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Requirements for Completing the Ph.D. Continued... |
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III. Completion of requirements and examinations for four subject fields.
The History Department requires each Ph.D. student to master four subject fields selected by the student within limitations set by the Department. The fields must together be chronologically and topically broad, but they should also fit together in some logical fashion. Ph.D. students must have their packages of fields approved by their academic advisor and the Graduate Committee, as well as their designated tools of research, before they may take their second comprehensive examination, counting the M.A. exams as their first. To gain approval, the student must fill out the Department Graduate Program Field Description form, which then goes to his or her advisor and the Graduate Committee. The Graduate Committee may reject a selection of fields, or a given field, that is overly narrow. |
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The student may select fields from among the list of Standard Comprehensive
Examination Fields in the appendix here, or may try to define new fields.
For any individually designed field, the student must prepare a statement
describing the field and its subject matter, setting forth his or her method
of preparation (course work, major works read, etc.), and naming the faculty
who have agreed to test the student's knowledge. The student should make
a tentative selection of fields as early as possible in his or her Ph.D.
program. NOTE: Students may retake any comprehensive exam once, but a second failure is terminal. A. First Comprehensive Examination Field (Broad Field) If the student has an M.A. in history from American University, then he or she has already passed a written comprehensive examination in one relatively broad historical field. A student with an M.A. from another university may, early in his or her first year, validate his or her knowledge of the M.A. field through oral examination. Failure to pass the oral examination will not be recorded on his or her record, but he or she will need to pass a new written comprehensive at American University either in the same field as the M.A. work or in a newly defined field. A student without an M.A. in history must normally proceed through the steps outlined in Structure of the M.A. Program above, before completing the remaining requirements listed here. B. Second Comprehensive Examination Field (Complementary Field) The student will select a field that complements work in his or her broad field. Thus, a student whose broad field was United States history 1865 to the present would likely select a field in American history from colonial times to 1865. Other options, however, might be a thematic field extending from colonial times to the present: e.g., women and gender in America, African-American history, American diplomatic history. A student in European history will normally have a broad field of Europe 1789 to the present. A complementary field might be a national or regional history for at least one hundred years (e.g., France 1789-1945, Germany 1848 to the present, eastern Europe 1867 to the present) or a sufficiently long thematic field (Holocaust Studies, History of Imperialism, Women and Gender in Modern Europe). In close consultation with his or her advisor, the student needs to consider which complementary field will prove most useful in the completion of the dissertation and/or in his or her subsequent career. The Complementary Field, as well as the Broad Field, will be tested by a four-hour written comprehensive examination offered every April, August, and January. Within the time constraints of the Ph.D. program, the student decides when he or she is ready to take an exam, but must register for it before the deadline set by the History Department. See "Passage of one written comprehensive examination" for specific instructions and advice on taking these two examinations. C. Third Comprehensive Examination Field (Outside Field) The History Department requires Ph.D. students to select one field that is:
Examination in the Outside Field IV. Completion of a doctoral dissertation and successful oral defense of it; V. Completion of requirements I-IV within five academic years of registration as a doctoral student. Nothing is more difficult than to lay out a timetable for doctoral work (unless it is the completion of the work itself). Some fields take longer than others to master, some students take more course work than others, some dissertation topics are larger, some students have more time than others to concentrate on academic work, and part-time students belong in a separate category. Let us consider a reasonable pace for a full-time student who already has an M.A. in history. Ph.D. course work and passage of complementary field and outside field--2 years; Doctoral dissertation seminar, proposal and generally, research for dissertation--1.5 years; Writing of dissertation itself and defense: 1 to-1.5 years Total of about 4.5-5 years. Things do not always go smoothly, and financial considerations can certainly slow things down, but these are reasonable targets for the full-time student to aim at. Taking longer is not necessarily an advantage, and it may well be a disadvantage. Return to Ph.D. Degree Program |
