For admission to candidacy the same language requirements hold for BOTH tracks. In both tracks one of those languages must be either French or German. Starting in Winter quarter 1998 all graduate students who wish to fulfill the language requirement through graduate course work must pick up a form in the departmental office to be filled out by the instructor after the course work has been completed. The form will rate your general knowledge of the language with almost exclusive emphasis on reading. No student will get credit for the language requirement through course work without completion of such a form.
Course work is capped off by the qualifying oral examination.
Each student assembles a list of works that reflects her or his own research interests, and invites appropriate faculty members to serve as examiners. Following the exam, students work toward completion of the dissertation. After choosing a committee, which gives final approval to the topic, the student discusses his or her proposed thesis in a colloquium to which all comparative literature faculty are invited. This provides the opportunity to collaborate with senior scholars in a range of humanistic fields and gain valuable advice and counsel at the crucial early stages of dissertation research. Official approval of the dissertation proposal, along with fulfillment of language requirements, admits the student to candidacy.