West European Studies, ADVCT

Requirements:

Students seeking the Certificate of Advanced Study-West European Studies must fulfill the following requirements:

• Complete 18 credits of West European Studies courses in at least two schools or disciplines, with at least nine credits from outside the students home department or school. Distribution of these 18 credits is tailored to each academic program. Courses must be approved by the ESC.
  • Graduate students should complete a minimum of 6 unique credits of coursework. In other words, at least 6 credits of the course work used to complete the requirements of any graduate level certificate in UCIS must be in addition to the credits used to complete the student’s primary degree program. In consultation with the academic advisor, students may fulfill these standards through one of the following options:
    • Students may contextualize non-credit bearing internships that are required in various graduate degree programs as credit bearing experiences for UCIS certificate programs. Prior approval must be received from the academic advisor to pursue this option.
    • Students who can add content courses without affecting their tuition bill will be encouraged to do so.  
    • Students who are exempt from the language requirement because of previous coursework or heritage language skills may use language course credits towards the requirement for “additional work beyond the graduate degree.
  • The 6 credits may be comprised of the following combinations:
    • Two language courses (* see notes below)
    • A language course (* see notes below) and a content course
    • Two content courses

* Language courses may be used in the following circumstances: 

For certificate programs that require three years of language proficiency, students may count language courses in the third year (i.e. grammar, conversation, courses taught in target language) that are above the intermediate level.

For students in any certificate program who are exempt from the language requirement due to previous coursework or as a heritage speaker, the introductory courses in a second language (either LCTLs, or a commonly taught language with a clear and stated relevance to their research or professional goals) will count.

For students completing two graduate level UCIS certificates, at least nine (9)credits of the course work used to complete the certificate requirements must be in addition to the credits used to complete the student’s primary degree program. At least 3 of these credits must be in content coursework. All 9 cannot be language course credits.

• For a listing of approved courses, click here.
• Write an interdisciplinary research paper of 15-25 pages that ideally entails the use of second language materials. The paper may be prepared for a course, but students are urged to conceptualize it with the certificate in mind.
• Language proficiency: Students must have three years of progressive college-level instruction in a West European language other than English, or the equivalent proficiency. Students for whom English is a second language may use English to meet the requirement.
• Be awarded a graduate or professional degree.

For the full requirements for the graduate certificate, please click here.