The College of Criminology and Criminal Justice offers Master of Science (MS) and Master of Arts (MA) degrees.
The general requirement for the MS degree includes 33 hours of coursework. Of these, at least 24 hours must be taken within the College, and 21 of the 24 hours must be graded (not S/U). Students must earn at least a B (3.0) in each of the five required courses, or they must be repeated, if they wish to continue on to the Ph.D. program. They also must earn a “C” or better in required courses at the M.S. level as long as the overall GPA is at least a 3.0 for their master’s level work in order to graduate.
The MA degree includes the same credit and grade point average requirements as the Master of Science. However, these students must complete 6 semester hours in humanities courses (non-CCJ elective courses). They must also demonstrate proficiency in a foreign language, which may be accomplished in any of the following ways:
There are two regular degree tracks or options of study within the Criminology and Criminal Justice MA or MS degree programs: a course work only option and a thesis option.
1. Course Work Only Option: The course work only option requires the completion of 33 credits of course work. Students may select to complete 33 hours of course work only or may choose to complete 27 credit hours of coursework along with 6 area paper credit hours or may choose to complete 24 credit hours with a 9 credit hour graduate internship. Students completing the area paper option are required to nominate a master’s directive committee, consisting of a major professor and two other faculty members. The committee supervises the preparation of the paper and must approve the paper’s format, though it need not conform to the University’s formal thesis guidelines. An oral defense of the paper is not a College requirement, though the student’s committee may request it.
Note: Students choosing the course work only or internship options who later decide to continue their studies may be admitted to the Ph.D. program after they have completed the thesis or area paper. The paper must be completed prior to the first semester of study.
2. Thesis Option: The thesis option requires the successful completion of 24 semester hours of course work and 6 hours of thesis credits. Unlike either of the other options, the minimum requirement for the thesis track is 30 credits. Students choosing to complete a thesis must identify a major professor and supervisory committee. This option requires an oral thesis defense and thesis submission in a University approved format.
The master’s degree is granted to those students who accomplish the following:
The University does not allow more than six credits to be transferred in from another graduate institution.
Students are reminded to seek IRB approval prior to commencing any research involving human subjects. The student’s name must appear on the approval form as a PI or co-PI for the period of time when the student’s research was conducted. Failure to obtain the required approvals may result in the dissertation being permanently embargoes and unpublishable in any form.
Florida State University requires that work toward the master’s degree be completed within seven years of one’s initial enrollment. Any work transferred from another school is included in the seven-year rule.