[tradingmyheartforyours]

I am just about to pick my modules for my masters and am kind of nervous so I was just wondering how the more seasoned post-grad students have dealt with things.

1. What is the gap like between UG work and PG?
2. If you are doing a taught masters then what was your timetable like?
3. How did you deal with the assignments because I am assuming they are more rigorous than previous?
4. Did you work part-time/ full-time?
5. Any advice for someone embarking on a masters?

Thanks

[Craghyrax]

(Original post by tradingmyheartforyours)
I am just about to pick my modules for my masters and am kind of nervous so I was just wondering how the more seasoned post-grad students have dealt with things.

1. What is the gap like between UG work and PG?
2. If you are doing a taught masters then what was your timetable like?
3. How did you deal with the assignments because I am assuming they are more rigorous than previous?
4. Did you work part-time/ full-time?
5. Any advice for someone embarking on a masters?

Thanks

Well it would be difficult to answer this question without knowing your University and course. There's a lot of variety. My impression is that most Arts and Humanities MAs are pretty easy. Often Universities save money by not providing in any MA classes, but getting MA students to share seminars with third year undergraduates.

I did an MPhil in Sociology at the University of Cambridge straight after doing my undergraduate degree there in Social and Political Sciences. I think the work load of the MPhil was similar to the MA and MSc courses I saw at other Universities around the country. I had four pieces of coursework, two on methods (3000 words) and two on substantive topics of my own choice (5000 words). The thesis was 20,000 words and counted for half of the overall grade.
The thesis was quite hard, primarily because 20,000 is quite long, and my undergrad dissertation was 10 000 words. However the essays were really easy for me.
Overall I found the year to be much easier than my undergraduate degree. There are three 8 week terms at Cambridge. One methodology and one substantive essay were due in each of the first two terms. The thesis was due at the end of the final term. This meant that for the first two terms I had four weeks to do a single essay. This was a huge luxury for me, because as an undergraduate I typically wrote either two or three 3000 word essays a week, without stop, for all of each of the first two terms (the final one was for revision). I didn't experience the MPhil essays to be any harder than the ones I had done at undergraduate. I did more reading for them, but that was really easy because I had four weeks for reading, rather than 1-2 days.

But yeh I really wouldn't go on my experience because it completely depends on the subject and what your undergraduate was like, and whether you stay at the same institution or not.

[The_Lonely_Goatherd]

(Original post by tradingmyheartforyours)
I am just about to pick my modules for my masters and am kind of nervous so I was just wondering how the more seasoned post-grad students have dealt with things.

1. What is the gap like between UG work and PG?
2. If you are doing a taught masters then what was your timetable like?
3. How did you deal with the assignments because I am assuming they are more rigorous than previous?
4. Did you work part-time/ full-time?
5. Any advice for someone embarking on a masters?

Thanks

1. I didn't find there to be that much of a gap, tbh
2. Very laidback. Being part-time, I took one module in the autumn and spring terms, with no lectures in the summer term. That said, last year's spring term was horrendous and I had to pull out. So autumn 2011 I did two modules within one term
3. For me they were longer, which meant I had more time to think, work on it and proofread. In terms of rigour, I didn't find it that much of a step-up but I think that's coz of the nature of my undergrad
4. See the answer to (2)
5. Try and start on your dissertation before the summer term, so that you have plenty of time

Edit: I'm such an idiot. I read Q4 as "did you STUDY part-time/full-time"

During my first year, I took on a 4.5 days-a-week internship with the London Symphony Orchestra. It was hard and I had to cut down in the end due to health problems. Had I been healthy, I'd have managed it in first year. Not so sure about second year

[tradingmyheartforyours]

(Original post by Craghyrax)
Well it would be difficult to answer this question without knowing your University and course. There's a lot of variety. My impression is that most Arts and Humanities MAs are pretty easy. Often Universities save money by not providing in any MA classes, but getting MA students to share seminars with third year undergraduates...
But yeh I really wouldn't go on my experience because it completely depends on the subject and what your undergraduate was like, and whether you stay at the same institution or not.

Thanks it is a general non-specialist MEd at Queens, Belfast. I guess the rigour of your first degree made your masters seem less daunting . For my current degree I am at A specialist teacher training college which is effectively part of the uni due to mergers etc but the atmosphere/ people/ lecturers are very different but hopefully it'll all be grand.

[Ghost6]

I took a few graduate courses during my undergraduate years. Within the same field, graduate coursework could be a big step up, especially if you are talking about PhD coursework and/or you took easy undergraduate classes without the intention of attending graduate school.

