Master of Arts in Liberal Arts & Sciences (MALAS)
What is MALAS?
MALAS is the MA in curiosity. It is an always-evolving, interdisciplinary cultural studies graduate MA program based in the College of Arts and Letters at San Diego State University. Interdisciplinary Studies and Cultural Studies mean different things to different people. Like most Interdisciplinary Studies academic programs, MALAS graduate students pursue coursework that combines two or more traditional fields from the university.
Our students invent their programs of study that are also blueprints for action: a determination to study and be an activist / engine / enzyme for change here in San Diego and beyond. With MALAS, you are not trapped within the legendary ivory tower--far from that, you learn how to translate your research into public engagement with the surrounding community in California and the rest of the world.
MALAS graduate students come from all kinds of academic backgrounds, all kinds of unique research interests. Unlike other MA/ PhD programs that expect a specific undergraduate emphasis (some even make you do additional undergraduate coursework before starting your graduate curriculum), MALAS values your previous undergraduate and/or graduate degree and expects you to use our program to explore brave new worlds, to investigate diverse uncharted intellectual waters
Why choose our program?
Our dynamic MA degree provides graduate students with an extraordinary intellectual agenda coupled with the experience of living in San Diego, California--a bustling international border community known for its bio-medical enclaves (the Salk Institute, Scripps Research Institute, Pfizer etc.), for high tech innovation (Qualcomm, Nokia), and for its burgeoning, cutting-edge transborder experimental arts, next-generation sustainability research, and Pacific Rim-focused institutions of higher education.
MALAS graduate students work with the best faculty from across the College of Arts and Letters at SDSU and beyond--first-class, high quality researchers from the humanities, social sciences, business, communications, and the sciences, whose teaching and scholarship are changing the face of disciplines across the university.
Our graduate students master diverse and innovative intellectual, artistic, and/or scientific research goals through individually-tailored curricula in the most flexible graduate Liberal Arts programs on the planet.