Bachelor of German at University of California, Berkeley

Bachelor of Arts (BA)

The German undergraduate major program provides students with the knowledge, experience, language fluency, and analytical skills necessary to enter the academic world or the world of international law or global business. It offers a large selection of courses in literature, linguistics, philosophy, psychology, history, film, and business, along with opportunities to study abroad. The program provides students with the skills they will need to achieve their individual goals.

Students are challenged to gain fluency in the German language, read major works by Kafka, Freud, and Nietzsche (among many others) in their original language, and to venture abroad to German-speaking countries to embrace new cultures. This gives students the cultural competence and necessary edge in today's global marketplace.

If students choose to major or double major in German at Berkeley, they will enjoy an atmosphere that resembles that of an Ivy League setting, including the opportunity to study with world-famous professors and highly qualified graduate student instructors.

Declaring the Major

To declare the German major, please contact the Department of German. For details regarding the prerequisites, please see the Major Requirements tab on this page.

For students transferring from another institution, see Nadia Samadi, the Undergraduate Academic Advisor.

Honors Program

Students with at least a 3.5 GPA in all upper division courses taken to fulfill the requirements of the major and a 3.3. GPA overall are eligible for admission into the honors program. Candidates for honors in German need to apply to the undergraduate faculty adviser for admission into this program, ideally early in the fall semester of their senior year.

Students in the honors program are required to complete satisfactorily, within their senior year, an honors thesis under faculty supervision. The paper, consisting of 35 pages or more, may grow out of any upper division course, independent study, or directed research and is evaluated with a letter grade. It is the responsibility of the student to ask a faculty member to supervise the thesis. Normally thesis work is spread over two semesters. For the first semester, the student should enroll in GERMAN 199: Supervised independent study with their thesis director (2 units; Pass/Fail). In the second semester, while writing the thesis, the student enrolls in GERMAN H196 (4 units with letter grade). If the work is to be completed in one semester, the student may enroll in H196 for 6 units. This requires the approval of the supervising faculty and the honors committee. The student is required to attend three workshops at the beginning of the fall semester. Honors students are also expected to present their research in a series of undergraduate research colloquia during the semester for feedback on work in progress. For information regarding these workshops and colloquia, please see the German Department's website.

Those who have completed the program will graduate with honors (3.65) high honors (3.75), or highest honors (3.85) in the major depending upon their final GPA in all upper division courses taken to fulfill the major requirements. The grade of the honors thesis is added to the GPA for this purpose. The decision to award high or highest honors rests with the departmental honors committee.

To enroll in the German Honors Program and obtain an application, please contact Nadia Samadi.

Minor Program

The Department of German offers an undergraduate minor in German. For details regarding minor requirements, please see the Minor Requirements tab on this page.

Visit Department Website

The Bachelor's Degree Program offers a comprehensive education in German language, literature, and linguistics. The department's course offerings and its curriculum cover a wide range of fields ranging from language, literature, and linguistics, to history, philosophy, psychology, film, and media. The key focus in these courses is on the history of German and Dutch languages, literatures, linguistic structures, cultures, and intellectual movements in a European and global context. The courses offered are intended to provide students with the ability to interpret linguistic, literary, and cultural phenomena in their social, historical and discourse dimensions, taking into account the multilingual environments and the global cultures in which German plays a role today. Based on the requirements and in close contact with their advisers, students choose a combination of literature, culture, and linguistics courses after they have accomplished the basic training in language and the core courses. While these courses serve the intellectual advancement and training in specialized areas, they also serve the improvement of basic skills in critical analysis and evaluation, argument development, and written and oral communication.

Learning Goals for the Major

The undergraduate program provides students with the knowledge, experience, language fluency, and analytical skills necessary to enter the academic and the professional world. Students learn in both written and oral form to identify, present, and construct arguments about different types of discourses, major cultural and historical forms and movements, the work of important authors, and the history of ideas. Students learn to analyze and interpret texts, films and other German cultural artifacts from various historical periods and various social backgrounds. A gateway course (GERMAN 100) allows them to apply their knowledge of the language to the analysis and interpretation of spoken and written texts, images, and other media.

Upper level courses refine their understanding of language, language learning and language use, as well as of German literature, history, and culture, and further develop their ability to produce German spoken and written texts. Students choose their courses from a variety of offerings, and such choices reflect the specific interest and learning goals of the individual student within the framework of the departmental curriculum, e.g., history of German literature or of the German language, Germanic linguistics, intellectual or political history, media and film, applied linguistics, multicultural Germany. Thus the department provides students with the possibility to acquire advanced knowledge and skills in a number of fields, e.g., literature from various historical periods, methods of linguistic analysis, Middle High and Old High German, German dialects and levels of usage, discourse analysis, analysis of film, poetics, translation, and semiotics.