[CW-Grad] Important MFA Course Requirement Info

[Robin Russin]

Hi Everybody--

As you may have heard, we've revised some of our requirements to allow for greater choice and flexibility. These revisions have just been formally approved, and apply to all incoming first year MFA students.

For continuing (2nd or 3rd year) MFA students: you may choose whether to follow the earlier requirements, or to follow the new ones. It's up to you and whatever best suits your needs. Just keep your grad advisor informed.

While we have changed the requirement for cross-genre workshops to being an elective (see item 2.), we still strongly recommend that you sign up for cross-genre workshops and take advantage of the opportunity to stretch and explore.

Also, note the change in item 3., that allows for a far greater range of choice in satisfying your seminar requirements.

Have a great weekend.

Robin




Course Requirements

Minimum requirements consist of 40 units of course work (10 courses) and 8 units of master's thesis project (for a total of 48 units). The core curriculum includes the following:

1. A minimum of 4 workshop courses (16 units total) in the student’s chosen genre.

2. Two additional workshops in the student’s chosen genre (8 units), OR two elective cross-genre workshops (8 units in total), with instructor approval.  If a student is unable to obtain instructor approval for enrollment in a graduate-level cross-genre workshop, the requirement also can be met with an upper-division cross-genre workshop taken concurrently with a 292 course with program director approval.

In addition, students must complete the following:

3. Two graduate level seminars (8 units total) from departments other than Theatre and Creative Writing. Seminar subject matter should be relevant to student's thesis project. This requirement can be met with upper-division courses, with instructor approval, as an appropriate 292 course.

4. Three graduate Two graduate level seminars (8 units total) from Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts.

5. One course in literature translation (upper-division or graduate lervel) from Hispanic Studies or Comparative Literature or one additional cross-genre course.

5. At least 8 units of Thesis project.

The final written project is a full-length play of two or three acts, or screenplay or teleplay. In the areas of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, the final written project is a poetry collection, novel, short story collection, novella, memoir, essay collection or other book-length non-fiction project. Each student is paired with one or two faculty members who serve as the thesis advisor(s). Two faculty readers, in addition to the advisor(s), evaluate the thesis work.

The length of the final project breaks down as follows: Poetry 50 – 100 pages, Fiction 100- 150 pages, Creative Non-fiction 100 – 150 pages, screenplay, teleplay or play 90 – 130 pages.

Normative Time to Degree Main campus: 6 quarters.



Robin Russin

Associate Professor, Department of Theatre
Director, MFA for Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
(951) 827-2707
(213) 949-1061 cel
robin.russin at ucr.edu
http://robinrussin.com

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