Bread Loaf offers both specialization and flexibility for students at all levels of study.

The Master of Arts Degree

In the MA program, you’ll be exposed broadly to British, American, and world literatures while enjoying the flexibility to draw on Bread Loaf’s unparalleled range and depth of offerings in not only literature but also creative writing, pedagogy, and theater arts. Though you have ten years to complete the degree, most students usually take two units per summer and finish the degree in four or five summers. See degree requirements.

The Master of Letters Degree

The Master of Letters (MLitt) program allows students to design and explore a specialized concentration within the Bread Loaf curriculum. Although no thesis is required, candidates take a comprehensive examination or produce a final project that covers the course of study in the final summer. See degree requirements.

Continuing Graduate Education

You can also opt to enroll for continuing graduate education for one or more summers. You’ll take advantage of all that Bread Loaf offers, including the Bread Loaf Teacher Network, and can also elect to pursue a degree if you are in good academic standing.

Continuing education students receive a certificate after successful completion of each summer term. Ordinarily, credits earned at Bread Loaf transfer to other graduate institutions. The admissions process is the same as that for students applying to the degree program.

Independent Work

Students with exceptional academic records can pursue focused independent work over six or more weeks and produce a major critical, creative, or pedagogical project through our Directed Research and Writing option.

Theater at Bread Loaf

In Vermont and New Mexico, the Theater Program brings professional actors into the classroom as a vehicle for the interpretation of poems, plays, narrative, theory, and student writing. At Oxford, we provide tickets and transportation for all students to see at least one major play.

Cocurricular Activities

Throughout the summer, each campus hosts lectures, workshops, and readings that complement the academic curriculum. Speakers include distinguished writers, scholars, and teachers from within and outside the Bread Loaf community.

Community life includes social opportunities, such as weekly film showings and dances, hikes and outings to cultural sites, student-generated sports events or tournaments, coffee houses, musical performances, and discussion and reading groups.

In Vermont, students have an opportunity to work with master printers and learn the art and craft of printing on Bread Loaf’s newly reanimated letterpresses.

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