Entrance Requirements

In order to declare an English major, student must meet the following requirements:

• Be in good academic standing with the University.
• Have passed both ENGL 101 and ENGL 102 with the grade of C.
• Have passed ENGL 210 - Introduction to Literature with a grade of C.
• May not register for 400 level courses until they have been admitted to the major.
• Must have applied for admittance to the major with their faculty advisor.

Exit Requirements

In order to graduate with an English major, students must achieve an overall GPA of 2.25 and a GPA of 2.50 in the major. In addition, they must turn in a portfolio of their work for review by the English faculty, take an exit exam and participate in an exit interview. These requirements are discussed below.

A. Portfolio: You must bring to your exit exam and turn in, to Dr. Wallerstein, a portfolio of papers representing your work in various courses in the major. This portfolio will allow the English faculty to get a sense of your overall achievement in the major so that we can better understand both your progress and the English major itself. The portfolio must contain four papers, as described below.  Please make copies of your portfolio as it will not be returned.

All English majors must submit

• one paper from an English class taken during their first year after admission into the
  major;
• one paper a course taken in the middle of coursework for the major; 
• one paper from a seminar or special topics course;
• one paper of your choice that represents your best writing while an English major.

* English teaching majors must submit a paper from their World Literature course.

The papers that students select should represent what they believe to be their most significant work. Papers from the Imaginative Writing class may be a selection of poetry rather than prose.

In addition to the papers, you are required to write a two- to three-page, typewritten introduction to the portfolio and include that with the portfolio. This introduction should discuss the following points:
 

• your own sense of your intellectual and creative growth as you progressed through the major;
• the specific ways the papers you've included in the portfolio demonstrate that growth.

In other words, write a short analysis of how your writing and thinking in general, and specifically as concerns literature, have changed over the course of your studies in the major, and show how these changes are demonstrated by reference to specific papers in the portfolio.

IMPORTANT: We suggest that you keep all the papers you write for courses in the major, and make copies of the ones that you think are particularly significant (in case something happens to the originals). This way, when the time comes to gather the papers for the portfolio, you will be prepared.

B. Exit Exam: During the semester in which you graduate, you will be required to take an oral exit exam. This exam will be an informal discussion with two or three faculty members regarding your literary and critical interests.  You will be scored on your ability to articulate an analytical response to ten texts of your choosing.  The rubric for the exam is linked HERE.

C. Exit Interview: After your portfolio has been submitted and your exit exam concluded, you will meet with the chair of the English Department to discuss the portfolio, exam, and your course of study. The purpose of the interview is to informally discuss your academic career as an English major, and to determine whether there are steps the department might take to improve the major in the future.