In 2010 I taught this course to postgraduate translation students in Morocco. I was surprised to discover that nobody in the MA class had ever heard the term "translation studies".
Redesigning the Course
So I went easy on them and redesigned the course and its activities, embedding an introductory unit that explained the difference between "translation theory (or theories)" and "translation studies". MA students need, and must have, a solid dose of translation studies. It is the content, knowledge and epistemologies of translation studies as a discipline that help students reflect on their MA research projects and on their own translation decisions and choices, the process side of the work.
MA courses should be a polishing phase for the skills and competencies gained at BA level. At MA level we do more reflection and critical work on texts, including research.
What Changed
By the end of the semester, students had gained a conceptual map that positioned them in both academia and practice. They felt they existed and had an identity, one institutionalised in many countries, that they had not been aware of. They also realised they could research far more than "metaphor", "grammatical issues", "syntactic comparisons" or "pragmatic issues": their own translation processes, the professional aspects of translation, technology and translation, and much more.
It was a rich experience for them.
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