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Music Graduate Handbook

The Music Graduate Student Handbook contains departmental policies for the Ph.D, DMA, and MA graduate programs. If there are any questions about the Music Graduate Student Handbook, please contact the Music Department's Graduate Program Coordinator via email at mga.mus@ucsc.edu.

The most up-to-date version of this handbook is: 

Music Graduate Student Handbook 2022-2023

Changes in this version:

  • added a "Dissertation Process and Defense Checklist"
  • more clearly mapped out pre-QE DMA requirements

Please note: Students have full Catalog rights; i.e. no graduate student will be expected to satisfy a degree requirement that is not explicitly presented in the General Catalog in effect upon her/his entrance to the program.

Previous versions of this handbook are listed below:


Music Graduate Student Handbook 2021-2022 v2
Changes in this version:

  • Updated language for the DMA Qualifying Exams.

Music Graduate Student Handbook 2021-2022 v1
Changes in this version:

  • A year equivalent of a summer intensive language course at an accredited university can qualify for the foreign language requirement.
  • Foreign language courses may be taken S/U.
  • Programming language courses no longer qualify for the foreign language requirement.
  • The Fourth-Quarter Research Paper has been modified to become the Second-Year Research Paper (PhD only).
  • A bound copy of the dissertation or thesis is no longer required to be submitted to the department; instead, a digital copy is required.
  • Added language about faculty advising roles, curricular variance, incomplete grades, academic integrity.

Music Graduate Student Handbook 2020-2021
Compiled from multiple sources of handbooks from previous years by Zack Myers in Summer 2020.