The department awards the degree of M.A. to all graduate students who successfully complete the first stage of graduate study. We assume that most such students will then wish to proceed toward a Ph.D. (The department also admits a very limited number of students to its part-time free-standing M.A. program [see below]. Students who wish to pursue either full-time or part-time study for the M.A. in History should also consider the free-standing M.A. degrees offered by Columbia's Liberal Studies program in American Studies, East Asian Studies, Human Rights, Islamic Studies, Jewish Studies, Medieval Studies, Modern European Studies, and South Asian Studies).