Master's degree in the UK compared with the US

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by yak342, May 29, 2015.

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  1. yak342

    yak342 Member

    What are the similarities and differences between master's degree programs in the UK and the US? Are master's degree programs in the UK just as rigorous and academically challenging as their counterparts in the US?

    Degree programs in the UK require students to take a certain number of modules. How is the number of credits calculated for each module? Suppose I take a module that is worth 20 credits. Does 20 credits mean 20 hours of time spent in class?
     
  2. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    I'd think that rigor and academic challenge would vary so much among schools in both countries that trying to compare them as huge categories would be pretty difficult.

    Useful PDF document on how credit works in the UK (except Scotland): Academic credit in higher education in England - an introduction

    But the short version is that a credit in their system is ten notional hours of learning. They consider 120 credits to be a full time academic year. So in a sense, it's like one semester-hour in the U.S. system is worth four credits in the UK system.
     
  3. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    One potential difference is that in the UK (and a few other countries) it's possible to do a research-only Masters degrees where there is no coursework per se but a thesis proposal and then the creation of the research/thesis itself. To my knowledge this option does not exist in US schools.
     
  4. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    I agree with Steve's assessment, but let me just add a thought about reputation.

    I don't think any reasonable person would say that UK degrees, as a whole, are in any way inferior to U.S. degrees. If anything I think an argument for the reverse would have more support.

    In the U.S. we typically consider Harvard to be our "best" university. In the U.K., many people would argue that Oxford holds the spot at the pinnacle of the prestige ladder. And when you compare Harvard to Oxford, Oxford is almost always going to come out on top.

    Quite frankly, Oxford is much older and has pumped out many more illustrious people. Does that actually make it "better?" Meh. What makes a university "good" is a rather subjective argument.

    That said, there is also nothing wrong with a Masters degree from pretty much any country in the world. Some have better reputations for academic quality than others. But my company has people with masters degrees from UK, Australia, Japan, Romania, Canada, India and Israel. We, as an employer, care much more that the degrees were granted with the appropriate level of authority than laying the curricula side by side and trying to evaluate if it is "better" or "equivalent."
     
  5. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    Yes, although there are organizations, NACES for example, that do just that. Often people with degrees from other countries use this sort of service to demonstrate that their degree is equivalent to a US degree although I'm guessing that most British degrees would be accepted as such without an equivalency report.
     
  6. warguns

    warguns Member

    In the UK master's degrees can be either "taught" or "research". I have two taught UK masters. In both cases, a research paper could have been substituted for one of the four examination areas. Where I went, there were no modules or continuous assessment. One took courses, which were not graded, but there was a two day exam over the following summer. Only the exam determined whether you got honours (sic.) passed or failed.

    In the UK, it is widely believed that quality varies profoundly among universities. The admissions standards vary greatly and are public knowledge. UK newspapers publish "league tables", rating the quality of universities each year. Because there are many fewer institutions, I believe they are more accurate than US rating, such as US News.

    IMHO, some UK universities are quite dire and I would not want to be associated with them.

    If shopping for a master's degree, one should be aware that almost all UK universities with offer a research masters (and a doctorate for that matter) in virtually any subject because they are money-makers and they keep the faculty amused. An advanced degree from a poorly ranked UK university is quite useless there - - but I don't know how it would be received in the US.

    The Sunday Times Good University Guide | Milkround

    University league tables: the complete list - Telegraph

    University league table 2015 - the complete list | Education | The Guardian

    In the US, few people have any knowledge of the differences in UK degrees or of the existence of other universities than Oxbridge, St Andrews (because of P. William) and maybe the LSE.

    My honest opinion is that, for almost all purposes in the US, one would be better served with a masters degree from a well-known US public university than a UK masters from a school that will be unknown to an employer.
     
  7. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    So, I have two questions . . . in your opinion,

    1) Is the disparity between the the best and worst UK universities larger than the disparity between the best and worst US universities?

    2) Is a Masters degree from a low-ranked UK university more/less/equally useful in Britain as a Masters degree from a low-ranked US university in the US?
     
