Humanities exam is one of the two parts of State Final Exam. It is held right after the first part, Bachelor Thesis Defense. It lasts approximately 20 minutes. The form of the exam varies according to the year in which the student started studying (study plan).
State Final Exam - step by step manual
You register not for a specific date, but for the period in which you want to complete the SFE in a given semester. The periods are always set in the academic year schedule and are three (January / February, May / June, September).
The deadlines for registration into the SIS are always announced at least two months before the deadline for submitting the thesis and the application for the SFE. You will be informed about the exact date of your defense after the examining committees have been set up at least 3 working days before the defense.
Registration is done in SIS: Click on the icon "Final exams". In "Detail" you will see the list of exams. You must sign in to all the parts of the SFE - Bachelor Thesis Defense and Humanities Exam. For each exam, click on "Announced Exam Dates" and register them.
After registration, the option to print the application for SFE will appear there (in "Detail"). It´s needed to either send it by post (Pátkova 2137/5, 182 00 Praha 8 - Libeň) or throw to the Faculty mailbox (next to the office 1.01) in envelope with name of your secretary and study program. The application needs to be delivered by the deadline for submission of bachelor thesis. Before submitting, make sure all information on the application is correct (especially department, field of study and title of the thesis in English).
The exam should prove that you are able to combine all your knowledge that has been attested by the respective comprehensive examinations into one united perspective of the entire study.
The examination will be based on the list of literature that you studied, which should be submitted together with the application for the Final State Examination. The list of references/literature must contain:
at least 6 relevant titles you had prepared for the comprehensive examination in European History in Contexts
at least 7 relevant titles you had prepared for the comprehensive examination in Philosophical Anthropology
all titles relevant to the first part of Comprehensive Exam in Social Sciences (7 titles is the minimum)
at least one title relevant to the comprehensive examination in English Competence.
A title is considered “relevant” if it was applicable for the respective comprehensive examination that you passed. A “title” may be a book, part of a book or an article that could be claimed as a separate item on the list of relevant literature for the respective comprehensive examination. You can find the list of literature form here.
The Humanities Exam is designed to let the students creatively and interdisciplinary present the problem of their academic interest. It assumes the students' ability to combine, compare and use the knowledge acquired by taking the core theoretical courses and the compulsory elective courses. The exam is in a form of a presentation, prepared by students in advance that should demonstrate the ability to work in the various fields they have been exposed to while studying Liberal Arts and Humanities.
The presentation should concern a problem of students’ academic interest (i.e. the one students pursue in their B.A. theses) but to be presented form a different angle of Liberal Arts and Humanities field.
EXAMPLES:
A student writing a thesis within sociology on unemployment should present an interpretation from the field of for instance: history of labour or psychology of work.
A student writing a thesis in moral philosophy would prepare an account of developmental psychology.
It is recommended to consult the topic in advance with the thesis supervisor, the lecturers in the relevant fields or the programme supervisor Dr. Ludmila Dobrovolná Wladyniak.
Three days prior to the state examination students will submit:
a presentation file in a standard format (e.g. *.ppt)
PDF file with a list of the literature used to prepare the presentation
The list of literature should include at least 5 relevant titles (books or articles). The presentation and the list of literature are to be submitted by email to the secretary of the study programme Bc. Karolína Horáčková
During the exam:
The oral presentation should not exceed 15 minutes.
The evaluation will include:
the relevant perspective on the studied topic (NOTE: not every perspective from Liberal Arts and Humanities field fits each research problem)
proper line of academic argument
relevant literature
persuasiveness of the presentation
ability to answer questions and lead a discussion with an exam board after presentation
Charles University
Faculty of Humanities
Pátkova 2137/5
182 00 Praha 8 - Libeň
Czech Republic
Public transport (find a connection):
Current transport connections:
• tram No. 17 (stop Trojská)
• bus No. 112 (stop Trojská or Povltavská)
• bus No. 201 (stop Kuchyňka)
• bus No. 187 (stop Pelc - Tyrolka)