MASTER’S PROGRAM

1. Educational System and Length of Schooling

(1) The master’s program for international students takes 3 years and the length of schooling is 3-4 years. The length of schooling is 2-3 years, during which the time to do scientific research and compose dissertation shall be no less than a year or a year and a half. Those who complete the training plan ahead of schedule can give an oral defense of his/her dissertation ahead of time upon inspection and approval of the school and further application to Graduate School and the IES, but their schooling time shall be no less than a year and a half.

(2) In principle, government scholarship students shall finish their studies within the length of schooling prescribed by the China Scholarship Council. If beyond the prescribed duration, they may apply for prolonging the duration of scholarship or transferring into self-funded students according to the provisions of the China Scholarship Council.

2. Individual Training Plan

(1) Generally, Master’s degree candidates in the International Graduate Program shall make their individual training plans within 3 months after starting the specialized study, under the instruction of their tutors and Supervisor Group, and fill in the Individual Training Plan for Master’s Degree of Wuhan Sports University.

(2) International students’ individual training plans shall be made by the graduates and their tutors together in accordance with the international student educational program of the subject, taking educational conditions, research orientations and personal characteristics of graduates into consideration. Graduates are required to make arrangement for their course learning, literature reading, teaching and academic practice, thesis proposal and thesis etc.

3. Course and Assessment

There are two categories of subjects: compulsory and optional. Compulsory subjects are further categorized into general, basic, and specialized. Optional subjects include specialized optional and general optional（It is for reference only，the specific credit plans are  formulated by the Graduate Department.）

(1) General subject refers to Chinese language and General Introduction to China.

(2) Basic subject of first level discipline has 1-2 courses; specialized basic subject and specialized subject has 5-6 courses. Such kind of courses shall be directly selected from the curriculum design of Graduate Program for Domestic Students of the specialty.

(3) Optional courses can be chosen from the Graduate Program of the university or offered according to actual demands and school conditions.

(4) Courses for Master’s degree students take forms such as lectures, discussions, academic reports and self taught.

4. Assessment and Grades

(1) There are two ways of assessment: examination-oriented and participation-oriented. Normally compulsory courses take examination as assessment, while optional courses take examination or performance as assessment.

(2) Scores of course examination shall consist of 20% of daily performance, 50% of final examination scores, and 30% of academic paper scores，or according to the teacher’s testing and evaluation system.

(3) Master’s degree candidates in the International Graduate Program shall take courses and examinations in accordance with their individual training plans. Those who cannot take the examination due to illness or other extenuating circumstances are required to go through the formalities of examination postponement. Students who cannot take the examination due to illness must apply to Graduate Administrative Office of the school for examination postponement with the medical diagnosis from the hospital of WSU and related documents, and fill in the Application From for Examination Postponement. Then they can take examination of the course in next semester upon approval.

(4) Students who are absent from an examination without going through the formalities of examination postponement will get a ZERO for the course. They may be allowed to resit once in the next academic year according to their attitudes and the seriousness of the cases.

(5) If a candidate in the International Graduate Program has taken a particular course of other universities in the recent three years and have gotten more than 70 score, then he/she may apply for exemption from that course provided that the content of the course is in accordance with the requirements of the current Graduate Program of the university. Related materials such as school transcript offered by other universities and the examination paper are required when going through the formalities of exemption.

(6) Anyone who fails in an examination must retake the course; if it were an optional course, he/she may retake the course or reselect other courses on the condition that he/she has gone through the formalities of course selection.

(7) If a candidate in the International Graduate Program has to postpone his/her course study due to certain reasons such as participating in research project ahead of schedule, then he/she may apply for course deferment. If a candidate wants to take that course thereafter, he/she is required to go through formalities of course selection again during the first three weeks of the semester.

5. Academic Activity and Scientific Research

International graduates are encouraged to take part in academic activities and do scientific research, especially research projects in the charge of their tutors or related to their discipline as much as possible. International students applying for a Master’s Degree are required to write at least one dissertation before applying for thesis defense.  

6. Dissertation (thesis)  

(1) International Master’s degree candidates in the International Graduate Program who are taught in English shall present the topic and proposal of the thesis at the end of the second semester, and then shall officially compose the thesis and report to the school for record upon the inspection and approval of Supervisor Group; international M.A. students who are taught in Chinese shall present the topic and proposal of the thesis at the end of the fourth semester and shall officially compose the thesis and report to the school for record upon the inspection and approval of Supervisor Group .

(2) A dissertation shall be a systematical and comprehensive presentation and summary of a student’s achievement in scientific research, which can demonstrate his/her solid mastery of basic theories and well-structured knowledge of the discipline. The main body of the dissertation shall be no less than 20,000 words.

(3)The degree applicant should submit his or her final dissertation and abstract 3                  

months before the dissertation defense, and submit the application for master’s degree to the School. When the School (Center) Degree Evaluation Committee accepts the application, the School (Center) should hire 3 reviewers (including one outside reviewer) for those dissertations which have no need to attend, in accordance to the procedures, the double blind review. The reviewers should be experts who are familiar with the subject of the dissertations. Only when all the three review results reach “pass” or above, should the writer of the dissertation attend the dissertation defense. When only one review result doesn’t reach “pass”, re-review application could be submitted to the School’s Graduate Office through the tutor group. If the re-review result is “pass”, the writer can attend the dissertation defense; or the dissertation should be modified and the application for dissertation defense should be submitted half a year later.

(4) Individual training plan, thesis proposal, abstract and the dissertation shall be written in Chinese for those Chinese-language-program students. Those English-language-program students should submit the English version and the topic and abstract of the dissertation should be translated into Chinese at the same time.

(5) International Master’s degree candidates in the International Graduate Program who are taught in Chinese can only be awarded corresponding degrees after they obtain a certificate of HSK according to requirements.