How big is the jump up from undergrad to Masters in terms of workload??

Perhaps, it depends. The idea of a Masters is to give you in depth knowledge of a particular aspect of a subject, so it might be appropriate to use certain modules from undergraduate courses. I wouldn't expect it to be exclusively like that though.

The fourth year of a science degree is the 'masters' year, so I don't see a huge problem with overlapping content. Most people wouldn't do 4 year undergraduate and then a stand alone masters on top.

And which course are you doing?

Huge apparently. You have about 2/3 months for your dissertation o.o;

Architecture, y'know, that degree that's in my sig and is my name

Oh haha, nice

I don't think the step up is normally that big. Masters degrees at some universities use modules from 3rd/4th year undergraduate courses, so the difficulty is essentially the same. I'm sure it varies from subject to subject and from place to place though, as does the difficulty of undergraduate courses.

It is significantly shorter than a PhD and is completed in 2-3 months rather than 2-3 years. It may or may not include original material. Basically it is a long paper about some advanced aspect of your subject. For instance it may involve reproducing some analysis on a new dataset or something like that.

Most likely words, definitely not characters

My Masters thesis was 10,000 words, but I only ended up writing a bit over 7,000.

Masters theses usually range between 8-12,000 max

How about you? (I don't want to guess Politics just in case you picked that name on a whim )

I'm in Sixth Form, not at University yet, still thinking about what I should do.
Biochemistry, maybe Pharmacy, I really need to make my mind up

Basically in terms of exam preparation do people usually go through a book or two and the lecture notes and then practice using past papers? Or it it much more difficult than undergrad level?

In terms of undergrad level most of my revision (same course but at undergrad level at a different uni) was done using past exam papers and lecture notes and seminar questions and was enough to get ~80% overall. The questions change from past papers but the structure and method for answering most questions are usually very similar if you know what you're doing.

I know grading at postgraduate level is more strict but in terms of the content that's likely to come up in exams, are they more or less similar to those that came in the papers before or are exams usually have completely different questions to previous ones?

Also more specific, I'm due to start the course MSc in Accounting and Finance at LSE in October and wanted some advice from people who've done the course before regarding the above in addition to how it is at other places.

Thanks.

Some unis may have undergrads and postgrads attending the same lectures, but the assignments and exams might be pitched differently for undergrad and masters.



This varies - many unis don't require original research in masters but some departments do.



Again, this varies a lot. The course I am looking at applying for requires a 25000 word masters thesis (and it has to be original). Others I have looked at ask 15000 words or more. So clearly there is no standard length.

As I said, usually. Although I would guess that it would vary between schools/departments, and most of the people I know were generally in the Social Sciences, so as you say there is no standard length, but it's just what I observed with the people who were doing masters theses with me.

But 25,000 words? DAMN thats long. Humanities I'm guessing?

Social science, actually, but on a course that is one of those specifically set up as a PhD pathway (hence also the requirement for originality, which is also unusual at masters level apparently, as well as a requirement to submit a research proposal with the application - again not usual at masters level). That said, I have already done another masters where the dissertation was 15000 words, and in my experience that is quite "normal" - I've personally not seen/heard of many where the dissertation is shorter than that. But I think the point is really that requirements vary widely.

Also, to back up what some others have said, from my MSc, I don't think it's generally all that hard to pass a masters, but you do have to work harder than at undergrad, and differently, if you want a distinction.

Ok I see. Different strokes for diffferent folks I guess, as I haven't heard of a 15,000 word masters!

I think with Master's, you're expected to do a bit more "critical analysis" as opposed to regurgitation of material.