  8. warguns

    warguns Member

    IMO, no country in the world has as great a disparity between the best and worst universities than the US. However, I am not familiar with south and east Asia universities. Take, for example Southern University at New Orleans, Louisiana with MEDIAN SAT scores of 808 (median means HALF the freshman scored below 808). Obviously, the great majority of students are completely unprepared for college level work. (As everyone knows, one gets 800 points just for taking the SAT).

    10 Public Universities with the Worst Graduation Rates | The Fiscal Times

    I've taught college for many years and it's impossible to teach much above the level of the most poorly prepared students in a class and it's impossible to fail more than maybe 10% of them (you can fail more at a JC). Consequently, very little college level work will be done at Southern University at New Orleans, Louisiana. Unfortunately, there are many institutions in the US just as bad.

    In the UK, some universities are dire by their standards but none would be worse than the middle-of-the-pack US "regional universities" (using US News terminology).

    2. As I wrote, few UK universities have any name recognition in the US. As a practical matter, most employers will be cautious about hiring people with degrees they know nothing about. Frankly admissions standards are not very high at the typical regional state university (in California that would be the CSU) and I think one would be far better off. For example, nearly every CSU offers an AACSB MBA. Even if one does not qualify for admission immediately, most will let a student take a few courses as a non-degree student to prove their worth. A degree from Cal State Fullerton will mean more to a Cally employer than one from London Metro or Fort Hays State for that matter.
     
  9. warguns

    warguns Member

    In my previous post, I meant to point out that despite having many "universities" where little or no college work in performed, the most reports show the US has the best universities in the world.

    https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2014-15/world-ranking

    QS World University Rankings® 2014/15 | Top Universities

    2014 World University Rankings | Academic Ranking of World Universities

    That's the paradox of America. Everybody can go to college but the colleges are profoundly unequal. Try explaining it to foreigners, or even Americans for that matter.
     
  10. Helpful2013

    Helpful2013 Active Member

    Having worked in both systems, I'm going to give the nod to the British degrees. Assuming the quality level of the universities is roughly the same, the British M.Sc. holder will generally have moved much further along in their education/understanding. This is because the secondary school system is much stronger (think getting your general education college work done in high school), and that allows student to specialize in their undergraduate degree to a much greater extent. In America, one's major comprises a year or two of the undergraduate degree. In Britain, the whole undergraduate degree is in that subject. Of course, this "structural" advantage to British master's degrees only matters if you're comparing universities of similar quality, and disappears completely if you compare Sheffield Hallam to Harvard.

    I referred above to the M.Sc., which is a “real” master's degree. At some English universities, one “promotes” the B.A. up to an M.A. after a couple of years, without additional work. At most Scottish universities, the B.A. is 3 years, and the M.A. is an undergraduate degree with a fourth year tacked on and a significant thesis. Some British friends have illustrious CV's... that appear to indicate that they skipped undergrad. To add to the confusion, some universities award the M.A. as an earned postgraduate degree.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 30, 2015
  11. yak342

    yak342 Member

    Thank you for the link to the document about the academic credit. That was helpful.
     
  12. yak342

    yak342 Member

    Has anyone here on this DB ever attended the University of Edinburgh? This school is high in the rankings and it has some distance learning programs. Does the philosophy department at this university have a good reputation?
     
  13. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    If you are going for name recognition, really consider how recognized that name really is.

    If you are choosing between Harvard and Oxford, I highly doubt you're going to run into an employer who has heard of Harvard but says "huh, Oxford, is that in Europe or something?"

    Many schools in the US only have regionally based reputations and sometimes those reputations are a little weird. When I first moved to NYS, I was meeting with a hiring manager who was gushing over an applicant with a degree from PennState. She just couldn't believe this guy had a Masters degree from THE PennState. He was a solid candidate. But I also pointed out that, as far as prestige goes, there was another applicant who had a degree from Cornell. She said:

    "Well yeah, but a lot of people around here went to Cornell, but we never see someone from PennState!"

    I have very little doubt that her love affair with PSU was athletic in nature. Still, she was star struck.

    I had another hiring manager who never heard of Drexel. And another hiring manager who skeptically opined that a candidate, who had an MBA from Chicago's Booth School of Business but had been working in NYC, "must have been unable to get a job in Chicago so he had to move to NYC."

