Confusion with traditional scottish MA and english BA...?
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Original post by Princepieman
A Scottish general degree is equivalent to an English BA without honours (aka ordinary degree).
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How long/many credits is a BA Hons? Because I'm pretty sure it's 3 years, 360 credits. Which is a Scottish General degree.
Original post by Neifirst
How long/many credits is a BA Hons? Because I'm pretty sure it's 3 years, 360 credits. Which is a Scottish General degree.
360 credits. It doesn't equate to a general degree, it equates to an honours degree. in scotland the first year can be skipped if you have high A-level grades or have advanced highers - making it a 3 year degree with the same 2 honours years as england.
An English ordinary degree, i.e. BA without honours only requires 300 credits. So it isn't equivalent to the Scottish General Degree, which requires the same as a BA with honours (360). There is literally no qualification you can get from a Scottish university with only 300 credits.
"Students can be awarded an "Ordinary" degree if they achieve the required learning outcomes over a smaller volume of studies than is required for an honours degree, e.g. only passing 300 credits rather than the 360 usually required for an honours degree."
"Students can be awarded an "Ordinary" degree if they achieve the required learning outcomes over a smaller volume of studies than is required for an honours degree, e.g. only passing 300 credits rather than the 360 usually required for an honours degree."
Original post by Neifirst
An English ordinary degree, i.e. BA without honours only requires 300 credits. So it isn't equivalent to the Scottish General Degree, which requires the same as a BA with honours (360). There is literally no qualification you can get from a Scottish university with only 300 credits.
"Students can be awarded an "Ordinary" degree if they achieve the required learning outcomes over a smaller volume of studies than is required for an honours degree, e.g. only passing 300 credits rather than the 360 usually required for an honours degree."
"Students can be awarded an "Ordinary" degree if they achieve the required learning outcomes over a smaller volume of studies than is required for an honours degree, e.g. only passing 300 credits rather than the 360 usually required for an honours degree."
The ordinary degree and the general degree are equivalent.. Which is the point.
You can't say an integrated masters degree in scotland is not equivalent to one from england because of a few more credits, they achieve the same status and level of attainment.
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Original post by Princepieman
The ordinary degree and the general degree are equivalent.. Which is the point.
You can't say an integrated masters degree in scotland is not equivalent to one from england because of a few more credits, they achieve the same status and level of attainment.
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You can't say an integrated masters degree in scotland is not equivalent to one from england because of a few more credits, they achieve the same status and level of attainment.
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Attainment and status is *based* on credits. That's the point. 😂 Do you have any evidence to the contrary?
And "a few more credits" is, in this case, a whole academic year's worth of credits - 120. A whole postgraduate masters course in England. I'm really not sure where the confusion is coming in here.
Whaaaatttt I'm finding this thread so confusing.
Bachelor/Master's (Scotland) - 4 years
Bachelor (England) - 3 years
Bachelor (England) Honours - 4 years
is this right...????
P.S. Please excuse my ignorance..i'm from australia!
Bachelor/Master's (Scotland) - 4 years
Bachelor (England) - 3 years
Bachelor (England) Honours - 4 years
is this right...????
P.S. Please excuse my ignorance..i'm from australia!
Original post by Caitlin912912
Whaaaatttt I'm finding this thread so confusing.
Bachelor/Master's (Scotland) - 4 years
Bachelor (England) - 3 years
Bachelor (England) Honours - 4 years
is this right...????
P.S. Please excuse my ignorance..i'm from australia!
Bachelor/Master's (Scotland) - 4 years
Bachelor (England) - 3 years
Bachelor (England) Honours - 4 years
is this right...????
P.S. Please excuse my ignorance..i'm from australia!
Don't apologise - it confuses all of us.
The takeout is that the overwhelming majority of English uni degrees are honours degrees and take 3 years. The only time you'd do an 'Ordinary' (i.e. non-honours) degree in England is if you failed a year somehow.
In Scotland - most 'honours' degrees are four years rather than three. A Scottish 'ordinary' degree is not the same as an English one and doesn't have the connotations of 'failure' that the English one has. Despite that, most Scottish students take honours, in the same way as English students do. It's just for most, it adds another year onto their degree, making it a four-year programme.
And we've just bumped a year-old thread...
This is making so much more sense. Thankyou for taking the time to explain! So it is possible to do a three year bachelor degree at Scotland? The University of Edinburgh doesn't seem to offer anything outside of a four year bachelor?
Also is it the same in Scotland where you apply to the 'major' or area of study that you want to focus on (unlike the U.S. liberal arts where they do two years of broad study and then two years of selected major)
Also is it the same in Scotland where you apply to the 'major' or area of study that you want to focus on (unlike the U.S. liberal arts where they do two years of broad study and then two years of selected major)
Original post by Caitlin912912
The University of Edinburgh doesn't seem to offer anything outside of a four year bachelor?
The missing link for you may be that Scots start university a year earlier than everyone else. They are effectively doing the last year of school at university. Hence, a degree takes four years instead of three.
Original post by johnfalc
Sir Graeme Davies Principal, Glasgow University.
The Scottish master of arts is not an ordinary undergraduate degree. When it was proposed in the recent Quality Assurance Agency consultation that Glasgow's MA should be replaced by a bachelor of arts degree, the university responded negatively. Glasgow was joined in its stand by Scotland's other ancient universities,
Aberdeen, St Andrews and Edinburgh, and by the University of Dundee.
Not only have members of our academic staff opposed the proposed changes, but concerns have been voiced by some of Glasgow's 40,000 MA graduates, who have picked up on the rumours. We owe it to them not to allow their degrees to be devalued.