Now if you somewhat change fields, say from pure mathematics to finance, it can be a big step down as well. Graduate classes require deeper understanding generally speaking, but if you come from a "hard" scientific background and do something more applied afterwards it will actually get easier. Degrees like MBAs are a joke in terms of difficulty for instance.

[aftrglw]

(Original post by tradingmyheartforyours)
I am just about to pick my modules for my masters and am kind of nervous so I was just wondering how the more seasoned post-grad students have dealt with things.

1. What is the gap like between UG work and PG?
2. If you are doing a taught masters then what was your timetable like?
3. How did you deal with the assignments because I am assuming they are more rigorous than previous?
4. Did you work part-time/ full-time?
5. Any advice for someone embarking on a masters?

Thanks

I am finishing up an MSc at LSE...

1. I found the gap huge. I did my undergrad in the US and studied abroad at UEA, and compared to both I found the standard expected out of course work to be crazy high at LSE. That may be because it's LSE though, not necessarily because it's a Masters...
2. Timetable was OK, I had class 4 days a week, usually just one a day. I also chose to take an optional language class which made it harder. At UEA, I was in three different sporting clubs, did all of my reading, and was still able to go out 4-5 nights a week. At LSE, I played one sport and occasionally drank or played poker, and found it really hard to keep up. Well, not keep up, nobody did all the reading to be honest, but there's just a ton that you should do if you care about getting a distinction...
3. Most of the work was formative (i.e. doesn't count) so while I'd spend a few days working on it, I wasn't stressing about it for weeks like I did for the summative stuff which was all due at the end of the year.
4. Does poker count? That supported me for a few months til lady luck decided to kick me in the bullocks.
5. In my personal experience, it really is harder. Don't do it until you're absolutely ready. I loved uni, sorta missed it after I graduated and worked a few years.... now I definitely don't. That said, it's also a lot shorter than uni, so it's easier to power out. Also, most everything is due at the end. Being American, I wasn't used to that. I assume you're British, so you've been doing that for years. The best thing to do is figure out a good system at the beginning of the year and stick to it... it'll save you loads of headaches at the end. If I could start over again, I'd pick the subjects that interested me for the exam at the beginning of the year (like 5-6), read the relevant books/articles and sum them up in about half a page each. That makes revising for the exam a piss take. There was a kid in one of my classes who did his UG at Oxford and did that. If only I had known...

[QHF]

(Original post by tradingmyheartforyours)
1. What is the gap like between UG work and PG?
2. If you are doing a taught masters then what was your timetable like?
3. How did you deal with the assignments because I am assuming they are more rigorous than previous?
4. Did you work part-time/ full-time?
5. Any advice for someone embarking on a masters?

I'm sure this is very subject-dependent. Here's my experience from a masters in English this year:

1. Manageable, I think. I had a year out, but from what I recall of my undergraduate degree there were definite continuities between the way I was working at the end of my third year and the way I began working this year.

2. Completely nuts, but if I'd just wanted to get in, get the degree and get out it would've been gentler. Then again at the end of the second term we had an exam and 14k words' worth of deadlines within a fortnight, which pretty much destroyed everyone on the course regardless of their aims.

3. Dissertation aside, my course was assessed by large essays falling at the ends of terms, plus one exam. At my institution undergraduates live on a weekly essay treadmill, but at the institution where I did my BA they do half-termly essays, so in some ways I was better-prepared for this than the natives. I worked hard and tried to get advice from those of my teachers who seemed to know what they were doing.

4. No.

5. Look closely at the structure of the course & the rhythm of deadlines well in advance, so you know when your workload is likely to rise and fall. If you have a dissertation I second TLG's advice to try to get some work on it ticking-over well before time -- I've been pleasantly surprised by how a little work done a long time in advance can keep a topic usefully in-play in your mind, help you notice and record useful stuff for the future &c

[tradingmyheartforyours]

Thanks for your help guys! Much appreciated
Anyone else want to give further advice on staying organised?
I need to work to make money/ do induction year so I'm wondering how any other post grad students managed a full time masters with working (I'll be working at least one week day possibly more).

[aftrglw]

(Original post by tradingmyheartforyours)
Thanks for your help guys! Much appreciated
Anyone else want to give further advice on staying organised?
I need to work to make money/ do induction year so I'm wondering how any other post grad students managed a full time masters with working (I'll be working at least one week day possibly more).

I think it's definitely doable, but you may want to take a month or so off before exams. It all depends on what you're studying, but if you're studying a social science, the bit about what I'd do differently in my original post would save you quite a lot of time... Also, having just taken my first exam today I realized I stressed and really overprepared for it. If you know too much, you'll have some trouble organizing your thoughts. Not sure how you'd figure out the balance without some trial and error though.

