All entering students are required to enroll in a proseminar, The Practice of Anthropology, Anthropology 200. This course is intended to introduce new students to the four-field philosophy behind the graduate program, to create a cohort feeling among the students, and to introduce them to anthropological styles of research. A portion of each class meeting is devoted to presentations by selected faculty of their recent research, emphasizing the research design and its rationale. All graduate students are required to enroll in and complete the Graduate Core Seminar in their major field of specialization during the first year. Students are encouraged to take Graduate Core Seminars in subfields other than their own.
Students are exempt from the core course in their major field.
Petitioning work completed elsewhere as equivalent to the core course in a given field. If a core course is taken while in graduate status it may be applied to unit requirement for the M.A. degree. All students are required to demonstrate proficiency in a foreign language to ensure they have the necessary skills to conduct independent research. Demonstrating proficiency in a foreign language by petition. Bases for acceptable petitions include language course work through quarter level 5, training in the Peace Corps, successful work at a foreign university in which teaching was conducted in a language other than English, or other evidence.