not necessarily equivalent to acquiring graduate-level skills.

To help students adjust to graduate school expectations, I must be both fiercely and compassionately honest. I must simultaneously encourage them, provide frank diagnoses of their strengths and weaknesses, and help them develop strategies for improving. To strike this balance, and not become another voice that reinforces feelings of inadequacy, I must spend time getting to know them — their personalities, the kinds of criticism they can bear, the forms of encouragement they need, the types of resistance they will show — so that I can be the mentor they need at this moment of personal, intellectual, and professional transformation.

The absence of PhD students can also challenge professors. There are rich rewards in working with MA students, rewards that come from interacting with students capable of more advanced work than undergraduates, and from helping students formulate plans for their future. But these are not the rewards that come from helping someone complete graduate education, taking the final steps of professional formation, and becoming a full-fledged colleague. MA students are beginning graduate study. They are not yet versed in the field’s literatures, questions, and controversies. They need write only a thesis (if that) and not a dissertation. Insofar as most of us were trained to think that the apex of professional success is training doctoral students, we must resist the temptation to treat all graduate students as doctoral students.

Like any teaching context, the stand-alone MA program requires that professors be aware of each student’s unique needs. Not only must we be mindful that Master’s students are not yet doctoral students, but we must also remember that they don’t all intend to seek that “prize.” Given that stand-alone programs may require less of a commitment of time and financial resources and less of a commitment to a new personal and professional identity, these programs are more likely to attract students uncertain about their future generally or their capacity for graduate work specifically. The vast majority of students in the University of North Carolina, Charlotte’s MA program want to get a PhD and become college professors. But a significant number want only the Master’s degree, planning either to teach in community colleges or to pursue other vocational goals. Another handful simply enjoy the pursuit of ideas and have no desire for a credential. A few are prepared to do graduate work — most need help fine-tuning their abilities and some are unlikely to develop the necessary skills. Most have to work at least part-time to support themselves, given our program’s limited capacity to provide financial assistance. Because most of us who are teaching in stand-alone programs knew that we wanted to pursue a PhD and had the ability to pursue these goals successfully, we must be mindful that our personal experience of a Master’s program may bear little relation to our students’. But we also have a chance to think about the rich array of opportunities a Master’s degree in religion opens up for them.



 

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