English Graduate Degrees
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Attention Graduate Applicants in Creative Writing and Rhetoric & Composition
Please review the statements below regarding the application process.
Creative Writing Applicants
Ohio University's Graduate Program in Creative Writing continues to serve a vibrant, diverse community of emerging poets and prose writers. We invite applicants who are interested in pursuing an M.A. or Ph.D. in poetry or in creative prose. Currently, we seek prose writers who are interested in working in both fiction and creative nonfiction, although a prose applicant may specialize in one of those two prose genres.
Poetry applicants should submit a portfolio of approximately 10 poems. Prose applicants should submit 25 to 40 pages of fiction or creative nonfiction or samples of both. In addition, all Creative Writing applicants to the Ph.D. program are required to submit a critical/scholarly essay of about 10-15 pages. (M.A. applicants are not required to submit a critical essay.)
Rhetoric/Composition Applicants
Ohio University's Graduate Program in Rhetoric & Composition is open for limited admissions for academic year 2023-24 as we continue to restructure our program. Those seeking M.A. degrees and hybrid Ph.D. degrees in Literature and Rhetoric & Composition are especially encouraged to apply.
About Graduate Programs in English at Ohio University
The formal study of English in the 21st century continues to undergo profound changes precipitated by diverse currents both inside and outside the academy. Consequently, the study of English today includes numerous areas of professional focus. The graduate program at Ohio University recognizes this diversity and offers three distinct areas of concentration at the master's level and doctoral level. At the same time, the English Department wants to ensure that all graduate students share a common core of courses and that they take courses outside their specific concentrations.
A primary aim and strength of the program is the fruitful dialogue between students and faculty with differing but related professional interests. Professional and apprentice creative writers, critics, theorists, and composition specialists sit together in the same classrooms and interact at the same informal gatherings, learning from one another and discovering the common concerns that unite artists, scholars, and teachers of literature and writing.
To stimulate this dialogue, OHIO has consciously kept the program small but diverse. Graduate students in English at Ohio University study in an atmosphere where they are taken seriously as individuals and are encouraged to think and create freely, within a framework of demanding goals and standards.
The spirit of dialogue and community also is fostered by the university's location in the informal and tranquil setting of rural Appalachian Ohio. The sense of collegiality—the common pursuit of shared goals from different perspectives—produces an atmosphere of intellectual challenge and personal consideration that distinguishes this program from others in both public and private institutions.
The English program at Ohio University is strongly committed to advancing its candidates' critical and professional skills. Teaching and employment opportunities, along with the promotion of candidates' scholarship, contribute to the high level of job placement for graduates of the M.A. and Ph.D. program.