Can a 4-year and a 2-year degree be equal?

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by mintaru, Jan 1, 2018.

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  1. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    That's purely a perception issue. Scottish MA is what it always have been - an undergraduate program comparable to American BA. This is how it should be accepted. But yeah, it can create an issue simply because it appears strange to someone unfamiliar with that system. It is wise not to task a potential employer too much, if at all possible.
     
  2. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    It seems more normal in Europe because we are used to the more ad hoc system. In Soviet Union, there was no "degree title" per se - there were "diplomas" with specific job titles - "electrical engineer", "teacher of history, middle grades", "economist"; common term was simply "higher education". "Degrees" were introduced in the nineties under Bologna influence, and we still had the one of "Specialist" that was a 5-year program between Bachelor's and Master's. To this day, Bachelor's without a Master's (or "Specialist") almost indicates "dropout". So in comparison, Scottish MA is not weird at all.
     
  3. mintaru

    mintaru Active Member

    Now I understand. My mistake was that I thought perception would be based on the number of years and not on the title. That's even the reason for my original question.

    By the way, the traditional pre-Bologna education systems of most European countries are so different, perception issues because of a title would almost be the norm. There literally are dozens of examples of degrees with the same or a very similar title, but these degrees are often not comparable. That is the reason why equivalency is so important here in Germany, and it was also the reason for the Bologna-process. Bologna-style degrees are easy to compare.
     
    Last edited: Jan 6, 2018
  4. mintaru

    mintaru Active Member

    I think you're right.
    That's funny, it's the same here in Germany. That's also the reason why so many German students start a Master's degree right after graduating with their Bachelor's. (Well, that and the fact that there are no tuition fees at public German universities.) At German research universities, that number is as high as 80 percent.
     
  5. heirophant

    heirophant Well-Known Member

    I believe that the 'top-up' year isn't a stand-alone degree in its own right. It's intended to convert a 3-year BA or its equivalent into a 4-year 'honours BA by adding the 4th year.

    I've seen many British job advertisements that specify an 'honours' degree. British post-graduate university admissions often require the same thing. So it's easy to understand the motivation for doing it.

    I expect that larger more international employers in the US are aware of the 3 year/4 year distinction for British (and Canadian) BAs. (There are hordes of Canadians working in the US, so it probably isn't that uncommon.) They might not always care a whole lot, if their requirement for a BA is fairly generic. American graduate school admissions typically are aware of it and oftentimes they do care and specify 4-year degrees. (Some of these will accept an otherwise impressive foreign 3-year BA graduate provisionally, but specify the equivalent of the top-up year in extra work.) But many smaller employers are probably clueless about the distinction.

    (Degreeinfo has earlier threads about this.)

    That's a more troubling situation. An American position might require a masters degree. Somebody walks in and plops an MA from a well regarded Scottish university on the employer's desk. The employer wants to appear enlightened and worldly, so he or she accepts it without question, totally unaware that it's the equivalent of an American bachelors degree. (To question its status as a masters degree would be an insult to Scotland, right?)

    I've actually read about a situation where somebody with an MA from Oxford sued his employer because the employer denied him extra pay promised to employees who possess masters degrees. It's actually fairly common in the US for these Oxbridge graduates to boast of their MAs and for them to list the degrees on CVs (MA from Oxford!), without any indication that they aren't earned degrees.

    I think that this is one reason why some American graduate schools and employers have the anal rule that all foreign degrees have to be evaluated for equivalency by a credential evaluator. Precisely because educational credentials with the same title don't always mean the same thing, while those with different titles often do. Employers and admissions officers can't be expected to be familiar with every regional subtlety from all 200 countries on Earth.
     
    Last edited: Jan 6, 2018
  6. Lerner

    Lerner Well-Known Member

    I earned a second bachelors degree in a different discipline in the US by transferring credit and it took me a year.
    So when I apply to places or simply enter the degree in social media such as LinkedIn I specify the start date and end date.
    It shows one year.
    I don't know what HR, potential employers or simply people reviewing my education on social media think.
    They see a 5-year degree from much earlier time in my life as well if they read further.
    But I know my wife completed a two year Masters in a one year at National University, can tell that in my opinion the degree was rushed, two weeks and you have a midterm exam and another two weeks final. I think more work is needed for the material to be better observed in the brain.
     

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