Chinese Programs

Undergraduate Program

The Undergraduate Chinese Program manual provides detailed information about all aspects of the program. Before registering for specific courses, students should consult with the undergraduate advisor concerning placement in language classes. Additionally, we encourage students to broaden their career options through a double major, combining their language study with another field of interest.

Student may also elect to pursue a minor in Chinese. For details of the requirements for the minor consult the College of Arts and Sciences website .

For more detailed descriptions of all courses offered, see the Department's list of Undergraduate Courses.

For details of the East Asian Languages programs, consult the University of Colorado at Boulder Catalog.

Undergraduate Advisor
Instructor Bert Scruggs
Humanities 240, 279 UCB
University of Colorado at Boulder
Boulder CO 80309-0279
(303) 492-3486
Bert.Scruggs@colorado.edu

Admissions
Office of Admissions
Regent Administrative Center 125
552 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0552
Tel.: (303) 492-6301. Fax: (303) 735-2501

Graduate Program

M.A. Program

The M.A. program in Chinese is designed to offer students maximum general exposure to the long sweep of Chinese literary history while also requiring intensive study of some particular genre or period. Each of the program's faculty members specializes in one or another of these periods and has additional competence in a second period. The program is therefore truly comprehensive in scope. An added extracurricular bonus for the program is the fact that the Journal of the American Oriental Society and T'ang Studies are edited by members of the faculty. The department thus enjoys visibility as a national hub for publication.

Admission
Applicants for graduate work in Chinese literature are required to submit two official transcripts of all previous academic work, a writing sample, and three reports from references. All applicants are recommended to take the G.R.E.; applicants for fellowships and scholarships, as well as applicants for admission as provisional degree students, are required to do so. Foreign applicants must submit results from a TOEFL exam, with 560 being a minimum acceptable score. All applicants should have an undergraduate GPA of at least 3.0. Applicants with a GPA of less than 3.0 but at or above 2.5 may be admitted provisionally.

Regular degree students must maintain at least a 3.0 GPA each semester or summer term on all work taken, whether or not it is to be applied toward the intended graduate degree. To graduate, a student must present at least 24 hours of coursework plus a thesis, or 30 hours of coursework without a thesis, and pass the required examination. All courses counted toward the degree must be completed at the 5000 level or above.

Curriculum
All entering students must take CHIN 5010 during their first year in the program, plus whichever course of the literary-history sequence (5020/5030) is offered that year.

Students planning to continue on to doctoral work in Chinese are encouraged to begin acquisition as soon as possible of Japanese and one other language of use in Sinological research. Reading knowledge of these two other languages must normally be presented at the Ph.D. level, but the sooner one can make use of them in one's own work the better. Prospective graduates must present 24 hours of approved coursework plus a Master's thesis. A student may, with approval of the Director of Graduate Studies, present for graduation 30 hours of coursework without a thesis. All other requirements will still apply.

All students will sit for a three-hour comprehensive written examination near the end of the semester before which they plan to receive the M.A. degree. A complete list of exam items is provided to all entering students.

Graduates of the program will have a firm foundation upon which to erect the more specialized studies of doctoral work or a broad-based fund of knowledge from which to draw in teaching about China. The scholarly discipline of Sinology is an implicit subject of study in all courses in this program. Students learn not only a body of literature but also appropriate techniques of interpreting that literature.

For detailed descriptions of graduate courses offered, see the Department's list of Graduate Courses.

Scholarships and Financial Assistance
Applicants may compete for all appropriate Graduate School fellowships (information available from the Graduate School). The Chinese program itself awards each year a number of fellowships and teaching assistantships. Applicants interested in a teaching assistantship – which normally involves instruction in the elementary or intermediate Mandarin language courses – should include with their application an audiotape containing a three- to five-minute monologue about themselves in Mandarin and a similar three-minute monologue in English.

Graduate advisor
Professor Terry Kleeman
Humanities 240, 279 UCB
University of Colorado at Boulder
Boulder, CO 80309-0279
(303) 492-4497
Terry.Kleeman@colorado.edu

Joint B.A./M.A. Program

The joint B.A./M.A. degree in Chinese/East Asian Languages recognizes the need for master’s-level training upon entering the job market in a variety of sectors that call for highly advanced proficiency in the Chinese language, knowledge of the culture of China and its literature, and the skills acquired by B.A. and M.A. graduates in the humanities: research, analysis, interpretation, translation, communication. The degree gives highly motivated B.A. students the opportunity to earn an M.A. degree using an accelerated undergraduate program in combination with a fifth year of study. Students must have an overall GPA of 3.25 to apply to the program and should have completed all of their MAPS/Core requirements by the end of their sophomore year. No GRE is required. Application is open only to CU-Boulder students. Students must complete a written application (available in the department office), which includes three letters of recommendation, at least one from a full-time member of the Chinese faculty, by September 1 of their junior year.

