French University of Cambridge

Overview

The French course from The University of Cambridge, is generally expected to take three to four years, and most funding is based on this assumption. It is also possible to take a part-time route through research degrees, and the expected timeframe would be five years.

 The important notion of "original" can be defined in a number of ways, but basically the thesis should represent a significant contribution to learning, through the discovery of new knowledge, or through the connection of previously unrelated facts, or the development of new theory, or the revision of older views, or some combination of these different criteria. 

Key facts:

At the end of a PhD course, students will have produced a piece of extended original research, of publishable or near publishable quality.

They will have obtained:

• expert knowledge of a particular field of French studies;

• knowledge of the methodology or methodologies appropriate to their field;

• a set of research skills appropriate to their field;

• the ability to produce scholarly writing in English of a sufficiently high standard; and

• an appropriate set of transferable skills, such as work planning and time management.