Master Of What?

[bainbrig]

To be a ‘masters student’, do you have to be a Bachelor first?

50 years ago there were few master students - now there seem to be loads!

[Flonska]

Apparently, a bachelor's degree is required to pursue a master's degree.

[Prudie]

50 years ago there were few bachelor students too. There may be ways round it but generally yes you have to have a first degree to go on to do a Masters.

[Kidas]

There are undergraduate degree courses that award an M.Eng or M.Sc at the end. I think Canbridge still permits Bachelor-level graduates to buy an MA after a few years.

On the wider point, it's grade inflation. Many American universities award bachelor degrees, but most students of any quality there go on to a Masters.

As a result, many onternationl employers think a bachelor degree is inferior, so the M.A or MSc or M.Eng is becoming the de facto standard

[Kidas]

^^^ Cambridge

[bainbrig]

Yes, thanks, grade inflation sounds like the culprit.

I ask as I’ve heard several young people saying “Oh I’m doing a masters”, and they really aren’t on the same superlative academic level I used to associate with studies higher than degrees.

[MallyJ]

I did mine at evening class whilst working a few years ago...really to see if I still had a brain.....really enjoyed doing it. I do have a first degree which I also studied for at evening class!

[atalanta]

Not all masters' degrees require bachelors' degrees. I once worked for a college ( one you will probably have heard of) where some masters' degree courses admitted mature students on the basis of their experience and achievements.

[Peter Pedant]

Some degree courses are four years and are a master's.

Jim360 has done advanced Maff at Cambridge and can tell us - I think degrees cantab you can buy a MA and degree Cam. you cant.

I think MMath at cambridge is the old Part III. The really bright maff undergraduates do their maff degree in two years and the Part III as their third year. Christ.

Hey didja know ? The master of surgery by thesis is M Chir ? It used to be MC until 1915 when they invented the military cross. So all the MC surgeons were polled and asked to convert to MChir - and they refused !
The last MC master or surgery died about thirty years ago

[Peter Pedant]

I also studied for at evening class!

I really enjoyed the maff options at the open uni !

[jim360]

Not sure grade inflation is the cause although it may play a part. Student numbers have also rocketed so even if grades were flat there'd be easily 10-20 times as many Masters students these days.

[maggiebee]

I had a Certificate in Community Education for my two years study. It wasn't a BA at that time (but it is now). However, last years I started a general MA and to date am enjoying it. Have done one module on English Literature and now doing one on silent cinema.

[pastafreak]

My daughter's first degree was 4 years...with an M.Sc

[Kidas]

Hi Jim, reason I said grade inflation is the following. Even 30 years ago, my OH worked in the oil industry. The UK geophysicists were looked down on by the Americans, because they only had BSc, whereas the Americans had MSc. Nevermind that the Brits knew more and were better trained.

The point was that (at the time) US first degrees were only marginally above A-levels. Their Masters degrees were on a level (or maybe even slightly below) with bachelors' degrees from top UK universities.

I've heard this from others as well - notably in the international companies (well American companies) that American recruiters do not really rate first degrees, and look for at least a Masters.

You would know better than me about the current situation, since I've been out of the Uni system for 40-odd years. In that time we have seen a huge increase in degree-level courses in the UK, and there is a suspicion that this may have had an influence on educational standards at certain institutions.

[jim360]

I'm not sure I could claim to know that much more about it than anyone else. I've been on the university teaching side of things for five years now, but only in the first year of university really (and then only in a Scottish university, where entry is typically a year earlier than in England, so the material feels closer to that taught at A Level than in my own first year).

I think there are reports of grade inflation, and maybe they are true to an extent -- I just feel that the driving factor is naturally that student numbers as a whole are exploding, as too is the number of courses. No wonder, even in the absence of any other effect, that Masters students are more common.

Anyway, some courses are taught to Masters level from the start (with an option to graduate early, at BA level only). Others less so.

Peter Pedant's essentially given the game away on my own education, but just for the record, I picked up an MMath and a BA (Hons) at the same time (and got my MA (Cantab.) just under a year ago -- didn't even have to pay for it). History will have to be the judge of whether or not that puts me, or maggiebee, or pasta's daughter, on the same "superlative academic level" as the Masters students of yesteryear...

[Cloverjo]

Now that almost half of youngsters go to university and get a Bachelors, the properly clever ones feel they have to get a Masters to stand out.

[Old_Geezer]

I reckon one can only build on foundations so generally speaking one needs to know at bachelor level to be able to grasp master level. There may be exceptions if knowledge was gained by a different route.

50 years ago only the intellectual cream were university material and so went there. Then some idiots in government decided large numbers going to university was a sign of improvement and so they degraded the act of university attendance to become a rite of passage so most could go. (Then they realised they couldn't afford the grants to cover this act of stupidity so created loans that only those who were capable of benefiting from the experience had to pay back; the rest get a free few years before joining the rat race courtesy of the taxpayer.) With so many attending, more stay in education and avoid work for even more years by taking a masters. But the upside is that at least they were the ones capable of doing so (providing they don't drop out) so all's not lost.

[bainbrig]

Thanks Jim, interesting. I think, given the drift of the comments, it’s time to drop out of the conversation, as I don’t want to be tarred with the same simplistic brush!