Applying to MSc Theoretical Physics with OU BSc Physics degree

Hi,
I`m studying towards a degree in Bsc (H) Physics and Math at the Open University and I`m almost on level 3. When I graduate, I want to continue my masters degree in Theoretical Physics but the OU does not offer this. This concerns me because I`ve heard that not many universities accept a OU degree when applying to their masters. To be honest with you, I have no idea how does applying to masters procedure work. I really appreciate if someone could explain how its done and more importantly confirm whether there is such a difficulty applying other universities master with an OU degree. One of the OU student adviser told me not to worry as this is not true but I want to be sure. I don`t want to end up with a useless degree especially when I`m planning to continue with masters. I might think of applying to Open Plus to study MPhysics with a partner university, but I prefer graduating from OU, then moving to another university for masters.

P.s.: I`ve searched the forum but couldn`t find exacly similar topic, answering this problem but I apologize in advance if there was and I missed it.

Reply 1

xenophile

Original post by berkdi

Hi,
I`ve heard that not many universities accept a OU degree when applying to their masters ... One of the OU student adviser told me not to worry as this is not true but I want to be sure. I don`t want to end up with a useless degree especially when I`m planning to continue with masters.

I don't know where you heard that unis don't accept OU degrees, but it's not true.

Plenty of OU grads have gone on to get funded PhDs at top unis, let alone MScs. If you get good marks, have decent references and the £££, getting onto an MSc shouldn't be a problem.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 2

Duncan2012

Original post by berkdi

I`ve heard that not many universities accept a OU degree when applying to their masters.

If you spent 5 minutes emailing universities you'd be interested applying to you'd find that this is obviously nonsense.

Why do so many people not bother checking things these days?

Reply 3

berkdi

Original post by Duncan2012

If you spent 5 minutes emailing universities you'd be interested applying to you'd find that this is obviously nonsense.

Why do so many people not bother checking things these days?

Firstly, thank you both for your replies.That really relieved me. secondly, Duncan, what kind of inconvenience did i cause to make you write such a passive aggresive response at 4.30am in the morning.If i did cause any, i dont know why u bothered answering. Did i lowered the high standards you set for the forum? did i caused an information polution? writing a quick question instead of sending emails to a number of uni`s and wait a reply for days(taken into account today is weekend) where many opens a topic for chit chat and none of them removed by admins (which clearly shows writing a relatively less important question is not against the rules or or a crime). i don`t know if you noticed i`m new to the forum(if only there was some way to indicate this under your account name!maybe badges,how many posts u send ect.) are you trying to establish dominance, bcoz if so its ok, im not interested in being alpha male of the forum, im not ur rival. Im sick of seeing this high school boy attitude on the internet just like grammar nazi`s

Reply 4

Duncan2012

I'm in China at the moment, it's the middle of the day here so don't worry about that.

Secondly, the number of posts asking for information which is already available on university websites or which say 'I heard that...' but where the poster obviously hasn't done any checking themselves is annoying. You said in your post that you'd already checked with an OU student advisor but for some reason you didn't believe what they told you. So you'd rather trust anonymous strangers on the internet? That's a bit baffling. Obviously, contacting the universities themselves would give you a definitive answer, but you hadn't done that. It's not a "high school boy attitude" - you're talking about becoming a masters level student so you need to take some responsibility for yourself.

Finally, welcome to TSR. The PG forum is a good place to get lots of information, just make sure you've done what you can to help yourself first.

Reply 5

berkdi

Firstly I couldn`t worried less of your whereabouts mate. Secondly,I cannot see a link between asking a question on the internet and not taking any responsibility for my self and I`m dead certain you are not assigned to this forum as our parent to give fatherly advice on taking responsibility. yes I did say I checked this issue with a student adviser, which clearly shows I`m taking the appropriate steps towards finding an answer to my question, but as I said earlier I only need confirmation which I`m not searching on mIRC from total strangers. I`m not asking my question on an irrelevant forum or social media, I specifically picked this post graduate UK students forum and I`m certainly not gonna make my mind solely based on answers from here. That`s why my first destination was the student adviser. Obviously I will ask this question to universities, I just though there is no harm in raising a simple question on an internet forum to get suggestions from a wide variety of students which is much more easy to locate on an internet forum who might have experience on this subject. And I also wrote a post scriptum saying that I took all the necessary actions to avoid opening an unnecessary topic, and apologized in advance if i failed unintentionally. I`ve also tried my best to be restpectful and polite.

Finally, I appreciate your warm welcome, and I`ve already noticed and experienced that it is a good place to get lots of information from total strangers. And make sure to be more polite next time instead of getting baffled so easily, it might not be a rule on this forum, but it is certainly a good manner and a good quality.

Reply 6

Duncan2012

I only told you where I was because earlier you made a big thing about how early it was, 'mate'.

After reading your posts here I really don't care whether you're successful or not, and it's up to you whether you take advice when it's given. I've already got my MEng and my MSc but if you think you know best then crack on. Don't bother writing another essay back, I won't waste my time reading it.

Reply 7

berkdi

MEng and MSc, woav you`re so cool...bcoz i was dying to learn about your branch and that was certainly what i addressed on each of my answers..your ability to start a haze amuses me engineer.