Requirements
The joint B.A./M.A. degree requires 147 hours (117 undergraduate and 30 graduate) of coursework, with grades of 3.0 or above in all degree courses and an overall GPA of 3.0. That is, one graduate course counts toward the B.A. as well as toward the M.A. Students are mentored by the undergraduate advisor in consultation with the graduate director and are encouraged to design a program that can be completed in five years.

Curriculum
Undergraduate Courses
Students complete requirements for the undergraduate Chinese degree, but may substitute a graduate seminar on literature for one undergraduate literature course.

Graduate Courses
CHIN 5010 Sinological Methods (required and taken in the fourth year) and either Plan I or Plan II (thesis option). Students are strongly advised to pursue Plan I; consent of both the undergraduate and graduate director is required to take the thesis option.

Plan I
In Plan I, any nine of the following 5000-level courses (three taken in the fourth year, six taken in the fifth year):

CHIN 5020	Methods of Teaching Asian Languages
CHIN 5040	History of the Chinese Language
CHIN 5050	Chinese Sociolinguistics
CHIN 5060	Topics in Chinese Linguistics
CHIN 5150	Theory and Practice of Literary Translation in Chinese
CHIN 5160	Advanced Classical Chinese
CHIN 5210	Ancient Prose
CHIN 5220	Ancient Poetry
CHIN 5280	Topics in Ancient Literature
CHIN 5410	Medieval Prose
CHIN 5420	Medieval Poetry
CHIN 5430	Medieval Thought and Religion
CHIN 5480	Topics in Medieval Literature
CHIN 5610	Early Modern Prose
CHIN 5620	Early Modern Poetry
CHIN 5630	Early Modern Fiction
CHIN 5680	Topics in Early Modern Literature
CHIN 5810	Modern Literature
CHIN 5820	Contemporary Literature
CHIN 5880	Topics in Twentieth-Century Literature

Plus any 4000-level or 5000-level course(s) from another department for which the student has the consent of the undergraduate advisor and the graduate director (maximum of 3 courses).

Plan II
For Plan II, any seven courses listed under Plan I (three taken in the fourth year, four taken in the fifth year), and CHIN 6900 Master's Thesis (6 credits).

Comprehensive examinations must be written in the second semester of the final year; orals must be completed in the second semester of the final year for those on Plan II.

Graduate advisor
Professor Terry Kleeman
Humanities 240, 279 UCB
University of Colorado at Boulder
Boulder, CO 80309-0279
(303) 492-4497
Terry.Kleeman@colorado.edu

Dual M.A. Program

Students admitted to the M.A. programs in the departments of History, Religious Studies, or East Asian Languages and Civilizations may apply to complete a second M.A. in one of the other programs. Such degrees serve the needs of students who seek a truly interdisciplinary experience among intellectually affiliated departments. Such dual M.A. degrees require students to complete a total of 42 hours for the two degrees; students must carefully chose a program of study in each department so as to select three courses in each program that may be double-counted toward the other degree.

You must consult with your primary advisor early in your M.A. program about whether dual degrees are appropriate and feasible for you. It is recommended that you take at least one course from the other program during the first year of graduate studies and then consult with the other program advisor about making formal application to that program. It is also possible to apply to both programs from the outset by making a separate application to each department, listing as your primary department the one in which you will write your thesis.

A methods course in each program is the only specific course requirement for the dual degrees. The sequence of courses for both programs will be individually structured by the student’s Ad Hoc Graduate Committee, which will consist of the primary advisor from each program and a third faculty member from either department with a specialization appropriate to the student’s interest.

The Ad Hoc Committee will meet toward the end of each academic year, assessing the student’s progress and making a determination on the student’s continuation in the program.

Residency requirements are the same as for a traditional M.A. The time frame for the dual degree program is four years (one year more than for a single M.A.).

Dual degree programs may combine an M.A. Plan 1 (thesis track) with a Plan 2 (non-thesis track) or a Plan 2 with a Plan 2. Students may not combine a Plan 1 degree with a second Plan 1 degree, but they are encouraged to select interdisciplinary thesis topics. Thesis hours may not be credited toward either degree.

For more information, contact: