Talk:Master's degree

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[edit] Some confusion about Master of Studies?

A MSt article was created with the following content.

A Master of Studies (M.St) is an academic degree usually awarded for completion of a postgraduate or graduate course of one years duration.

If this content is real and verifiable it should be entered into an article like this one (Master's degree). Hu 03:06, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Why would somebody say, "If this content is real and verifiable..."? Is there any reason why one might doubt the existence of the degree of Master of Studies? The "content" is just as "real and verifiable" as the information provided about all the other kinds of masters/master's degrees. --Oxonian2006 16:13, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pass, Merit, Distinction

In the University of London (one of my own universities) 60% will get you a Pass and no more! 65% is the requirement for a Merit.

ok... I think it's better as it is now then - with no mention of percentages. Leaving it so that it said 60%=merit, when at some universities (e.g. Oxford) anything below 60% is in fact a fail, would be misleading.--Oxonian2006 16:01, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Practice differs widely across the University of London. Some colleges don't offer the merit at all, others offer it at 60%, others at 65%.
A brief, not terribly representative sample, of universities across England (the distinction is due to the returns, also these may not apply to all degrees at the individual institutions) shows 50% to be the most common pass and 70% the most common distinction. The Merit looks all over the place. Timrollpickering 12:37, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Finland

In Finland at least, there are two kinds at of basic university degrees: the lower and the upper unversity degrees. The lower ones are considered equivalent to a Bachelor's degree, and the upper ones to a Master's degree. All students are admitted to study for the upper degree, and only a minority ever take the lower one. Thus, in Finland, Master's is not considered a graduate degree. I have a faint recollection that the other Fenno-Scandic countries have similar systems. (Of course, the proposed EU-wide degree harmonization effort will change this in the future.)

The defined optimal study time for the lower degree is three years after admittance, and for the upper degree, five years after admittance (including any lower degree taken during this time). However, since Finnish university studies are very liberal as to when and how much to study, study times vary a lot; an upper degree after three years or after eight years is not unheard-of.

In Finland, the first post-graduate degree is called a Licentiate degree (generally one to three years after admittance to post-graduate studies, i.e., after Master's).

AJK 09:26, 18 Sep 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Masters not Master's

Wow, is that embarrassing! Masters not Master’s!

[edit] Re: Masters not Master's

Looking for information on why it's listed as Masters and not Master's on the Master's degree page--the dictionary lists it as Master's degree and I'm unsure why it's been changed here.

blodulv 19:11, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Masters or Master's again!

I had always thought it was a master's degree, i.e. the degree held by a master, or masters' degrees, i.e. the degrees held by masters. Is it not, anyway, a colloquial form of "the degree of Master of Something"? E.g. "John is at Oxford doing his master's", meaning, "John is at Oxford reading for the degree of Master of Philosophy". I would favour "Master's degree" or "Masters' degrees". Does it really matter, though? --Oxonian2006 16:13, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, Dictionary.com uses "master's". -- Nicknz 03:01, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't it be capitalized? As in "I have a Master's degree in Philosophy." {59.121.195.187 04:43, 7 November 2006 (UTC)}

No. That's a generic use of the word. However, "I completed my Master of Arts degree in 1970" is correct. -- Donald Albury 14:18, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History section?

It might be interesting to add a section about the origin of the term "Master's degree". I have heard the following, but have little solid evidence for it; does anyone think it's worth investigating further?

The story I've heard is that the term originated in the middle ages in the way technical training was done in guilds. Tradesmen began as apprentices, studying under a master. After a certain amount of training, they were able to work without supervision as a journeyman, and would travel around seeking work. Before an experienced journeyman could establish his own workshop, he would have to prove mastery of the craft, by being examined by guild masters and producing a masterpiece.

One reference that supports this story is at http://www.sspx.ca/Angelus/2000_October/The_Guilds.htm

-- Lucasb 2005-06-18

[edit] Question about "professional Master's degree"

I'm curious about an earlier version of the US section on master's degrees which was titled "professional master's". Is there a differentiation in Europe between a professional degree and something else? Between my wife and myself we have two master's and a doctorate, and we're not aware of such a differntiation in the US. If this does exist in Europe, perhaps there should be some mention in the US section about why, or if, it does not exist on this side of the Atlantic.

