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Rounded Rectangle:  Different by Degree At first glance, the vast array of different degrees awarded can seem quite baffling.  How can you tell your BEng, DPhil or BSc from your PhD, DLitt or BPharm?  Mindboggling, but what’s the difference?  Well, it’s quite simple really.  Aside from a few anomalies there are three basic types of degree that a university can award, according to level of study being undertaken.  These are Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctorate and the relationship between them is illustrated in the figure below.  Traditionally, the Bachelor's degree was seen as equiping someone with a good, general education, the Master's degree was a licence to practice in a profession and the doctorate was seen as the qualification necessary to teach the subject (the term doctor comes from the latin for teacher).  In a modern-day context the holder of a Bachelor's degree is regarded as having a thorough knowledge of a broad field of study and to be able to understand the problems and limitations of that knowledge.  The Master's graduate is considered to be a specialist in thier field and to be able to critically evaluate knowledge at the leading edge of that field, whilst the holder of doctoral degree is regarded as someone who can make an independent contribution to the development of thier field and as someone who has something to say about thier field (in this sense, at least, the idea of the teacher still holds true).     Bachelor's Degree The Bachelor’s degree is usually the first one to be undertaken; it is an undergraduate degree equivalent to 360 CAT points and, if taken full-time, usually takes 3 years, although many people will extend this period by taking an industrial placement during the course of the degree.  If you take a look at the QAA standards framework you can see that the first year of a Bachelor’s Degree is equivalent to level 4 of the framework and the final year is equivalent to level 6.  You can use the framework to get an idea of the skills and abilities you should be acquiring as you proceed through your degree.     Bachelor’s degrees are always denoted with the letter ‘B’ so that a BEng, BPharm, and LLB are all first degrees taken in the fields of engineering, pharmacy and law respectively.    These days, most Bachelor’s degrees are taken with Honours, so that you see BSc(Hons) or BA(Hons) etc as Bachelor of Science with Honours or Bachelor of Arts with Honours.  Strictly speaking, placing the (Hons) tag at the end of the degree is a colloquialism, a bit of academic slang, but it seems to have become common and accepted practice.  In the States the Honours award is termed ‘cum laude’ or ‘magna cum laude’ meaning ‘with praise’ and ’with highest praise’.  The ‘Honours’ component of the degree is awarded on the basis of a advanced element of study, usually an extended form of personal study or dissertation, having been undertaken in the final year.  There are four classifications of Honours degree: First (12%), Upper Second (43%), Lower Second (30%), and Third (7%). The numbers in brackets refer to the approximate percentage of students graduating with these classification; the missing 8% graduate with an ordinary degree, or a pass without honours.  Master's Degree Following successful completion of a Bachelor's degree, graduates have the option of going on to undertake postgraduate study.  In some universities, students with a first class honours degree may have the opportunity to go directly into a doctoral programme, but for most postgraduate study will begin with a Master's degree.  In most cases, entrants to a Master's degree must have a good first degree but universities can admit people with professional experience and expertise who are considered to be at 'graduate level'.  Master's degrees are denoted with the letter 'M' in the abbrebiation, so MSc, MA, MPhil and MEng are all Master's level qualifications.  If done full-time, taught Master's degrees can be completed in 1 year.  This is obviously considerably shorter than the 3 years plus of the Bachelor's course and this is becasue a Master's is a rather more focused and specialist qualification campared with a first degree.  An example would be where a student undertakes, say, Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Bachelor's level and then goes on to specialise in one aspect of this field by undertaking a Master's degree in Electrical Power Engineering.  Compared with a Bachelor's degree, a Master's involves consierably more independent study and primary research.  Typically, within a course comprising 180 CAT points, between 60 and 90 points will be gained from independent study or research.  This is much more than the Bachelor's Honours degree where maybe 30 CAT points out of a total of 360 are gained from truely independent study.  Whilst the volume of the dissertation may not be that much more (~10,000 words for a Bachelor's and ~15,000 words for a Master's) the Master's student is expected to demonstrate considerably more depth of analysis, critical awareness of their field, and research ability compared to the Bachelor's student.  Nevertheless, the bulk of Master's degrees gained are considered to be 'taught' and this distinguishes them from the full research Master's or Master of Philosophy (MPhil) degree. Here, the student will gain their degree by undertaking a piece of independent research, submitting a Thesis (~20,000 - 40,000 words) to report the research and 'defending' the thesis in an oral exam known as a viva.  There will not be any formal taught element within this degree. Doctoral Degree   The doctoral degree, or doctorate, is the highest level of academic degree and it is awarded on the basis of a candidate being judged as having made an original contribution to the knowledge base within their field. In most cases it is completed by undertaking research, rather than attending a taught course, although having said this, there will typically be some ‘supporting’ tuition at the start of the programme around, for example, the analytic method to be used or the theoretical basis of the research. A doctoral degree takes about 3 years to complete full-time although in practice many take longer than this and it is commonly undertaken on a part-time basis. In a standard 3 year full-time programme the candidate may take the first year preparing the research, doing the literature review, maybe piloting their methodology, the second year will be spent collecting data and the third year will be analysis and writing up. There’s quite a contrast in the doctoral culture between the natural science subjects and the arts and social science subjects. In the natural sciences many doctoral candidates will apply for a doctoral studentship where the study is already planned and often forms part of a broader piece of funded research. Indeed on large scale funded research there may be several doctoral students working in the same research team. Whereas in the arts and social science subjects the study is usually a stand-alone, individual piece of research which the candidate has conceived of themselves. This leads to a very different doctoral culture and experience across the different disciplines. The other big difference is the size of the thesis that must be submitted. In the natural sciences it’s around 40,000 words where as in the arts and social sciences it’s around 80 – 100,000 words! In all cases the submission of the thesis is only part of the story and comes with mixed feelings; the surge of relief accompanying the submission is followed immediately by the knowledge that the next step is the viva, the oral exam in which the student is questioned and must ‘defend’ their thesis.