Masters without undergraduate degree???

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by adelheid, Apr 15, 2003.

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  1. adelheid

    adelheid New Member

    Recently I have come across two people who hold a Masters, apparently accredited, but not an undergraduate degree. I know that this is possible with an MBA (e.g. through HWU), but I wonder how this can be with - in their case - an MA and an MEd.

    I was not able to get any further info from them - is this something to be curious about?

    I was not aware that it is possible to get a postgraduate degree without an undergraduate degree (except for MBA).

    adelheid:)
     
  2. me again

    me again Well-Known Member

    And I have an additional trivia question, which maybe Rich can answer.

    A Bachelors degree is required to receive a commission in the military. If a person does not have a Bachelors degree, but they do have a Masters degree, then are they eligible to be a commissioned officer?

    :confused:
     
  3. Charles

    Charles New Member

    A bachelors degree is not required for all officer commissioning programs. The Navy's Limited Duty Officer and Warrant Officer programs do not require a bachelors degree. Maybe one of our Army members can provide input, I don't think a bachelors degree is required for the the Army aviator program, helicopter pilots.
     
  4. Michael Lloyd

    Michael Lloyd New Member

    My wife, who was in Navy medicine for 20 years, retiring as a HMC, knows of many enlisted sailors with bachelor's and graduate degrees. Some of them earned their degrees while on duty while others had them upon entry into the service.

    Regards,

    Michael Lloyd
    Mill Creek, Washington USA
     
  5. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    The Air Force requires a bachelor's for commissioning. I can't speak for the other services. The Army, for example, commissions people with less. (They even commission people into the Army Reserve while they are completing college.)

    I doubt a candidate with a master's but not a bachelor's would be accepted. Holding a master's isn't the same as holding a bachelor's and a master's. But that's just an opinion; I never saw such a situation in my years dealing with such things.
     
  6. plumbdog10

    plumbdog10 New Member

    A friend of mine is working on a master's in construction management at a respected foreign university without having completed a bacheolor's degree. He was admitted based on:

    1) He had completed over a hundred units towards a BS in construction management at an accredited B&M school.

    2) Held a contractor's license for ten years.

    3) Had eight years of working experience in construction management.

    4) Currently is a high level construction manager for a major nation-wide corp.

    He was required to submit documents supporting the above. The department reasoned that his experience far out- weighed the knowledge he would gain by completing another twenty undergraduate units.

    While it is rare, if you read the admission requirements for graduate study at many universities, there is a clause that states something to the effect: "If the department feels that a student has the ability to perform graduate level work...etc,"

    It would probably be next to impossible in academic subjects, because of the difficulty in proving ability.
     
  7. obecve

    obecve New Member

    I am aware of at least two individuas who were granted master's degrees from Harvard in publc administration. they were under unsual circumstances and there were prior college and work experiences that were evaluated and they were accepted into the program. Perhaps a more famous example (if I have my trivia right) is Kurt Vonnegut who was granted a master's degree from the University of Chicago without having a bachelor's degree.
     
  8. plumbdog10

    plumbdog10 New Member

    I believe Vonnegut earned a BA, and completed the course work for his MA, but his thesis was rejected. Later, after publishing several novels, they accepted one of his books (Slaughterhouse Five , I think) as a thesis and awarded his MA.
     
  9. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    Apparently this is possible at the four 'ancient' Scottish universities. I know no more about it than that.

    The Dearing Report says:

    10.10 At present, there is no consistent rationale for the structure or nomenclature of awards across higher education. Most substantively, at the postgraduate level, the terms postgraduate diploma and certificate have little common meaning across institutions. There is considerable confusion about the 'M' (Masters) title which is awarded for a variety of types of programmes. For example, the awarding of a Masters degree can be for:

    the fourth year (or the fifth year in Scotland) of an undergraduate programme – essentially advanced undergraduate work (MEng etc.);

    a postgraduate conversion programme (where the standard of the programme is sometimes below that of an undergraduate programme in the same subject);

    an undergraduate degree awarded by one of the four Scottish ancient universities;

    a specialist programme of one/two years in duration (such as the MSc, MA);

    no additional work, as in the Oxbridge tradition.


    http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/ncihe/
     
  10. Roscoe

    Roscoe Guest

    About the Army

    A few years ago, you could get a commission in the Army with 60 credits -- with or without a degree. The credits allowed enlisted people to enter the Officer Candidate School. Over the years, I met may captains who were still working on their bachelor's degree. Don't know if any of this has changed.

    If my memory serves me correctly, Audy Murphy's daring exploits in WWII enabled him to be commissioned on the battled field without even having a high school diploma.

    Roscoe
     
  11. adelheid

    adelheid New Member

    TESC

    Could it theoretically be possible for someone with an accredited non-US Master's but without a Bachelor's to be awarded a BA degree from Thomas Edison State College based on this prior learning/university degree?

    adelheid:)
     
  12. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Re: TESC

    I do not think TESC would apply credit to one of their degree programs that was used to satisfy another degree elsewhere--except, of course, when the candidate is pursuing a second bachelor's.

    But that wouldn't prevent you from earning the credit by testing.
     
  13. John Bear

    John Bear Senior Member

    The University of Leicester had (still has, I'm pretty sure) a procedure for entering their Master's without a Bachelor's -- and, they were pretty confident, so did/does virtually every other British university. In their case, it involved completing an 8 or 9 month diploma or certificate course in the field of study.
     
  14. Tom Head

    Tom Head New Member

    You're both right; he received his University of Chicago M.A. (in anthropology) in 1971, two years after Slaughterhouse Five was published and 24 years after finishing his coursework, but I can find no record of him earning a bachelor's (even though he did attend Cornell, Carnegie Institute/Carnegie-Mellon, and the University of Tennessee, presumably amassing a pretty good number of credits in the process).


    Cheers,
     
  15. John Bear

    John Bear Senior Member

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