EASST-MA - East Asian Studies (MA)

Students must complete a minimum of 46 units at Stanford (no transfer credits accepted), comprised of:

1. Minimum nine East Asia content courses, at least 30 units of which must be at the graduate level (200 level or above in most courses and 300 level for HISTORY and other select departments), and which also meet the following requirements:  

• Includes EASTASN 330 core course, three units, offered in autumn quarter. Students starting their program in autumn must take this class during their first quarter at Stanford.

• Are on the approved East Asian Studies course lists below, or have been approved by petition (maximum three petitions),

• Are a minimum of three units (excluding specific pre-approved exceptional courses)

• Are taken for a letter grade (if available) and completed with a B or higher (P or higher in GSB courses and Law courses).

• Include at least three courses either i) in the same department; or ii) within the same thematic focus. 

• Language courses may not be used to fulfill content course requirements.

B. Additional coursework as necessary to reach the minimum 46 units for the degree must meet the following criteria:

• Taken for a letter grade,

• At least level 100 or above (above 200 for HISTORY courses), with students strongly encouraged to enroll in graduate-level courses whenever possible, 

Students must submit a master’s thesis representing a substantial piece of original research with a minimum of 10,000 words in the main body (excluding references, citations, appendices, etc.). With the advisor’s approval, the master’s thesis requirement may be satisfied by expanding upon an existing research paper written for an advanced course. The MA thesis is due in the quarter the student applies to graduate by the date and time specified on the official Stanford Academic Calendar. No filing extensions are permitted.

Students must demonstrate proficiency in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean language equivalent to Stanford’s first three full years of language training. This requirement may be fulfilled by one of three methods:

1. Completing the third-year course sequence at Stanford;

2. Examination (i.e., testing into 4th year in the target language) administered by the Stanford Language Center. Students who demonstrate partial completion via this method (for example, testing into third-year Chinese, 2nd quarter) need only complete those courses remaining to fulfill the regular year-long course sequence; 

3. By possessing a degree from a university where the language of instruction is in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean.

Students completing their language proficiency requirement while attending Stanford must adhere to these policies:

• All language courses taken at Stanford used toward fulfilling the language requirement must be for letter grades and completed with a grade of B or higher.

• Conversation classes cannot be used to meet this requirement.

• The language used to meet the language proficiency requirement should match the student’s country/region of focus.

• Students entering the program without any language preparation should complete first-year language courses during the first year of residence at Stanford.   

• Units from language courses numbered 1-99 do not count toward the 46 units required for the degree. Language courses numbered 100 and above (i.e., 3rd year and above) can be used toward meeting the 46 units minimum for the degree but cannot fulfill the content courses requirement.

• Other Asian languages may be accepted by petition to fulfill this degree requirement.

Language courses are listed under the following subject codes on the Stanford Navigate Classes website : CHINLANG, JAPANLNG, and KORLANG.