Major, Minor, and Honors

Major, Minor,
and Honors Requirements

Major

A major in Hispanic Studies consists of at least 33 hours of courses above the 200 level and may include advanced work in composition, grammar and stylistics, and HISP 304. The major may include up to nine hours of transfer credit per semester for study in literature and culture for a total of 15 hours counted toward the major, including summer work and study-abroad credit. (Up to 18 credits may be transferred from Oberlin’s own study-abroad programs, PRESHCO and PMCSP.) No credit for language courses at the HISP 202/203/204/205 level or below taken at Oberlin, abroad or at other institutions will count toward the major. No course in which the student receives a D will count for the major. Courses in the First-Year Seminar Program (FYSP) taught by Hispanic Studies faculty on topics related to the Spanish-speaking world may count toward the major, as may any other course taught at Oberlin whose central focus falls within Latin American, Latino/a, and Iberian Studies (see below for a list of suggested courses). No more than three courses taught in English may count toward the major.

Students majoring in Hispanic Studies must take courses in both Iberian Peninsular and Latin American literature and culture. All Hispanic Studies majors are strongly encouraged to spend at least one semester in a Spanish-speaking country (see below). Students may pursue a double major with Latin American Studies or other related fields such as Classics and the other modern languages, Sociology, Anthropology, Comparative Literature, Art, History, Comparative American Studies , or Politics. Studies in Hebrew present a Hispanic Studies major with a rare opportunity for research in the Medieval area, while combining Italian and Spanish is both useful and important for studies in the Renaissance and Golden Age.

While no specific courses are required, the major should present a balanced distribution of work taken in Peninsular and Latin American areas; the major should also include the study of various genres, literary movements, and main historical periods covered in various surveys of the curriculum (HISP 309, 310, 317, 318). Any two 300-level courses taught in Spanish normally serve as a prerequisite for admission to those at the 400 level. At least 12 hours must be taken in advanced work (400 level). .

Courses in which a student has earned a letter grade lower than a C-/CR/P cannot be used to fulfill the requirements of the major.

Minor

A minor in Hispanic Studies consists of 18 hours of courses above the 200 level, including two advanced (400) level courses with an expectation of a balance of Peninsular and Latin American Literature and Culture. Six hours of transfer credit are accepted toward the minor from an outside institution, including study abroad. (Up to 9 credits may be transferred from PRESHCO and PMCSP.) No more than one course taught in English may count toward the minor, including first-year seminars (see above).

Honors

         The Department of Hispanic Languages encourages qualified majors to consider doing an Honors project during the senior year. The Honors program provides the opportunity to work in a sustained and in-depth manner on an independent project of interest to the student. Honors projects should address topics within Hispanic language, literature or culture. The project may include various possibilities (e.g. research thesis, translation project, technology-based projects, video or play productions, etc.) and may be written in Spanish or English. An Honors project usually entails work completed over an entire year (two semesters), for six academic credits (three per semester).
         To be considered for admission into the department Honors program a candidate must normally have a 3.25 overall GPA and a 3.5 GPA in courses taken for the major at Oberlin. Every potential candidate is strongly advised to complete the basic course work for the major before undertaking an Honors project. A major may either be invited or apply to participate in the program.

         1. Normally a formal application is submitted to the department for approval by April 15 of the candidate's junior year. In exceptional cases those students absent from campus during that time may present a proposal at a later date but in no case later than the first week of classes of the senior year.

         2. The application should include a proposal for the project to be undertaken as well as the candidate's interest and qualifications to carry out and complete the project. The proposal must also come with the approval of the faculty member who will serve as project director.

         3. By September 15, the candidate is required to submit an annotated bibliography assembled in consultation with the thesis advisor. By December 1 the candidate is required to submit to the department a well-developed prospectus and bibliography. At this time, the candidate will meet with the reading committee for the project who shall recommend continuing or abandoning the project. It is expected that a first draft (or equivalent, for technology projects) will be completed by the end of the January Winter Term. By Spring Break of the second semester the project should be nearing completion. A copy of the completed project should be submitted to each member of the reading committee for consideration by April 15. A date for the oral defense is set in relation to the deadline for the department's recommendation sent to the College Committee on Honors at Graduation. Customarily this date falls in the first week of May.

         4. One week before the scheduled presentation, the candidate will submit to each member of the Hispanic Studies Faculty an outline of the Honors Project and the complete bibliography.

         5. Should the candidate´s progress be deemed unsatisfactory as a result of the oral presentation, the honors credit may be turned into a private reading credit.

         6. By a designated date in late April of the senior year, the candidate will submit two clean, bound copies of the Honors Thesis (10 pages per credit taken recommended, i.e. 60 pages for a six-credit project) to the primary readers and two clean, collated photocopies for the rest of the faculty for evaluation.

         7. The Senior Oral Examination is not to exceed sixty minutes and will focus on the content of the Honors Thesis. The time designated for the oral defense will be divided according to the following schedule for purposes of questioning the Honors candidate:
         First reader: 20 minutes
         Second reader: 10 minutes
         Other faculty: 30 minutes

         8. After the defense, the candidate will supply two clean, revised bound copies of the honors thesis for archiving, one for the library and one for the department.

         9. In determining the degree of honors to be awarded at graduation, the Hispanic Studies Faculty presupposes as a minimum, the following guidelines from the Committee on Honors at Graduation: “The Committee on Honors at Graduation suggests that averages in major areas typically should not be below 3.0 for Honors, 3.4 for High Honors and 3.7 for Highest Honors. Exceptional cases might, for example, involve a single poor year or semester attributable to unusual circumstances.”