MFA Degree Requirements

At least four of the courses taken must be workshops in fiction or poetry, depending on the genre in which the student is admitted. These workshops are part of a fixed program, taken in sequence, which all of the students admitted in each genre will complete as a cohort. The four remaining courses are normally graduate-level literature courses, some of which may be completed during the BU summer session(s); workshops must be completed in the fall and spring semesters. It is possible to take a course (or courses) in a subject or discipline other than literature, provided that these are demonstrably essential to the student’s creative work. Past students have taken courses in environmental law, film, editorial studies, journalism, philosophy, and music history.

Students teach in either the fall or spring semester, and so generally follow a schedule of taking four courses in the semester in which they do not teach, two or three in the semester in which they do teach, and one or two courses during the summer sessions.

Most workshops, both graduate and undergraduate, meet in Room 222 at 236 Bay State Road (EGL 222), the room in which poet Robert Lowell worked with Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton and in which fiction writer Leslie Epstein worked with Peter Ho Davies, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Ha Jin.

The MFA thesis consists of a minimum of ninety-five pages of fiction or thirty-five pages of poetry. It must be approved by two readers — usually MFA faculty in the student’s genre — and submitted, correctly formatted, to the BU Graduate School of Arts and Sciences before a student departs for Global Fellowship travel. The thesis should contain poetry or fiction crafted during the student’s time in the program.

Each student who has not previously completed at least two college courses of intermediate-level study in a non-English world language, or is not already multilingual, may fulfill the language requirement in one of the following ways:

• Satisfactory completion of Boston University’s Translation Seminar, CAS TL 540 and its co-requisite CAS TL542. Students who choose this option may first wish to consult the course instructor to ensure their level of proficiency in their desired language of study is appropriate for the course. The course will require students choose a mentor from the language department for the source language from which they are working; if working in a language not taught at BU, they may have to search outside of the Boston University community to find a mentor.
• Satisfactory completion of a Boston University course in a non-English world language, usually taught in that language or a 500-level reading course in a world language (in which texts and instruction are usually in that language), subject to approval by the Creative Writing Program Director.
• Passing GRS LF 621, GRS LG 621, GRS LI 621, or GRS LS 621 (these reading-knowledge-only courses are offered pass/fail for no academic credit, and enrollment is limited).
• Passing a Translation Exam proctored by a Creative Writing Department administrator or faculty member and graded by an expert in the language being translated.

A student may transfer a maximum of two semester-length courses from another institution toward their degree. These must be graduate-level English literature courses and must not have been counted toward any other degree.

Students have the option to graduate within one year (August 25) or within a year and a half (January 25). Students opting for the second date do not receive additional funding, and they may not take academic courses during their second fall semester; the additional semester may be used only for completion of the thesis.

The Robert Pinsky Global Fellowships in Poetry and the Leslie Epstein Global Fellowships in Fiction make it possible for BU MFA students to travel, write, and study for up to three months anywhere outside of the United States upon completion of all required coursework for the MFA degree.

In the winter, students will have an orientation with their program administrator in which they receive information about Global Fellowship applications. Global Fellowship applications are due at the beginning of the spring semester and evaluated by the faculty. Funding, if granted, is disbursed over the summer.

Please note that, before leaving on Global Fellowship travel, students must complete all requirements for the MFA degree, including the thesis, which must be delivered, correctly formatted, to the Graduate School. Students are also required to have departed the United States for their Global Fellowship destination(s) before the date on which they wish to receive their degree.

In recent years, MFA students have travelled to Ireland, Belgium, India, and elsewhere. The Global Fellowship is not intended to fund individual or family vacations to standard tourist destinations, but rather to allow MFA students to explore a place, a culture, a language, or an author that is of immediate creative interest to them. Please explore the Global Fellows blog by clicking here.