About the Program

Our Master of Liberal Arts (MLA) program offers a flexible, interdisciplinary degree designed for returning adult students seeking a broad, transformative education. This part-time, evening program fosters advanced critical thinking and intellectual range by connecting diverse fields, including history, literature, philosophy, and science. Through small, collaborative seminars taught by Stanford faculty, you will develop a tight-knit intellectual community and acquire the tools to conduct original research and engage in contemporary debates. Whether you seek to advance your career, prepare for academic study, or pursue a life of ideas, this program builds the confidence and intellectual independence needed to succeed in the current age of information.

What You’ll Study

The path to the MLA degree has been crafted to provide you with the structure and tools needed to explore and engage with a range of subjects, hone your research and writing skills, and build your intellectual community.

• In your first year, your incoming cohort will look together at the broad framework of history, literature, philosophy, political science, geography, economics, art, and the sciences in our sequence of three Foundations courses, which lay the groundwork for interdisciplinary study. During the first quarter of your second year, you’ll take Introduction to Interdisciplinary Graduate Study, in which you participate in a collaborative seminar, conduct library and archival research, write a critical graduate research paper, and present the results of your research.

• You will continue your study in years two to four by taking seven graduate seminars, which provide the opportunity to participate in small group settings for discussions, debate, and intellectual exploration. They include offerings from various disciplines, including anthropology, classics, cultural studies, history, literature, music, environmental science, history of science, political science, and philosophy.

• You’ll conclude your graduate degree by working one-on-one with a Stanford faculty advisor to research, write, and present a master’s thesis that has evolved out of the work you pursued in your MLA seminars.