Graduate Program

Overview of the program
Foreign language requirement
Course requirements for the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees
Master’s paper
Field examinations
Field examination schedule
Oral qualifying examinations
500-series course limitations
Final oral examination following completion of the dissertation
Time to degree
Candidate in philosophy degree
Disqualification and appeal of disqualification
Advising

For detailed course descriptions, please refer to UCLA General Catalog

Overview of the program

In the first two years the student customarily will satisfy the course requirements for the M.A. degree and write a Master’s Paper that is evaluated by the Department in the student's sixth quarter of residence. During the first year of graduate study, and no later than the second week of instruction of the student's fourth quarter of residence, the student is expected to form a two‑person Master’s Committee to help him/her prepare the Master’s Paper. The Master’s Committee will assume all advising responsibilities for the student.

In the quarter following acceptance of a student's Master’s Paper, usually at the beginning of the third year, s/he must submit a study plan to the Director of Graduate Studies via the Graduate Affairs Advisor specifying two of the following field examinations and a timetable for completing these examinations:

Field Exams

Comparative Ethnicity, Race and Nationalism

Ethnographic Methodology

Ethnomethodology

International Migration

Political Sociology

Social Demography

Social Stratification and Social Mobility

Sociology of Culture

Sociology of Gender

Sociology of the Family

Urban and Suburban Sociology

Each field exam has a group of participating faculty, a faculty coordinator, a series of required and/or recommended courses, and bibliographies of required and supplementary readings. Field exams are offered quarterly, and usually are administered and evaluated by a committee selected annually by the faculty participating in that field exam specialty. Students take two such field examinations, generally in the third year and first portion of the fourth year of graduate study. Then, after passing an Oral Qualifying Examination, the student may begin the dissertation.