Applicable only to students admitted during the 2017-2018 academic year.

Social Science

College of Letters and Science

Graduate Degrees

The Interdepartmental Program in Social Science offers the Master’s degree in Social Science (MaSS).

Admissions Requirements

Master’s Degree

Advising

The Student Affairs Officer will counsel students on visas, enrollment, graduation requirements, and other relevant issues. The Academic Program Director and the Chair of the Interdepartmental Program (IDP) will advise students on matters pertaining to the academic program.

Areas of study

N/A

Foreign Language Requirement

Not required.

Course Requirements

Students must be enrolled full time during one year (three quarters with a minimum of 12 units per quarter) and complete 36 units (nine courses) of course work. The course work consists of seven core MaSS program graduate courses (400 series), and two elective courses either at the graduate (200 series) or upper division (100 series) level. All courses must be taken for a letter grade.

Students must complete the 36 units (nine courses) as follows:

Fall Quarter

SOC SC 400A (four units):  This course introduces students to research paradigms, interpretive approaches, and key concepts in social science inquiry.

SOC SC 401 (four units):  This course introduces students to key concepts and approaches to qualitative research and provides hand-on experience with qualitative research methods

SOC SC 402 (four units):  This course introduces students to the fundamentals of data analysis and statistics, focusing on the application of statistical methods in social problems research.

Winter Quarter

SOC SC 400B (four units):  This course offers advanced training in research paradigms, interpretive approaches, and key concepts in social science inquiry.

SOC SC 403 (four units):  This course provides advanced training in data analysis and statistics, and the evaluation of research evidence.

Elective (four units)

Spring Quarter

SOC SC 410 (four units):  The course introduces students to the theory and practice of “engaged social science” as an emerging orientation to transformative research.

SOC SC 420 (four units):  This course guides students toward completion of the Major Research Paper.

Elective (four units)

Two electives will be selected from a list of courses offered by the departments in the Division of Social Sciences that are especially recommended for students in the MaSS program.

Teaching Experience

Not required.

Field Experience

Not required.

Capstone Plan

Students are required to complete a Major Research Paper (MRP). Students must obtain approval of their topic and research plan from the Academic Program Director. Three faculty members will serve as readers for each paper; readers will be designated by the end of the winter quarter.  Faculty readers will provide feedback and evaluate the final submission to determine the student’s satisfactory fulfillment of this requirement.

Thesis Plan

None.

Time-to-Degree

The normative time-to-degree is three quarters. The time line for the master’s degree is described in the Course Requirements section.

DEGREE	NORMATIVE TIME TO ATC (Quarters)	NORMATIVE TTD	MAXIMUM TTD
Master of Social Science	3	3	3

Termination of Graduate Study and Appeal of Termination

University Policy

A student who fails to meet the above requirements may be recommended for termination of graduate study. A graduate student may be disqualified from continuing in the graduate program for a variety of reasons. The most common is failure to maintain the minimum cumulative grade point average (3.00) required by the Academic Senate to remain in good standing. Other examples include lack of timely progress toward the degree and poor performance in core courses. Probationary students (those with cumulative grade point averages below 3.00) may be subject to immediate dismissal upon the recommendation of their department. University guidelines governing termination of graduate students, including the appeal procedure, are outlined in Standards and Procedures for Graduate Study at UCLA.