Department of French and Italian

Guidelines for the Five-Year BA/MA Program in French

I. Overview of the Program

The 5-Year BA/MA Program in French is specifically designed for students who enter CU ready to take courses toward the major (3000 level and above) as freshmen. Though it would be difficult for a student entering CU with less than 3000-level proficiency to complete the two degrees in five years, it is nevertheless possible to imagine a few special cases, one of which is described under "Study Abroad" below.

II. General Requirements

Students entering the French BA/MA Program must meet all of the basic requirements of both the ordinary BA and Track 2 non-thesis MA. (See departmental guidelines.) This amounts to:

• 30 undergraduate credit hours in French, including the Senior Seminar and Senior Essay, or in the case of Honors candidates, 36 undergraduate credit hours, including FREN 3200 and at least one semester of independent study (FREN 4840) in preparation for the Senior Honors Thesis;
• The equivalent of four semesters of a second foreign language (students able to demonstrate fourth-semester proficiency in a second language may place out of this requirement);
• Two 4000-level courses in a "related field," i.e., a discipline other than French (e.g., Classics, Comparative Literature & Humanities, East Asian Languages & Civilizations, English, Art History, Germanic & Slavic Languages & Literatures, Spanish & Portuguese, but also, depending on particular student's interests, Anthropology, History, Philosophy, or Sociology);
• 24 graduate credit hours in French (because of six-hour overlap with CU undergraduate upper division courses);
• Satisfactory performance in the MA Comprehensive Examination in the spring of the 5th year.

III. Options and Sequences

The program offers two basic options: the Simple Option, leading to an ordinary BA in French and an MA in French, and the Honors Option, leading to an Honors BA in French and an MA in French. The Simple Option will be recommended to students who do not plan (but may subsequently decide) to pursue graduate studies at the doctoral level. The Honors Option will be recommended to students who do plan to pursue graduate studies at the doctoral level. In either case, the department's decision to recommend that a student go on to doctoral research will depend on performance at the graduate level in both coursework and the MA Comprehensive Examination.

The sequence of courses and year-by-year course loads for each of the two options is as follows:

Simple Option

* NOTE: The exact number of first- and second-year hours depends on the organization of first- and second-year language courses in different departments. Thus, in French, first-year courses carry 5 credit hours each while second-year courses carry only 3. By contrast, in German, both first- and second-year courses carry 4 credit hours each.

Honors Option

Students enrolled in the French BA/MA Program will take a total of 141 credit hours during their five years at CU. This involves a 9-hour (three-course) overlap between undergraduate and graduate studies. The reason for the overlap is to provide students in both options the time needed to absorb the Department's standard MA Reading List in preparation for the Comprehensive Examination, which they should apply to take in the spring of the fifth year. The extra time is provided by requiring only two undergraduate-level courses in the 5th year to complete the College requirements for the BA (one in the fall and one in the spring), alongside the five graduate courses required to complete MA requirements (three in the fall and two in the spring).

The general distribution of credit hours is as follows:

Simple Option

*NOTE: includes 6 hours in a "related field" other than French.

Honors Option

*NOTE: includes 6 hours in a "related field" other than French.

IV. Study Abroad

As with ordinary candidates for the BA, students in the 5-year BA/MA Program may obtain credit for study abroad during the junior year. Moreover, this offers a means for students who do not enter CU with the requisite level of language proficiency (i.e., readiness to take French courses at the 3000 level) to catch up. In the case of students who enter CU with 3000-level language proficiency, the total number of allowable credits toward the BA/MA is 15, the equivalent of a normal third year in the program. However, students who do not enter CU with 3000-level language proficiency may receive a maximum of 24 credits, representing equivalents for FREN 3010, 3050, 3060, 3100, 3110, 3120, and two courses at the level of FREN 4100 or above. Students planning on study abroad must meet with their advisor and with the Associate Chair for Graduate Studies to work out a precise course plan modeled on one or the other of the two program options (Simple and Honors).