I’ve been trying to find out what it all means, like there’s Bachelor’s degree, Doctorate, Bachelor of Design and Master of Education. But what do they mean? Is a bachelor’s degree the lowest degree you can get and master’s is the highest or do different courses have different names for their degrees?
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Just in case all of this is confusing/inconsistent, north america and europe do not follow the same duration for degrees. Duration of post-graduate degrees varies by discipline and within disciplines.
I’ve seen some US/UK/Germany discourse here, so going to add Australia!
Usually you will start with a 3 year Bachelors’ degree.
You can add a 4th year called ‘Honours’ to spice this up, which is usually a combination of some coursework and a short thesis (ballpark of 15,000 words).
The next tier is Masters, which is usually 2 years, and depending on the discipline (etc) can be done by coursework and/or by writing a thesis. This thesis would be a step up from the honours thesis, perhaps closer to 20-30,000 words? (Correct me if I’m wrong, I don’t have a Masters!)
From there, you can do a PhD. You can also move straight from Honours to PhD in some cases (I did, because I was offered a PhD scholarship, which felt like a better deal than paying to do my Masters first). This may also include a little coursework but the focus is a large-scale thesis of about 80,000-100,000 words. My uni heavily encouraged a 3-year timeframe for completion but it is longer in most other countries. Once that’s done (and passed), you are now Doctor! This used to represent the peak of an academic career but these days it’s more like an entry point to serious academia.
Most universities also offer other qualifications, like graduate diplomas, which fall a little outside of the Bach/Masters/PhD hierarchy and are usually shorter and/or can be done concurrently with other degrees.
To add to the discussions:
They’re different ways for universities to maximise the lifetime value of each student. There are many degrees and many different things to learn within each degree.
By splitting this knowledge into “levels”, the universities ensure that a single person has a progression track that will keep them coming back and more money can be made from them.
There is no “difficulty” or “hours of study” continuity across courses within each level. You will find that there are bachelors degrees more difficult than masters, and even some PhDs are easy to get you just need to put the time in. It’s also very different if you do a theoretical vs a vocational degree.
The “level” is decided by a few people – the course directors, industry bodies, government education committees… but they all have ulterior motives that outweigh the need to create a fair and knowledge-representative qualification system.
In conclusion – if you’re looking at a degree to tell you whether a person has knowledge or skill in a particular area, it’s probably a poor predictor and you should try to assess their actual knowledge or skills instead.
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