King's College London - Online Masters - International Affairs

Hi everyone!

Hope you're all well. I'm new here so hope this is the right place and feel free to move if not.

I am looking at the Online Masters from King's College London in International Affairs. I have sent them an email (as they specified) with some queries, but would like some independent input from here, too!

- Are 100% online masters as well-thought-of as traditional masters? I have heard varying things from different sources.

- Does anyone have any general experience of online masters or KCL?

- I've obviously asked them this, but does anyone have any idea if there is a significant difference between International Relations (which is already a fairly broad field) and International Affairs?

Really grateful for any help!

J

The difference between International Relations and International Affairs is only what the individual syllabi are. It's an artificial divide with no consistent meaning that will be understood outside the university that decided to use the word Relations or Affairs.

Kings is a strong university with a good reputation for the subject, very good in fact.

Online study - I think this is the weakness. While the Open University has had 50 odd years to establish a reputation for distance learning, online learning is still generally seen as a less substantial, less rigorous and less robustly examined form of learning. So I think you need to be cautious about how much it is costing, where you are trying to 'sell' the qualification as a benefit you your career and how it stands up to other more traditional options.

Thanks for your excellent reply.

What you say about people's skepticism of online courses sounds perfectly legitimate, and others have told me similar. Would KCL's prestige not mitigate this at all?

From what I have read, they may not even include that it was 'online' on the degree certificate, in which case, apart from those who happened to know of that particular masters, others might not even know. Do you think this would help, too?

I personally think the course material is excellent and many of the tutors are world renowned. As it is an online course, it is very much self driven. It is not enough to walk through the course material and attend the webinars, they expect the candidate to be do a lot, lot more outside of this. There is no hand holding, they expect you to put in the work. Due to the international nature of the course, group work can be challenging due to time zones and others personal/ work commitments. I think ultimately it is useful to list out one's motivations, constraints and what one actually wants to achieve and go from there. This course brings together military history, strategic studies, security studies and international relations; it is part of the UK Defence Academy which has affiliations with the UK Ministry of Defence. They're a lot of military personnel, diplomats, NGO folk who do this course; many have significant work experience.

Hi everyone!

Hope you're all well. I'm new here so hope this is the right place and feel free to move if not.

I am looking at the Online Masters from King's College London in International Affairs. I have sent them an email (as they specified) with some queries, but would like some independent input from here, too!

- Are 100% online masters as well-thought-of as traditional masters? I have heard varying things from different sources.

- Does anyone have any general experience of online masters or KCL?

- I've obviously asked them this, but does anyone have any idea if there is a significant difference between International Relations (which is already a fairly broad field) and International Affairs?

Really grateful for any help!

J

Heya. This sounds interesting.
How many live-sessions are there per week, how is learning assessed?

Thank you so much for your help, would really appreciate it

Hi,
There is a live webinar every 2 weeks; they tend to have numerous slots in order to accommodate different time zones.
They have formative assessments and summative ones. Each module a formative and summative. Formative is not graded but needs to be done; can be a presentation, a piece of critical analysis, group work to answer a question. Summative are essay formats, ranging from 2500 word essays to 1500 x2 word essays. It definitely does not feel like part time there is a lot of work involved; in terms of reading, engagements with team members/ course staff. I think if you have a background in social sciences, are used to reading a lot and writing essays, you should be fine. Each module is 6 weeks long, 2 weeks in you have to summit the formative and at the end the summative.

All the learning is online, I have found the material to be excellent; as mentioned there is a looooooot of reading, and it is more of a research degree, they give you the foundation but you are expected to do more outside that in terms of research to consolidate your own understanding.

I have heard on the grapevine that the drop -out rate is 'high' I do not have data to support this; if you are working full-time with no study leave, it could mean evenings and weekends.

Best wishes