[Jake22]

(Original post by tradingmyheartforyours)
I am just about to pick my modules for my masters and am kind of nervous so I was just wondering how the more seasoned post-grad students have dealt with things.

1. What is the gap like between UG work and PG?
2. If you are doing a taught masters then what was your timetable like?
3. How did you deal with the assignments because I am assuming they are more rigorous than previous?
4. Did you work part-time/ full-time?
5. Any advice for someone embarking on a masters?

Thanks

My masters was a doddle. The taught component wasn't really much different from final year undergrad with the slight exception that we were also expected to do a fair amount of independent work (tbh, outside reading should be expected at undergrad level but this time we were examined on it too)

I can't imagine that assignments should be 'more rigourous' but perhaps the scope will be wider and the topic requiring more attention and work.

The dissertation was the main novel part (as compared to UG) but tbh - it shouldn't be too taxing - you just have to produce a well thought out and well executed piece of work; nothing too special.

My advice is not to overthink it. Just dive right in and make sure you keep up as you go along. It will probably be a bit harder to do everything in typical undergrad style where you have a 48 week holiday and work furiously for 4 weeks of the year.

[flying plum]

1. What is the gap like between UG work and PG?

I didn't find the actual 'work' any harder - in the sense of the amount of reading I had to do, or the essay workload. However, I noticed a significant 'gap' in the standard that was required for my work; essays were marked to a much higher standard, and I had to go through quite a painful process of essentially learning how to write an essay again.

2. If you are doing a taught masters then what was your timetable like?

My timetable was about the same as my undergrad - but then, I did law as an undergrad and I'm given to understand we had more hours than everyone else. So, final year undergrad was about 8 hours a week, and this was the same in my masters, if not slightly less.

3. How did you deal with the assignments because I am assuming they are more rigorous than previous?

See above.

4. Did you work part-time/ full-time?

I worked part time (approx. 16 hours a week in a bar). In hindsight, I would have done better had I not worked, but that is more down to my inability to effectively use my time. If you're organised, you can do it. I'm not sure I'd recommend working full time unless you were doing your masters part time.

5. Any advice for someone embarking on a masters?

It is hard work - make sure you love the subject or have a good reason for doing it, not just because you want to stay at Uni.

[sj27]

I didn't find this so much:

(Original post by Jake22)
I can't imagine that assignments should be 'more rigourous' but perhaps the scope will be wider and the topic requiring more attention and work.

...as this:

(Original post by flying plum)
1. What is the gap like between UG work and PG?

I didn't find the actual 'work' any harder - in the sense of the amount of reading I had to do, or the essay workload. However, I noticed a significant 'gap' in the standard that was required for my work; essays were marked to a much higher standard, and I had to go through quite a painful process of essentially learning how to write an essay again.

....It is hard work - make sure you love the subject or have a good reason for doing it, not just because you want to stay at Uni.

I personally found that I had to do a lot more reading, and that a fair amount of these were a lot more indepth/rigorous than I had to do at undergrad. I guess it all depends on what the subject is, as it seems people have had all sorts of different experiences judging by the above. While I wouldn't necessarily say the content was a lot harder than what I had faced before, the way we had to approach and analyse it was. I will say this: whereas I kind of cruised to a first at undergrad, I had to put in a lot more work to get a distinction in my masters. I could probably have cruised and passed, so I guess it also depends on how important to you it is whether you just get a masters, or whether you want to do particularly well in it.

I can't offer help on some of your other questions as I did mine part-time while working full-time. But if the volume of work you get is anything like what I had, apart from flying plum's last sentence I quoted above, I would say: don't fall behind, because it gets very hard to catch up.

[Jake22]

(Original post by sj27)
I guess it all depends on what the subject is, as it seems people have had all sorts of different experiences judging by the above. While I wouldn't necessarily say the content was a lot harder than what I had faced before, the way we had to approach and analyse it was.

Yes, I should have said that this will be subject dependent and also that, coming from a mathematical point of view, I was interpreting 'rigour' particularly as 'soundness of the argument' rather than considering the rigour of the scholarship, analysis and so forth.

[tradingmyheartforyours]

Thanks, just to be thoroughly annoying I have two final questions which are as follows:

1. Did you take any online modules? If so, was it hard to motivate yourself?
2. I am doing my masters at a different institution and the modules offered at times seem to echo my undergrad ones. Would you take some of these similar modules on the basis you could probably refresh your knowledge and use readings for previous essays?x

Any help is appreciated!