There are many reasons we said no. For a start, the MA is enshrined in the origins of the university and is the hallmark of our degrees in arts and social sciences. A papal bull - which William Turnbull, who was then the bishop of Glasgow, obtained from Pope Nicholas V in 1451 - gives the university the right to award degrees. From that time a student in the third year was designated as Baccalaureat and could graduate BA. A fourth-year student was a Magistrand and at the end of the year was entitled to compete for an MA.
Yet the proposals outlined in the QAA's consultation paper on a revised qualifications framework simply tidied these things up without examining them properly.
The Scottish MA increases the length and depth of study. Students in their fourth year will study the material that might be abridged in other postgraduate MA courses.
There is no need for confusion north and south of the border as to what an MA means - the Scottish MA has been a mark of high quality for centuries. Students should not be put off by worries about the cost of another year of fees, as a great many of our courses are four years in length. But the MA in particular reflects the history of Scotland's education system.
We do offer a general three-year degree, which does not take subjects to honours level, but it is not studied so widely.
Students seem to prefer the breadth offered by the MA.
I believe it will be difficult for the QAA to force us to change our qualifications framework. Informal advice leads me to conclude that it would require a parliamentary sanction and Scotland's universities would undoubtedly act against one.
There is also the additional challenge presented at the end of our bull, which warns off those intent on threatening the system: "If anyone shall presume to attempt this, let them know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God, and of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul."
Should Scotland's MA be tidied up into a BA degree? Email us on [email protected]
SOAPBOX DEBATE
To comment on any issue raised, email us on [email protected] or join the debate on www.netnexus.org/ext/thes/soapbox
Have your say
The Scottish master of arts is not an ordinary undergraduate degree. When it was proposed in the recent Quality Assurance Agency consultation that Glasgow's MA should be replaced by a bachelor of arts degree, the university responded negatively. Glasgow was joined in its stand by Scotland's other ancient universities,
Aberdeen, St Andrews and Edinburgh, and by the University of Dundee.
Not only have members of our academic staff opposed the proposed changes, but concerns have been voiced by some of Glasgow's 40,000 MA graduates, who have picked up on the rumours. We owe it to them not to allow their degrees to be devalued.
There are many reasons we said no. For a start, the MA is enshrined in the origins of the university and is the hallmark of our degrees in arts and social sciences. A papal bull - which William Turnbull, who was then the bishop of Glasgow, obtained from Pope Nicholas V in 1451 - gives the university the right to award degrees. From that time a student in the third year was designated as Baccalaureat and could graduate BA. A fourth-year student was a Magistrand and at the end of the year was entitled to compete for an MA.
Yet the proposals outlined in the QAA's consultation paper on a revised qualifications framework simply tidied these things up without examining them properly.
The Scottish MA increases the length and depth of study. Students in their fourth year will study the material that might be abridged in other postgraduate MA courses.
There is no need for confusion north and south of the border as to what an MA means - the Scottish MA has been a mark of high quality for centuries. Students should not be put off by worries about the cost of another year of fees, as a great many of our courses are four years in length. But the MA in particular reflects the history of Scotland's education system.
We do offer a general three-year degree, which does not take subjects to honours level, but it is not studied so widely.
Students seem to prefer the breadth offered by the MA.
I believe it will be difficult for the QAA to force us to change our qualifications framework. Informal advice leads me to conclude that it would require a parliamentary sanction and Scotland's universities would undoubtedly act against one.
There is also the additional challenge presented at the end of our bull, which warns off those intent on threatening the system: "If anyone shall presume to attempt this, let them know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God, and of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul."
Should Scotland's MA be tidied up into a BA degree? Email us on [email protected]
SOAPBOX DEBATE
To comment on any issue raised, email us on [email protected] or join the debate on www.netnexus.org/ext/thes/soapbox
Have your say
All lies. Its self aggrandizement like the fake fraudulent "MA" from Oxford and Cambridge. The Scottish MA is 4 years AFTER the Scottish highers which is only a ONE YEAR course. I knew someone in Edinburgh, she used to put on her CV - MA LLB. The fact is the MA was only 3 years from age 18 (with A levels), and the LLB she did was only 2 years. So it was a corrupt lie. Her real qualifications were : BA HND. not MA LLB.
Original post by Caitlin912912
Whaaaatttt I'm finding this thread so confusing.
Bachelor/Master's (Scotland) - 4 years
Bachelor (England) - 3 years
Bachelor (England) Honours - 4 years
is this right...????
P.S. Please excuse my ignorance..i'm from australia!
Bachelor/Master's (Scotland) - 4 years
Bachelor (England) - 3 years
Bachelor (England) Honours - 4 years
is this right...????
P.S. Please excuse my ignorance..i'm from australia!
No
In England you matriculate at age 18, following A levels. A BA degree is then three years, meaning you graduate at age 21. If yo wish to take a masters degree, ie an MA, following this, it takes a minimum of 12 calendar months. In Scotland they matriculate at 17 following Highers. If you study at the four ancient Universities for a degree in Arts or Humanities, the course is 4 years long and you get an MA - at age 21, 17 + 4 = 21. Of course the Scottish MA is a fake fraudulent MA and is about self aggrandizement. The worse scenario is at Oxford or Cambridge. Here they study for three years (er that is 3 times 8 week terms/year, 24 weeks per year) and obtain a BA degree. When reaching age 25, they put their BA in an envelope with a cheque for £20 and receive an MA by return of post. Conclusion: The MA from Oxford and Cambridge and the Scottish MA, is a fake fraudulent lie.
(edited 3 years ago)
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