The recent two decades have witnessed a significant upsurge of job opportunities for students holding a tertiary-level degree in English, an ever-increasing number of colleges and universities, in outsourcing sectors, in marketing jobs and, of course, in banking sectors. A student, who can communicate in fluent English, both in written and spoken form, is considered to possess better opportunities in every walk of life – be it professional, social, or economic. With a view to instilling into students a firm confidence garnered from critical thinking, analytical musing, persistent translation and, above all, in-depth research, East Delta University has launched MA in English, a two-year program (one year as MA Preliminary and another as MA Final) with a strong hope that this program will open new vistas of job opportunities for the learners. The courses of the syllabus focus on creative and critical texts written in and translated into English that will enable students to re-examine and analyze critically, in a comparative frame, literary manuscripts, locations, agencies, productions and history of the reception of the texts. The syllabus aims to expose students to the richness and variety of English Literature in all its genres chronologically, from Geoffrey Chaucer to W. H. Auden, Shakespeare to Beckett, Daniel Defoe to Thomas Hardy. Apart from the concentration on literature, the syllabus includes applied linguistics, classroom applications, the teaching of communicative skills, drilling translation skills, and ELT as core focuses on honing the learners’ language skills and interview skills and thus giving career orientation to the syllabus.

MA in English literature can offer a wide range of career opportunities. Being a non-technical subject, a solid grip on English helps enrich numerous sub-skills leading to your transformation as a valuable employee. There is a prevailing notion that a degree in English is all about developing communicative skills, reading volumes of books, and eventually, taking teaching as a profession. However, a degree in English literature aids you in analyzing and synthesizing knowledge that is not limited to teaching. When it comes to career choices, an English graduate needs to chart out the available fields of work first. Let us start with the academic versus non-academic sectors first. Other than being a teacher, English graduates can go for the positions like research assistant, program coordinator, English language instructor, content developer, and material designer. Talking about the non-academic domain, many people with English background are opting for online jobs e.g. translation, academic writing, interpretation, online tutoring, and subtitling. Considering the public and private job subdivisions, English graduates will always have an upper hand, as many of the governmental services specifically require people with a sound knowledge of English. The private companies need English graduates alike. Some very common instances are administration, finance and banking, event management, garment industry, telecommunication, general management, mass media, printing and publication, marketing, survey and research organization. In fact, there is hardly any field where English graduates cannot knock for an opportunity.

The objectives of the program are:

1. to develop sensibility and emotion of students with the purpose to enable them to relish literature;

2. to enable students to explore job-market beyond the conventional fields with the courses of applied nature (such as ‘Developing Reading and Writing Skills’, ‘Translation Studies’, and ‘Professional Communications’, etc.);

3. to include New Literatures of different countries as a core course to give a contemporary thrust to the syllabus;

4. to mold and chisel the communicative skills of students by eliminating the errors of articulation;

5. to make students more articulate and confident in English;

6. to motivate students for self-learning with the purpose of acquiring success in every walk of life;

7. to introduce students to contemporary approaches in literary criticism and linguistics theories;

8. to impart pedagogical skills to students by acquainting them with the structure of modern English, the history of the English language, linguistics and methods of teaching English;

9. and, to prepare students through teaching to take up latest areas of language and literature studies for further work and research.

Duration of the program:

• 1 year: For students who have BA (Hons) in English degree

• 2 years: For students who do not have BA (Hons) in English degree

Total credits: 72 (36 credits per year)

Semesters:

• Preliminary (1 year: Semester 1 and 2): For students who do not have BA (Hons) in English degree

• MA in English (1 year: Semester 3 and 4): Mandatory for all.

* The authority reserves the right to amend the structure without any prior notice.

N.B. Anyone with fulltime experience of teaching English in reputed higher-secondary/tertiary level institutions can also apply for grants which will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis upon the discretion of the Advisory Panel.

• An undergraduate degree from any recognized university with CGPA 2. or above