A full account of degree requirements and procedures is contained in the Politics student handbook.
To earn the MA in Politics, a student must complete a total of 30 credits with a minimum grade point average of 3.0.
A maximum of three credits taken at another university may be granted toward the credit requirement for the master's degree. Twenty-seven credits must be completed at The New School for Social Research.
First Year Seminar
Required for all MA candidates in the first year, the First Year Seminar is designed to introduce students to the work of the faculty in the Politics department, who give guest lectures in the course and whose work students read. Through these interactions, students come to understand contending concepts and core approaches in analyzing politics.
Politics Courses
Students will take at least six courses (18 credits) and up to nine courses in the Politics department. They can focus on a particular subfield or theme or range widely. Courses offered by other departments of The New School for Social Research that are cross-listed in Politics may be used to meet the requirement for 18 Politics credits. One of these courses must be a course in qualitative methods or interpretive methods.
Students must take at least two core "foundations" courses at the 5000 level, which are designed to expose them to core problems and literatures in a field of study.
Many cross-listed courses do have prerequisites. The course instructor and the chair of the department or committee offering a course will determine whether a Politics student meets the prerequisites and can be admitted to the course in question. Courses that are not cross-listed in Politics may be taken only as electives (see below) except with special permission from the Politics department.
Elective Courses
The remaining three courses (9 credits) are electives that may be taken within or outside the Politics department. The department encourages students to avail themselves of the rich course offerings of the other departments of The New School for Social Research, with appropriate guidance from advisors, so as to maximize the coherence of the overall program of study.
Graduate Minors
Students can use elective courses toward completing one of the university’s graduate minors. These structured pathways of study immerse master's and doctoral students in disciplines outside their primary field and expose them to alternative modes of research and practice. Completed graduate minors are officially recorded on students' transcript.
MA Thesis
In addition to completing the 30 credits of coursework, MA candidates must provide evidence of ability to carry out a significant intellectual research project in the field. This ability is established by the submission of the MA thesis paper, which may originate as a paper submitted for courses. Students must consult with a faculty advisor when planning their thesis. The MA thesis will be evaluated by a full-time member of the faculty of Politics.