German Major, MA

Thesis Option

The minimum requirements are 24 hours of course work and 6 hours of Thesis GERM 500 . GERM 510 and GERM 519 are required, as are three courses on German literature or culture, one of which may be at the 400 level. Also, students must take three additional courses, only one of which may be chosen from GERM 411 -GERM 412 or GERM 485 . All graduate teaching assistants should take MFLL 512 , and other candidates may take MFLL 512 or any other course above 500 in German. A maximum of three 400-level courses may be counted toward the 24 hours of course credit. An exam over the designated reading list is required, as is a thesis defense and a standardized language exam, such as the Zentrale Mittelstufenprufüng. Students who are interested in future PhD-level study are strongly advised to choose the thesis option.

Non-Thesis Option

The minimum requirements are 30 hours of course work, including at least one 600-level course for which a seminar paper is required. GERM 510 and GERM 519 are required, as are three courses on German literature or culture, one of which may be at the 400 level. Also, students must take three additional courses, only one of which may be chosen from GERM 411 -GERM 412 or GERM 485 . All graduate teaching assistants should take MFLL 512 , and other candidates may take MFLL 512 or any other 500-level course in German. A maximum of three 400-level courses may be counted toward the 30 hours of course work. A common written exam over the designated reading list is required, as is a standardized language exam, such as the Zentrale Mittelstufenprüfung. Each non-thesis MA candidate will have a committee of three faculty members in German to whom the student will submit a dossier consisting of the seminar paper and one paper previously submitted in a graduate course. The length and type of the papers is described in greater detail in the Manual for Graduate Students in German.

Five-Year BA-MA Program – German Major

For qualified students, the Department of Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures offers a 5-year BA-MA program with a BA major in German and a non-thesis MA major in German. The primary component of the program is that a qualified student may take up to 9 hours of approved graduate courses for their senior undergraduate electives and have them count toward both the BA degree and the MA degree. Qualifications for admission to the program are:

The student must have an overall cumulative GPA of 3.0 and a cumulative GPA of 3.5 in undergraduate German courses to be considered for admission to the program.
Conditional and full admission of a student into this program must be approved by the Department of Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures and by the Graduate School.
Conditional admission may be granted after completing 64 hours of the requirements for the BA in German, as specified by any Undergraduate Catalog in effect during that student’s attendance at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, provided that the Catalog has been in effect within six years of the date of graduation.
Conditional admission must be obtained before taking a graduate course that is to be used to satisfy the requirements of both the BA degree and the MA degree.
Full admission may be granted after completing 96 hours of the requirements for the BA in German, as specified by any Undergraduate Catalog in effect during that student’s attendance at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, provided that the Catalog has been in effect within six years of the date of graduation. A cumulative GPA of 3.5 in undergraduate German courses is required for full admission.
Any course taken for graduate credit prior to satisfying all requirements for the BA degree must be approved by the department head (or designee) and by the Graduate School.
A student will not be eligible for a graduate assistantship until the student has satisfied all of the requirements for the BA degree.