Full-time students can complete requirements for the MA in two years. Part-time students will be admitted to the program if they meet graduate admissions criteria. All students admitted into the program must complete degree requirements within five years. Facilities Graduate students at UMass Boston have access to a wide range of advanced computer resources for statistical calculation, document preparation, and multimedia applications. The Department of Sociology maintains five Pentium-based PCs for graduate student use.
All computers have high-speed Internet access.
These computational resources are complemented by extensive social science data archives and access to ongoing social science research projects. Through the Social and Demographic Research Institute at UMass Amherst, students have access to data obtained from Gallup polls, surveys of prison inmates, observations of plea bargaining, records of Massachusetts court cases, and over 150 other studies of national and local populations. Through the Center for Survey Research at UMass Boston, students can collaborate on survey research projects or, in some cases, obtain part-time employment. Ongoing faculty research provide many opportunities for student thesis projects. The University's Healey Library provides on-line reference access to the social science journal literature through Soc Abstracts, PsychLit, Uncover, and other services.