Language Requirement for Graduate Students Download to print

All students must demonstrate proficiency in both oral and written English, which is the language of graduate study at Kent State. Judgment of such competence rests with the appropriate major department. Deficiency in English is cause for dismissal from any graduate program.

There is no universal foreign language or research tool requirement. Individual departments or discipline areas may have specific requirements. Students should consult their individual departments. The appropriate languages are determined by the student’s major department. Language requirements (if any) must be completed before doctoral students are admitted to candidacy. Special arrangements for examinations in other languages must be made by the student’s major department in consultation with the chair of the Department of Modern and Classical Language Studies. Where required, the language examination used to establish a student’s language proficiency is determined by the student’s department. The examination may be a departmentally designed and administered test. Dates for departmentally administered tests are set by the department.

A series of courses has been instituted in French and German to develop “reading” proficiency in these languages. Reading proficiency in a foreign language is demonstrated when the student completes one of the following sequences with a minimum B grade in each course of the sequence. Credit hours earned in this language sequence are not applicable toward the completion of the hour requirement in a student’s graduate program and do not count toward the minimum 8-credit-hour semester load required.

• FR 63201 Reading French for Graduate Students and FR 63202 Reading French for Graduate Students
• GER 61901 Reading German for Graduate Students and GER 61902 Reading German for Graduate Students