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Frequently Asked QuestionsCould you tell me about the degree program? Whom is it for? Seeing the full title of the program should help with this question: "Interdisciplinary Programs in Graduate Liberal Studies." For the majority of our students, the experience and joy of learning is the objective. But it's possible to fashion a graduate degree within the structure of Liberal Studies that's tailored to a specific career plan. While most students select from the regular LBST courses, there is still plenty of flexibility for those with more narrow interests. One of our recent graduates, for instance, after a few introductory courses, became interested in Shakespeare, and so we crafted a program for her that included a generous helping of work from the English department. On the other hand, an individual program may be tailored for a more specific career change. One graduate realized he wanted to change careers to communications. Accordingly, his program concentrated on courses that led to his acceptance to a Ph.D. program in Communication Studies. For some sample curricula, click here. But you should be advised that pulling together courses from different departments at the graduate level can be a tricky balancing act that involves finding appropriate courses at times you can be on campus and working with departments willing to give up a seat to a student who's not pursuing one of their degrees. See the FAQ on emphases. Alas, we don't have any aid that's available from LBST itself. That is, the LBST director doesn't have scholarship or assistantships assigned specifically to the LBST program to distribute to only LBST students. This doesn't mean that as an LBST student you can't get aid. It's just that any aid package will have to come via the normal means. It's spelled out here. By the way, if you're retired and a North Carolina resident, tuition is free. What Ph.D. programs will the LBST degree prepare me for? It's hard to say because
the LBST degree is by nature interdisciplinary. It’s
also a relatively new degree, and Ph.D. programs themselves may not know
until they're asked. We might intuit that an MA per se is a valuable credential
regardless of the Ph.D. discipline you're aiming for because it demonstrates the ability to
do graduate-level research and to do well in graduate-level courses.
But the surest, and in
fact only, way to be certain would be for you to contact a Ph.D. program
to which you might like to be accepted, and ask them what they’d think
of an MA in Liberal Studies as a qualifying credential for their program. Will the LBST MA help me in my career in marketing? The main purpose of the LBST degree is learning for its own sake. Many companies like advanced degrees per se, since they show initiative, discipline, and the ability to conduct research at an advanced level. But others expect the degree to be in an area directly relevant to the job. Since the LBST degree is a relatively new phenomenon in academia, and since its students come to it from a variety of backgrounds and for a variety of reasons, it's very difficult to predict how the degree will be interpreted or valued by your current or potential employer. If you have very specific career objectives for the LBST degree, you should contact your current employer or the pertinent accrediting agencies and ask them to assess your plan before you begin the program. What scores are you looking for on the MAT/GRE? Which one should I take? The standardized exams constitute only one part of the application, yet they seem to cause the greatest amount of anxiety. The main purpose of the application as a whole is to allow us to predict the likelihood that you will complete the degree. No single element in the application by itself can do that. This is why there are many parts: undergraduate transcripts, narrative statement, work experience, and the standardized exams. That said, there do exist certain scores below which the Graduate College and the LBST program begin to be concerned. For the MAT, it's at about the 35 percentile. For the GRE, it's about 1000 for the math and verbal combined. If you're under these scores, it doesn't mean you won't be admitted. It means that other areas of your application -- work experience, undergraduate GPA, coherence of the statement of purpose, etc. -- will have to be a little stronger to offset them. On the other side of the coin, higher scores do not guarantee admission if the rest of the application is weak. In our experience, the GRE is slightly more widely accepted by graduate colleges and programs. If you're thinking of going on for more graduate work after the MA in LBST, you should probably take the GRE. But if you have no such plans, you might prefer the MAT (Miller Analogy Test); it's less expensive and more fun to take. The program calls for an "emphasis." The LBST degree is by design intended to reacquaint adult students with the great issues of humanity as expressed in the arts and sciences. The overwhelming majority of our students follow the pre-set "Language and Culture" or "Great Books" emphasis. In some very special cases, however, it's possible to design a personal course of study. If you think you're disposed to design your own personal emphasis, you need to keep the following caveats in mind: (1) The university cannot accommodate all personal emphases imaginable since we have to remain within the regular course offerings of related departments. Sometimes a perfectly acceptable emphasis simply can't be put together. In one case, a prospective student wanted to concentrate on metaphysics and cosmology. Since there aren't enough courses on campus in these areas to fill the twelve-hour requirement, the emphasis couldn't be worked out, and she did not enroll. (2) Not all courses in the university catalog qualify for the degree. They must be graduate courses (at the 5000-level or above). See the FAQ "undergraduate courses." (3) There is no guarantee that you'll be able to enroll in all graduate-level courses, particularly in departments with MA's of their own and relatively competitive admissions. Such departments reserve many of their courses for their own graduate students, very rarely admitting guest students from other programs. (4) Classes in related departments may not be offered at a time that's possible for you. It's almost a requirement that a personally designed emphasis will entail day-time courses, and if your schedule doesn't allow it, you probably shouldn't consider this to be an option. Will the degree qualify me to teach at a community college? Certification for teaching is one of the great mysteries of the modern age. In our area, these rules are the domain of SACS, an accrediting agency, to which most of the colleges and universities belong. To teach in a community college, you must have an MA in the area in which you want to teach, or any MA with at least eighteen hours in the field in which you plan to teach. Since an MA in Liberal Studies isn't a traditional MA -- say in Political Science, English, History, etc. - - the key for a Liberal Studies student is to know what courses are in the field and will hence be recognized by SACS as qualification to teach. SACS determines this entirely by the rubric (the name) of the course. For example, if you wish to teach English at a community college, then these eighteen hours must be in courses with the ENGL or equivalent prefix. Sometimes these rules are very strict. For example, you cannot teach ENGL courses if you have eighteen hours in Communication Studies (COMM), which is clearly a related field. The reverse holds for students with eighteen hours in ENGL; they can't tech COMM courses. But if your eighteen hours are in Philosophy (PHIL), you can teach both philosophy and religion, and visa-versa. So far as I know, the LBST prefix itself is not recognized by SACS as a qualifying rubric, though that may change at any time. The best way to find out about what the most current manifestations of these rules is would be to contact an institution which is similar to the kind of institution in which you'd like to teach and ask them. Are the application forms online? The forms are indeed online for downloading in pdf format. Go right here and look at the left navigation bar. http://www.uncc.edu/gradmiss/prospect.html
Probably yes. The statute of limitations runs out on standardized tests after five years. But these tests are used as a predictor of the ability to do graduate work, and if you already have an MA, or significant graduate hours, for example, the Graduate College may be willing to accept that as evidence of your ability and not require a standardized test. But this is done on a case-by-case basis. General instructions on applying are available from the Graduate College as a downloadable pdf file: click here.
