Career Preparation
Career Preparation in the Research Master Arts, Literature and Media
The programme
The curriculum of the Research Master Arts, Literature and Media is characterised by a focus on Arts and Culture, Media Studies or Literary Studies, or students explore a single period (Middle Ages/Early Modern or Modern and Contemporary). The programme's flexibility will encourage you to adopt an interdisciplinary perspective. During your studies you will acquire a valuable range of skills and knowledge, both disciplinary and interdisciplinary, historical and theoretical.
How can you use this knowledge and the skills that you acquire? Which specialisation should you choose within your study programme and why? What skills do you already have, and what further skills do you still want to learn? How do you translate the courses that you choose into something that you’d like to do after graduation?
These questions and more will be discussed at various times during your study programme. You may already have spoken about them with your study coordinator, the Humanities Career Service or other students, or made use of the Leiden University Career Zone. Many different activities are organised to help you reflect on your own wishes and options, and give you the chance to explore the job market. All these activities are focused on the questions: ‘What can I do?’, ‘What do I want?’ and ‘How do I achieve my goals?’.
Activities
You will be notified via the Faculty website, your study programme website and email about further activities in the area of job market preparation. The following activities will help you to thoroughly explore your options, so we advise you to take careful note of them:
Transferable skills
Future employers are interested not only in the subject-related knowledge that you acquired during your study programme, but also in the ‘transferable skills’. These include cognitive skills, such as critical thinking, reasoning and argumentation and innovation; intrapersonal skills, such as flexibility, initiative, appreciating diversity and metacognition; and interpersonal skills, such as communication, accountability and conflict resolution. In short, they are skills that all professionals need in order to perform well.
It is therefore important that during your study programme you not only acquire as much knowledge as possible about your subject, but also are aware of the skills you have gained and the further skills you still want to learn. The course descriptions in the e-Prospectus of the Research Master Arts, Literature and Media include, in addition to the courses’ learning objectives, a list of the skills that they aim to develop.
Courses of the Research Master Arts, Literature and Media
Courses of the study programme obviously help to prepare you for the job market. As a study programme, we aim to cover this topic either directly or less directly in each semester.
Students can opt for an internship where they gain valuable work experience. You can contact the study adviser to discuss this option.
Contact
If you have any questions about career choices, whether in your studies or on the job market, you are welcome to make an appointment with the career adviser of the Humanities Career Service, or with your study adviser
February Starters
Most students start this study programme in September but there is also a possibility to start in February.
Programme changes
Students who start this programme in February follow a slightly adjusted version of the study programme presented in the study guide. For some of these adjustments there may be different options, so it is advisable to first discuss the adjusted study programme with the study advisor in order to take well-informed decisions.
The most important adjustments for February-starters concern the first year of their studies. Students are expected to follow the programme in the order mentioned below.
Compulsory
Choose one of the following
Core Course: Methodologies and Theories - Medieval and Early Modern - Semester 1 (spring semester)
Core Course: Methodological Concepts in Arts, Literature and Media - Semester 1 (spring semester)
Optional
- Case Based Research - Semester 2 (autumn semester)
The Case Based Research course can be taken in semester 2 or 3 (recommended) or semester 4 (possible but not recommended)
The other courses (theme courses and electives) remain unchanged and can be chosen according to timing and availability.
Thesis deadlines and graduation
Prior to handing in your thesis, you should have completed the resMA Thesis Seminar (5264VTSEM).
The informative and methodological sessions of the thesis seminar take place in the autumn semester; in the spring semester the seminar operates mainly as a collective writing- and peer-review-lab. February-starters can start the thesis seminar in their second semester (autumn) or in their third semester (spring); in the latter case, they attend the informative and methodological sessions in their 4th semester (autumn), parallel tot writing their thesis.
Graduation for February-starters takes place at the end of the autumn semester. The timeframe and related deadlines are as follows:
Submission of thesis proposal to the examination board: 15 June of the year preceding graduation
Submission of complete draft version of the thesis: 1 December
Submission of final version to supervisor: 21 December
Supervisor and second readers have four weeks to read and grade the thesis (six in holiday periods).
