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Msc Timetable

Hi,

I'm going to be doing a masters in September in Criminology, the university have advised me that the part time option is 4 hours a week over 2 years and that full time is at least 12 hours a week for a year, but they can't confirm the timetable until August. However my undergrad diss supervisor thinks that 12 hours a week sounds like a lot for full time study. (which surprises me as I thought it'd be more!)

I was wondering if anyone who has done their masters could give me an idea of how many hours a week contact time they had?

I know its a random question, but a big thing for me is paying for it and if I can get an idea of how many days I'll physically be in class then I can work out whether I need to do it full or part time in order to be able to work as well.
Reply 1
I did a different MSc so can't help, but it might help if you named the university in case anyone here has studied the degree previously and can help you.

Also, it's difficult to tie up 4 hours a week for 2 years with 'at least' 12 hours for one year. Do the part-time courses effectively run for longer (say 21 or 22 months vs 9 months for full time), or are you expected to do more self-study if you go part-time?
Reply 2
Original post by jd1411
Hi,

I'm going to be doing a masters in September in Criminology, the university have advised me that the part time option is 4 hours a week over 2 years and that full time is at least 12 hours a week for a year, but they can't confirm the timetable until August. However my undergrad diss supervisor thinks that 12 hours a week sounds like a lot for full time study. (which surprises me as I thought it'd be more!)

I was wondering if anyone who has done their masters could give me an idea of how many hours a week contact time they had?

I know its a random question, but a big thing for me is paying for it and if I can get an idea of how many days I'll physically be in class then I can work out whether I need to do it full or part time in order to be able to work as well.


I did a masters in European Literatures at the University of Bristol. It is hard to predict what your specific contact time will be because it will depend upon which units you take, and also on the organisation of your university (complete lack of, usually).

As far as I can remember, my first term timetable was something like:

Monday - free
Tuesday - research methods (10-12; once a fortnight)
Wednesday -optional unit 1 (9-11; fortnightly across both terms) and optional unit 2 (11-1; weekly)
Thursday - free
Friday - core unit (4-5.30/6; weekly)

I have a feeling that research methods was actually on a completely different day, say Friday, which means I had three days completely free. However, the notion you will have any free time on a proper masters degree is questionable. While I only had x amount of contact time (say eight hours for above), the amount of preparation that goes into this is far more than you ever put in at undergraduate level. Take a look at this:

15/10/10 Scott's The Battle of Waterloo (Rise of the Novel)
15/10/10 Stendhal's The Chaterhouse of Parma (Rise of the Novel; extract)
15/10/10 Hugo's Les Misérables (Rise of the Novel; extract)
20/10/10 Dostoevsky's Winter Notes on Summer Impressions (Dostoevsky's Native Soil)
22/10/10 Balzac's Old Goriot (Rise of the Novel) [304 pages]
29/10/10 Flaubert's Madame Bovary (Rise of the Novel) [304 pages]
03/11/10 Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier (European Literature of Ideas) [368 pages]
03/10/10 Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground (Dostoevsky's Native Soil) [125 pages]
05/11/10 Tolstoy's Anna Karenina (Rise of the Novel) [811 pages]
10/11/10 Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky's Native Soil) [718 pages]
17/11/10 Rabelais's Gargantua and Pantagruel (European Literature of Ideas) [712 pages]
17/11/10 Dostoevsky's The Devils (Dostoevsky's Native Soil) [694 pages]
19/11/10 Zola's The Ladies' Paradise (Rise of the Novel) [480 pages]
01/12/10 Voltaire's Candide (European Literature of Ideas) [86 pages]
01/12/10 Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamzov (Dostoevsky's Native Soil) [960 pages]
03/12/10 Fontane's Effi Briest (Rise of the Novel) [220 pages]
15/12/10 Rousseau's Confessions (European Literature of Ideas) [720 pages]
17/12/10 Queiros's Cousin Bazilio (Rise of the Novel) [296 pages]

These are the dates I had to read things by. From the beginning until the middle of November was absolute torture. If I had not read Voltaire (i.e. if it was something just as long and intense as the previous couple of books) then I would have collasped by the time I got to The Brothers Karamazov. These are just the core texts. Nothing extra. No secondary material or anything related to any assignments you might be working on.

There are benefits to full- and part-time masters study. Full-time means you take the financial hit all at once and get the thing over and done with as soon as possible. Doing things part-time means you can actually go at a more relaxed pace, but you need to know that you can work flexibly in order to finance your course. Not everyone's employer is like this. If they are then the job is probably part-time and not particularly well-paid in the first place...

The choice is really yours to make.

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