Each LBST student takes an four-course emphasis within the degree structure. You can follow our own emphasis "Language and Culture," or "Great Books," or you can try to design your own in consultation with the Director. If, say, you're attracted to philosophy, you can work out an emphasis made up mainly of philosophy course (depending on the availability of appropriate courses). See the FAQ "emphasis."
If your undergraduate GPA is below the 2.75 Graduate School cut-off for admissions, or if your score on the GRE/GMAT is weak, there are still a couple of considerations that may work in your favor. First, did you show marked improvement toward the end of your undergraduate career? If so, you can argue that your low GPA is attributable to, what shall we call it, "youthful indiscretion." Next, has it been a very long time since your undergraduate degree? If so, then more weight can be placed on your subsequent work experience than on your college grades. Finally, another way to shore up a marginal application is to prove you can do the work by doing it. You can sign up for one or two LBST courses as a post-baccalaureate student -- that is, as a non-degree student. (See the FAQ item about this option.) If you can do well in the courses, your work will be taken as evidence that you can complete the degree. Several of our current students have done just that to be admitted. I see many undergraduate courses in the university catalog that interest me. Can I take some and apply them to the degree? The answer is "yes" and "no." Only courses at the 5000 level and above can be applied to a graduate degree. So an undergraduate course at the 4000 level or below does not "count." But there is a mechanism for strengthening the requirements of a 4000-level undergraduate course to make it applicable to a graduate degree. The course has to meet a couple of criteria: it has to be taught by a member of the graduate faculty and it has to be pertinent to your program emphasis. The faculty teaching the course also has to be willing to do a little extra work for you: draw up a separate syllabus and grade additional work (usually a research paper). The program looks interesting, but could I try a course or two courses before I fill out a complete application? If you've missed a deadline for the term in which you'd like to enroll, or if you're still not sure whether you want to commit to the program as a degree student, there is a mechanism that allows you to take a class or two to try it out. You can register as a post-baccalaureate student (that is, a non-degree student) and take one or both of the introductory LBST courses (6101 and 6102).The application process for post-bac status is very simple, taking no more than a hour to complete and three days to process. The form for this kind of application is available in pdf format at the Graduate College forms page. If you do well in the courses, decide you'd like to continue, and are eventually admitted to the program as a degree student, up to six hours (two courses) can be applied to your degree. Many of our current students began just this way. Can you send me some written literature on the program? Sure. Just email me: Dale Grote (dagrote@email.uncc.edu) How do I apply and what are the deadlines? The first steps of the application process are handled by the Graduate College. You must observe their requirements and deadlines. After your application materials are complete, they will send it all to our program. It is examined by our admissions committee, and we then report our recommendation whether to admit or not back to the Graduate College. The complete list of procedures and deadlines are available online: Application Process. I've taken courses in another LBST program. Will they transfer? You can transfer in only a total of six credit hours taken at another institution. All transferable courses must have an A or a B as the grade. Do you offer online courses? Not yet. Many of our courses have a considerable web presence, and offering Internet courses is in the plans. I would like to apply this master's degree towards admission into law school at some point in time. Please explain to me how this degree could be useful in that pursuit. Another complicated question. The answer depends on a series of issues that are unknowable to us: (1) what kind of law do you intend to practice; (2) what institutions will you be applying to; and (3) are you're hoping that an MA will compensate for any real or perceived weaknesses in your application to a law school. Taking the issue from the last to the first . . . If you're not applying to a law program now because you suspect that you'd not be admitted now on account of a weak undergraduate GPA, a solid MA degree would surely shore up the application, since it would demonstrate the desire and the ability to engage in substantial research at the graduate level. As to the first and second questions -- whether your target institutions will recognize and value a LBST degree and whether an advanced degree in the humanities will be applicable to the type of law you hope to practice -- there's only way to be sure: write directly to a law school that fits your profile and ask them their opinion of an LBST MA degree.
What is the cost of a course at UNC Charlotte? For up-to-date information about tuition and other fees, you should go the registrar's page: (http://www.uncc.edu/registrar/fee.htm). |
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