East Asian Languages & Cultures - a unit within the Department of Languages, Literatures, & Cultures at UMass Amherst - offers a course of study leading to the Master of Arts degree in Chinese. There are two principal focuses of our program. One is the study of Chinese literature, culture, linguistics, and/or pedagogy. The second is the acquisition of practical language skills to enhance future work in such fields as translation, interpretation, teaching, journalism, business or government. Our M.A. students have gone on to work in foreign services, government, as high school teachers and college professors, as professional translators and interpreters, and in a number of other careers.