MA Students
Our highly individualised and centrally research-oriented program shapes in our students critical thinking and appetite for challenging questions that do not come with easy answers.
Master of Arts in American Studies
While at the BA level our program focuses on the US American Studies, our MA program offers a wider Western Hemispheric perspective and, even more crucially, a highly individualized, research-oriented curriculum allowing students to develop graduate and research skills. Thoroughly interdisciplinary, the program builds on classical American Studies—US American government and politics, US foreign policy, US history and society, American literature and intellectual history. But ASC’s program is unique among such programs in Poland in that it also includes approaches critically engaging the discipline, incorporating ethnic and Indigenous studies, critical race theory and Black studies, gender and queer studies, disability studies, and environmental studies.
Study Program
The two-year tuition-free MA Program in American Studies at the ASC comprises a highly individualized, researach-oriented curriculum focused on the various cultural and social phenomena of the United States and the Western Hemisphere at large.
Apart from a few mandatory classes during the first year, students choose a range of electives and research-intensive proseminars through which they can develop their interests. Research proseminar enables students to gain research skills, such as working with sources, reviewing academic literature, interpreting data, and writing well-rounded academic papers. Depending on your interests, you can pursue coursework in American literature, media, culture, society, history, and politics.
Course Registration
You can register for ASC courses only through USOSweb. Registrations are held on a first-come, first-served basis. Remember to follow the registration schedule and register for all the lectures, research proseminars, elective courses, and other classes, according to the requirements of your study program. More information in the documents below.
Course catalogues
The catalogues are a quick and convenient tool to browse through the Center’s most recent course offerings. Course catalogues provide more detailed information about the courses, allowing you to better plan your course selections.
Class Attendance Rules
A student enrolled in an ASC class is allowed to miss no more than two class meetings in a given semester (no medical documentation is required). In case of further absences medical documentation must be presented to the instructor and the student is obliged to arrange with the instructor how to make up for the classes missed.
Research travel
If absences are due to causes other than illness (eg. travel for research purposes), the student should notify the teacher at least a week before the planned absence and make arrangements concerning the required make-up work. Absences due to research travel require written support from the thesis supervisor. Instructors have the right to fail students who have missed more than two class meetings for reasons not related to health. These rules concern electives, proseminars and seminars in both the BA and the MA program, but they do not apply to lectures.
Open Academic Sessions (OZN)
Each ASC student is obliged to collect OZN points through participation in a variety of extracurricular academic activities: public lectures, debates, seminars, or cultural events such as film festivals. The OZN requirement is 30 points for MA students. Students collect points by attending events and listing them on their individual OZN cards. OZN points are not attached to any single semester, so you collect them throughout your studies, and receive your grade once, at the end of the program. Click the button below to learn more about the OZN program rules, opportunities and grading.
The Transatlantic Symposium
It is a short-term academic exchange between the Oregon State University, Humboldt-University Berlin and the American Studies Center, during which the participants discuss topics of contemporary relevance in an interdisciplinary, experiential and transatlantic setting.
Each Symposium encompasses a student conference and a tour. At the conference, students give presentations on the topic of that year’s Symposium, while the tour includes meetings with representatives of national agencies, local government officials, and non-governmental organizations, as well as museum visits and other activities. The Symposium locations alternate between the United States and Europe. Since 2012, the ASC students have visited Berlin, New York, Vienna, Rome, and Southern California.
Schedule
Exam Session
Exams take place at the end of each semester. See the schedule of the most recent exam session down below.
What if I miss the exam?
In the case of an absence from an examination, in particular due to illness or another examination taking place at the same time, the student is entitled to an additional examination date, if the absence is excused by the ASC Counselor for Students’ Affairs. In the case of an absence due to illness, a medical certificate should be submitted to the Office for Students’ Affairs within seven working days of the date indicated therein for the termination of the exemption. Additional examination date may be granted only once in a given stage of study (there may be an exception to this rule only in particularly justified cases).
