MFA Writing Workshops (27 Credits)

Writing workshops (English 780 & 781) are the cornerstone of the MFA experience. Topics and structure vary. Students are encouraged to take workshops with different faculty in order to gain a variety of perspectives on their work and to give basis for selecting one’s thesis committee. Typically, these credits are comprised of four workshops in genre (6 credits each) and one out-of-genre workshop (3 credits).

Workshop Placement: Students indicate their first and second choice of workshop each semester. Every effort is made to place students in their first choice for workshop, but this is not always possible. These factors are considered in workshop placement:

• Student need for the workshop to fulfill degree requirements (i.e., those who have already satisfied workshop requirements get a lower priority than those with a more pressing need for the workshop, e.g., a shorter window in which to fulfill the requirement.)
• Previous workshops taken with instructor. (MFA candidates who’ve already taken a workshop with a certain instructor get lower priority than those who haven’t.)