Spanish@UTA

Dr. A. Raymond Elliott, Chair of Modern Languages

You might be wondering what the difference is between an MA in Spanish versus an MA in Modern or Romance Languages. Is earning an MA in Spanish better than getting an MA in Modern or Romance Languages? Are your job prospects less with an MA in Modern Languages? Are PhD programs at other universities less likely to accept you for admission to their programs with an MA in Modern Languages? Are you less prepared in the field with an MA in Modern Languages? Well, the short answer is “no”. The biggest difference I can see between an MA in Modern Languages and an MA in Spanish is purely “administrative”. The two degrees are actually the same. As university budgets get tighter, and competition for securing funding for programs is more fierce than ever, departments are fighting hard to get their piece of the pie. Modern Language departments throughout the United States, Canada and Europe have made the move to offering graduate degrees under the umbrella term of “Modern Languages,” “Romance Languages,” “Slavic Languages,” and “Germanic Languages,” in order to pool students into one category to show the true strength of the department in terms of numbers of students enrolled and total number of degrees awarded. Prior to establishing what I call, “Umbrella Degree Programs”, administrators artificially divided Modern Language Departments into several small pieces of the pie, thus viewing the individual languages separately and consequently never assessing departmental productivity as a whole and complete unit. The consequences of dividing up one department into six, seven or even eight smaller pieces were glaringly apparent: no one piece of the pie in Modern Languages departments had a sufficient number of students enrolled or graduating seniors or graduate students in any one language thus making it virtually impossible to compete with those departments that were viewed as one whole and complete pie. By offering an “umbrella degree”, we were no longer suffer from this artificial segmentation and can pool our numbers together to show the true strength of our department and its productivity. Have our degrees changed? The answer is “no!” Students who earn the MA in Modern Languages are still able to compete with students who have earned an MA in Spanish. In addition, our graduates still qualify for academic appointments in Spanish, Hispanic Studies, Translation, or in related disciplines, as well as for leadership positions in government agencies, public service, educational institutions, and foundations.

Students who earn an MA degree in Modern Languages from UT-Arlington, are in good company for they will join the ranks with other Masters of Modern Language students from Cornell, Princeton, University of Minnesota, University of Illinois, Case Western Reserve, Oxford University, George Mason University, Cambridge University, Carnegie Mellon University, Kansas State University, University of Montana, University of Pennsylvania, and the list goes on! So you see, the real value in your degree is not what it’s called. What’s important is mastery of the materials and content in addition to the skills you are learning so you can compete out there with the best of them!