    I've also had hiring managers insist that Stanford is an Ivy League University (while refusing to acknowledge Columbia as being an Ivy), have insisted that Syracuse University is a SUNY school and, at least one engineering manager who inexplicably thought that "M.Eng." indicated a degree in English.

    We are a very large country compared to the UK. Our education system also has less standardization and our accreditation system is incredibly confusing. You can live your entire life in wilkes-barre Pennsylvania surrounded by 11 degree granting institutions and have local employers be blissfully unfamiliar with ANY of the universities in Pittsburgh (about five hours west) or even those in New Jersey (1-2 hours east).

    So your UK degree may be unfamiliar to many employers. Then again, outside of certain sectors, a degree from Baruch College might be unfamiliar. That doesn't make Baruch any less of a school. The UK degree, I would argue, is more likely to have international utility that many US degrees may lack. Maybe you never intend to work overseas. Maybe your degree from LeMoyne will get you a job in Jeddah without a problem. But we are in an increasingly global business environment where international credentials can be helpful in opening up doors that a domestic education simply cannot.

    Honestly, I'm toying with the idea of the Edinburgh Business School M.Sc. I already have an MSM from UMT. Domestically, I can't really have a more unknown school than UMT. Domestically, I can't really do "worse" in terms of accreditation than a DEAC degree (unless I went with an unaccredited degree). And in truth, I've often though it would be good (for both my career and my personal development) to volunteer for one of my company's international assignments. While not everyone on international assignment has a dual-national education the preference is for someone with degrees from countries other than the US. That may be based on the misconception that this people are more "worldly" or it may be based on the fact that these people are, at a minimum, not entirely US centric (my VP is of the latter opinion).
     
  14. Lerner

    Lerner Well-Known Member

    Some UK degrees like Masters of Engineering are one academic year long.

    People earn 3 year BEng degree and then continue in to an additional year MEng degree.
    so its possible to have Masters degree in Engineering in 4 years.

    So do Honours program with 4th year placement and then earn masters of Engineering so it takes 5 years.

    In USA a BSc Eng is 4 year program and Masters of Science in Engineering is another 2 years.
     
  15. edowave

    edowave Active Member

    The University of Edinburgh is generally regarded as one of the top universities in the world, regardless the department. I had friends that attended there, and attended a couple of lectures on-campus in Edinburgh. A wonderful uni.
     
  16. warguns

    warguns Member

    Last edited by a moderator: May 31, 2015
  17. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    This is true. But an M.S. Engineering and an M.Eng. (in US schools) are not the same, so you're sort of comparing apples to oranges. Cornell, MIT and Berkley, for example all have one year M.Eng. programs (and MIT is pretty open about contrasting their program with an M.S.). So the one year M.Eng. does exist in the US as well.
     
  18. Lerner

    Lerner Well-Known Member

    I stand corrected
    Thanks.

    In just 12 months the MIT Master of Engineering in Manufacturing (MEngM) prepares you to not only assume professional leadership positions, but also provides you with the necessary skill set and confidence to affect transformative and innovative change within manufacturing industries.

    The MEng degree is a professional degree, different from the Master of Science (MS) engineering degree. The MEng is a coursework-only degree is designed for students who want to enhance their educational background, but are not interested in doing advanced research. The degree is flexible in that it allows students to gain either a greater depth or more breadth in professional skills.

    The MEng degree can be completed with two semesters of full-time study. This option is less than the typical one and one half to two years of full-time study required for the research-based MS.
     
  19. yak342

    yak342 Member

    Thank you. Those links are very helpful. I see that the philosophy department at the University of Edinburgh is highly ranked. The University of Edinburgh offers a master's degree in Epistemology, Ethics, and Mind through distance learning and I'm considering whether to enroll in the program.
     
  20. warguns

    warguns Member

    Edinburgh

    Edinburgh is ranked 20th in philosophy out of 48 which is not my definition of"highly" - - more like in the middle. I'm surprised to see that relative newcomers like UWE (4th), Oxford Brooks (7th) and Southampton (8th) so highly rated.

    University league tables 2016 | Education | The Guardian

    But, of course, one can't take these rating too seriously - - especially small differences.
     

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