M.A. Courses and Thesis Route

The Courses and Thesis Route to the M.A. degree in Folklore involves eight courses at the graduate level plus a thesis. (In some cases more courses may be assigned but this is rare.) The programme normally takestwo full years, often somewhat longer. The courses begin with asemester of basic courses which include the three-week field school.Information on the field school can be found here:

https://mun.ca/folklore/programs/graduate/graduate-field-school

Every student enrolled in the thesis route must, before 15 February in their second semester, submit a Thesis Topic and Methodology Statement for discussion at the next available departmental meeting. The form to be used can be found here:

Thesis Topic and Methodology Statement

It is the student's responsibility to connect with a willing thesis supervisor in the department before the Topic Statement is submitted.

With an approved Topic Statement, students whose research involves human beings (almost every student) will approach the MUN Interdisciplinary Committee on Ethics in Human Research (ICEHR) whose web page is here:

http://www.mun.ca/research/ethics/humans/icehr/

Application must be made to ICEHR immediately after Topic Statement approval in order to receive clearance in a timely way for the field research that must be carried out during the summer field season of the student's first year.

That spring/summer semester is then spent carrying out the research. Students should plan their time for the maximum effort at this stage. It is a full-time element of the degree programme.

In the fall semester of the student's second year, dates are set for the submission of a full written Thesis Proposal and, two weeks later, its oral presentation to the department. This is usually in October with the presentations falling on a Friday afternoon. Information on the Thesis Proposal can be found here: http://www.mun.ca/folklore/graduate/cgraduate/maproposal.php  Successful completion and approval of the proposal will allow the student to write the thesis.

Information on the submission of the thesis is found here: http://www.mun.ca/sgs/go/guid_policies/theses.php but students should be aware best practices within the department may differ from SGS templates. The thesis must be submitted with plenty of time for the Examining Readers to read it, to prepare and submit their reports to the Dean on it, and for the inevitable andrequired revisions to be carried out by the student, before graduation. Graduation occurs twice a year at the University Convocations, in May and October: https://www.mun.ca/convocation/