Getting your grades
Despite the fact that at the ASC we have an annual system of checking students’ transcripts, you need to get credits for the courses and lectures which took place during the winter semester till the end of the make up session at the latest. According to the new university rules, grades entered into the USOS system serve as the basic documentation of your achievements. Besides, there is no possibility to enter the grades into the USOS system retroactively, so please make sure that all of them are in place by the end of the make up session.
MA Thesis
In order to get your degree, you must write and defend your MA thesis. You choose your supervisor by the end of the second semester, and write your thesis during your final year of study. See the files below for more detailed information about the rules for writing and defending MA thesis at the ASC.
Old Rules of MA Examinations
(binding only in special cases)
- Writing and defending MA thesis (old rules)
- Writing and defending MA thesis (old rules)
- Topis for MA Exams OSA (2017-2018)
- Topis for MA Exams CESLA
- Declaration for choosing new exam rules
- First pages of an MA thesis ASC (since 2018)
- First pages of an MA thesis ASC (2016-2018)
- First pages of an MA thesis ASC (2012-2015)
- First pages of an MA thesis CESLA (2015-2017)
- Plagiarism Policy
- Dane osobowe abiturienta OSA UW
- Supervisor’s request to appoint an examination committee
Final Examination
MA thesis defenses in 2024 will take place in March, July, September and December. Below you will find the deadlines for the submission of your thesis as well as the planned dates of BA and MA exams at the ASC UW in the academic year 2023/2024:
- The deadline to submit a thesis: by February 29, 2024
The exam dates: March 22, 2024 - The deadline to submit a thesis: by June 5, 2024
The exam dates: July 03-05 and 9-10, 2024 - The deadline to submit a thesis: by September 3, 2024
The exam dates: September 24-27, 2024 - The deadline to submit a thesis: by November 29, 2024
The exam dates: December 18, 2024
The ASC Director as well as the ASC Students’ Office will strictly adhere to the above deadlines and will not make any exceptions. Failure to submit a thesis by June 5, 2024 will irreversibly result in postponing of a BA or MA exam until the end of September 2024.
After your studies
The focus on culture and society enhances our alumni’s cultural competency, communication skills, and critical thinking, setting them up for success in business ventures, nongovernmental organizations, cultural institutions, government agencies, research and educational institutions, museums, political action groups, social service agencies, youth-development institutions. By fostering curiosity about the world and elevating students’ English skills, our studies also develop core competencies needed in fields such as film industry, journalism, arts, tourism, and much more.
Still don’t know what you want to do after your studies? The possibilities are endless! Find out more about career paths chosen by our Alumni and get inspired.
Fees
- Fees for Academic Year 2023/2024
- Fees for Academic Year 2022/2023
- Fees for Foreign Students 2022/2023
- Fees for Academic Year 2021/2022
- Fees for Academic Year 2020/2021
- Fees for Academic Year 2019/2020
- Fees for Academic Year 2018/2019
- Fees for Academic Year 2017/2018
- Fees for Foreign Students 2017/2018
Health and Safety Training
Exchange programs
Every student can apply for exchange program once in their study cycle (both BA and MA) and spend up to two semesters abroad. ASC has agreements with numerous universities and colleges in and outside of Europe. Apply for grants from the Erasmus+ program, bilateral agreements or MOST program.
Thanks to a special bilateral agreement between the ASC and University of Florida, Gainesville, MA students can apply for stipends for a semester-long stay at the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
The best time to apply is when you are in your first year of the MA program; this way, you will be able to go on the exchange in your third semester. While this may be, suggestively, the best time to go, it is not the only one.
Scholarships and Financial Aid
Warsaw University offers a wide array of social services to aid students financially. These include awards, stipends, one-time financial assistance, health insurance, university accomodation. Click on the link below to learn more.
Contact
dr Małgorzata Gajda-Łaszewska
ASC Counselor for Students’ Affairs
+48 22 55 333 19
Room 1.043
Office hours in Fall semester 2023/2024:
Tuesdays, 11:45 – 12:45, 15:00 – 16:00, online via ZOOM, book your appointment at Doodle
Thursdays, 12:00 – 14:00, room 1.043