Carl 02:38, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, there is a differentiation in (parts of) Europe between a professional degree and an "academic" Master's degree. European professional master's degrees are terminal degrees in the sense that they are generally not used as an intermediate step to the doctorate degree in the field. However, there are some exceptions from this rule, but not in every european country.
I thought this differentiation exist also in the US, (see: Professional Master's degree) but it's maybe not so strict. (Or the wikipedia article is simply not true!)
The term for both types of degrees vary from country to country. Professional Master is the title in the Netherlands (Perhaps also in Belgium - but i'm not sure.) In Germany a consecutive Master is an "academic" Master's degree. (The title of such degree includes in every case(!) the words of science, of arts, of law, or of engineering. - examles: Master of Arts in Business Administration; Master of Science in Information Technology)
A German Professional Master is called anwedungsorientierter Weiterbildungs-Master (applied oriented further education Master) and the title of such degree does not include the words of science, of arts, of law, or of engineering - examles: Master of Business Administration; Master of Information Technology. In Austria a Master's degree, granted after graduation from a so called Universitätslehrgang is the equivalent to a Professional Master's degree. The Swiss counterpart to the Austrian Universitätslehrgang is the so called Nachdiplomstudiengang. In both countries these Master's are also characterized as "applied oriented", like in Germany. This differentiation exist also in other European countries, but i don't know the used terms there. (My posting applies only to the new degrees, based on the Bologna process. The situation with the "old" degrees is more complex.)
I don't know exactly why these two types of Master's exist in Europe. Perhaps because of the structure of typical European doctoral degrees? A European Doctorate is a pure research degree with very few or even without any courses.
This type of doctoral degree needs maybe a special type of Master's degree (the so called "academic" Master's) to be actually equivalent to the different structured typical US doctoral degree. But that's pure speculation! In fact, i don't know.


I really haven't heard the term "Professional Master's Degree" used in the areas I've been in (or my wife). I have an MPH (as well as an MD), my wife has an MS... the MPH can be a terminal degree or it can be the first step towards a PhD in Public Health or a DrPH... Doctor of Public Health (the former being more academically oriented... more likely to be for someone who plans to teach). I wonder if the terms "terminal degree" and "professional Master's degree" might be used interchangeably. In any case, I believe that they're just informal descriptive terms here in the U.S.

Carl 02:38, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, "terminal master's degree" and "professional master's degree" can be used interchangeably (although, not all professional master's degrees are terminal ones). The U.S. Department of State uses the term professional master's degree to describe a variety of terminal master's programs that are designed to train people for specific professions (MBA, Master of Library Science, Master of Architecture, etc). [1] Darkcore 06:43, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Professional Science Master's Degree

What about this new effort by the Sloan Foundation? "Sloan model for Professional Science Master's Degree" programs I Google-searched this and found that many universities in the U.S. are establishing and expanding these programs. I think this may deserve a seperate article with a link from this article. Does anyone have any comments or suggestions? Streltzer 17:11, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

See recent Science Magazine article [2] about these programs and their development at United States colleges and universities. Streltzer 21:27, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ridiculous!

I'd love to see this article get under control, which it isn't anywhere near right now. But, I figure as soon as I start, the complaining will begin. So discuss here first. My first suggestion is that we should not list every abbreviation known to man and break it up into two section, the first discussing academic masters and the second listing professional masters. From there, I think anyone who wants a list of every such degree can use Category:Master's degrees. Please discuss. -James Howard (talk/web) 23:45, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree, we should not list every abbreviation known. However, you will already find an article about Professional Master's degrees here, but it is of quite poor quality. My suggestion is that we should also add some informations about the history of the masters degree and the section about the masters degrees (and it's equivalents) in the European Union should become a new article. (It is quite incomplete now and a complete list of these degrees would be much to long for this article.) This article should only include informations about the Bologna process and the new European degrees, and a link to the new article. Mintaru 02:21, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
This process will need to be conducted with some care since some of the degrees have articles of their own, and some don't. We should probably construct one or two articles, as suggested above, largely as navigational aids with some (historical/academical) overview of each of the general levels of degree, and leave the specifics of each degree to the seperate articles. -Splashtalk 03:09, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
How about merging Professional Master's degree over. From there, I can only discuss American degrees. Could someone fill in on harmonization? -James Howard (talk/web) 03:51, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

What has happened here? You guys have some really good ideas, but nothing much has changed (I think). I am willing to help with the cleanup and restructuring of this page. —anskas 23:32, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Advertising

Beware - some individuals are editing degree definitions and entering links to universities with those degree programs - some free advertising. Guess it will always be a problem since Wiki uses open editing.

