The Major
Associate Professors: Wenwei Du (Chair), Peipei Qiub, Bryan Van Norden; Assistant Professors: Hiromi Tsuchiya Dollase, Haoming Liu; Instructors: Yuko Matsubara, Anne Parries.
Requirements for Chinese or Japanese Concentration: 13 units (12 units if the student starts language study from the intermediate level and above) chosen from the Chinese-Japanese curriculum, including Chinese-Japanese 120 and Chinese/Japanese 305-306; at least 4 units must be selected at 300 level and at least five courses must be content courses. Chinese/Japanese 350 and 351 can be counted toward the requirements of one intermediate and one advanced level content course. Courses on the approved course list can be taken to fulfill the major requirements upon departmental approval. NRO option is not allowed after the declaration of major for courses counted toward the concentration. For students seeking to double major in Chinese and Japanese, or double major in Chinese/Japanese and another discipline, no more than two units may be double counted.
Junior Year Abroad and summer courses may substitute for the required courses with department approval. The department strongly encourages students to study abroad in China or Japan and commits to providing the students with supervised study away programs. The courses of Vassar’s summer programs in China and Japan are equivalent to their respective on-campus courses.
Honors’ Requirements: Same as those for the majors except for replacing an intermediate-level course with a thesis/culminating project. The thesis is normally written in both semesters of the senior year. The senior project can be done either as a one-unit course in one semester, or a half unit course in each of two semesters.
Requirements for the Correlate Sequence in Chinese or Japanese: 61/2 units chosen from among Chinese 160/360 and Chinese or Japanese 105, 106, 205, 206, 298, 305, 306, 350, 351, and 399; at least 5 units must be taken above the 100-level and two courses must be taken at the 300-level. Junior Year Abroad and summer courses may be substituted with departmental approval. 4 units must be taken at Vassar. Courses available for letter grades must be taken for letter grades.
Departmental courses are arranged in three groups: 1) courses in Chinese-Japanese literary and cultural studies (CHJA); 2) courses in Chinese language and literary/cultural studies (CHIN); 3) courses in Japanese language and literary/cultural studies (JAPA).
