Course Structure
Course Work | First Year Review | Thesis | Oral Examination
The Writing Program leads to the Master of Fine Arts in Writing (MFA). It is a two-year program, requiring satisfactory completion of 42 semester hours, a thesis (a volume of poems, or short stories, or a novel), and an oral examination dealing principally with the thesis.
Course Work
Of the 42 credit units required, 24 will be in poetry or fiction. The remainder will consist of graduate-level academic courses selected in consultation with the Director of the Program from any department in which the student has the appropriate preparation and whose graduate offerings can enrich the student’s writing. Up to six units of playwriting, screenwriting, or non-fiction prose and up to nine units of independent study may, with the permission of the Director, be counted among the academic courses. Up to 30 units of appropriate course work in literary studies in the MFA are transferable to the PhD. Up to 12 units may be counted toward both the MA and MFA. Up to nine units for graduate courses taken elsewhere may be transferred toward the MFA upon approval of the faculty and after one year in residence. All writing workshops, however, must be taken at Washington University.
A full load of courses in the first year consists of 12 units (three courses) a semester. Students will normally register for a writing workshop (six units) and two additional three-unit courses in the fall and the spring semesters of the first year. In the second year students typically will take a total of 18 units (four courses) over the two semesters. It is recommended that students concentrating in fiction take the writing workshop and three units of directed writing in the fall semester, and that students concentrating in poetry take the workshop and three units of directed writing in the spring. This pattern may vary for students who are not teaching assistants, or for whom the director approves a different distribution of the workload.
First Year Review
At the conclusion of each workshop students will receive an evaluation from the workshop instructor; at the end of the first year there will be a review of overall performance in the program. At this time, students who show insufficient progress as writers may be dropped even though their academic records are satisfactory. Such students would have the option of transferring into an MA or PhD. program, subject to the approval of the faculty of that program. Students who are lagging in their academic work may be put on warning at this time or may be dropped.
Thesis
The required work for the MFA culminates in a thesis (a volume of poems, short stories, or a novel). Graduate School regulations require the filing of a “Thesis Title, Scope, and Procedure” form at least six months before the date of the degree-granting period. Students in the program, when filing this form, will select a committee of three readers (a thesis director and two other full-time members of the faculty). Generally, the thesis will be completed and defended in the second year. Under unusual circumstances, it is possible to complete the thesis out of residence and return for the oral examination.
Oral Examination
At the end of the second year, or whenever the thesis has
been approved in final form, the department will schedule an oral examination,
dealing principally
with the thesis, to determine how well the student has benefited from the
program.