[edit] Filosofie magister and master's degrees in Sweden

I think it is great that Filosofie magister redirects here, but it should be mentioned in the article otherwise it might be a bit confusing to be redirected here. Probably in should be mentioned in a section of master's degrees in Sweden - we do not really have that degree, and a section explaining the differences could be very useful. // Habj 20:02, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Europe

Why is the EU the defining area? The Bologna process covers a wider area - surely the grouping should be the European Higher Education Area? Timrollpickering 23:15, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] M.Sci. or M.Sc.?

This article says that M.Sci. degrees are generally less prestigious than M.Sc. degrees. This is no longer the case.

If one were to sit a B.Sc. and an M.Sc. separately, then they could overlap much of their final year of the B.Sc. with the M.Sc., reducing the workload significantly. Whereas, when studying for an M.Sci., all four years are planned to create clear distinction between the courses taken in each year. Also, both the M.Sci. and M.Sc. require substantial research projects, “the dissertation,” of the same standard.

Please edit this article to reflect the new rules introduced by the E.U. around undergraduates masters courses in the U.K.

Please, do edit it to include that info.! JJL 22:09, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Although only if you can verify it. The above description is quite the reverse of my experience, where groups of 3rd year + MSci 4th-years were very common. It is also true however that MSci candidates may sit in on MSc courses on occasion. It's also not my experience that MSc and MSci projects are expected to be of the same length or standard. However, as always, practice varies from insitution to institution, especially for the newer MSci courses, which are still bedding in to an extent. I imagine Bologna etc will go some way towards standardising MSci and MSc etc courses. Badgerpatrol 00:01, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I have studied at UCL and I know many people who completed MSci or MSc degrees at UCL and other colleges of the University of London.

It is basically safe to say that the first 3 years of the MSci degree are shared with the BSc degree with the only exception that the MSci students take further taught courses in the third year while the BSc students do their dissertations instead.

In the fourth year the MSci students usually sit in the same courses as the MSc students, take the same exams and do the same kind of dissertation projects. However, there are often differences in the rules which govern the choice of courses offered to students. Many courses done by MSc students cannot be taken by MSci students because they have done it in their first three years. This way the MSci track allows covering more content. Taking in account that additional content was covered instead of the BSc dissertation project, the MSci system certainly scores some points against the MSc system in this particular respect.

Another aspect is that the MSc degrees are often more specialised than the MSci degrees: e.g. at UCL there are courses like “MSc in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning”, “MSc in Data Communications, Networks and Distributed Systems” etc., but “MSci in Computer Science”. Whether a narrow specialisation is generally a good thing at this educational level can be argued about and can probably be seen differently in different contexts.

In conclusion, it is clearly misleading to claim that MSc degrees are considered “better” than the MSci degrees. It does not reflect the contents of the degree courses, nor does it reflect the public opinion. However, such a statement is highly discriminating against the MSci graduates. For these reasons I have taken that statement out of the article.

Yes, I also studied at UC, by a spooky co-incidence, and I have some other experience lecturing and studying at the UoL and elsewhere. That statement was not properly referenced, so you had every right to remove it (it wasn't me that added in the first place, btw). However, I must confess that was not my experience, although as I stated in my original response, times are moving along quickly when it comes to MSci courses and similar and I believe there now is more integration between the two. Obviously, the idea of increasing specialisation is integral to postgraduate study. I am not so sure as you what the public opinion is (certainly amongst academics) but without proper sourcing it is irrelevent anyway- although maybe we should try and insert a note to the effect that the Bologna process may have serious implications for 4-year degrees and possibly for 'traditional' master's courses also. I should note for the record that I am personally very much in favour of 4-year undergraduate degrees (although I might prefer a slightly difference model than that for the MSci etc). Badgerpatrol 12:13, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What about Spain?

As far as I know, Spain is in the EU and also has universities and so, but can't see any reference in the article. I suspect that the degree scheme differs from the one used in the rest of Europe, and that's why I think that differences and equivalents should be pointed

[edit] Requirements for licentiat and doktor in Sweden

Is really magister required to get licentiat and doktor? I've heard that the official requirement is kandidat.

[edit] "To do" list for article cleanup

Perhaps we could create a "to do" list for cleaning up this article? — Nicknz 22:32, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

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