Talk:British degree abbreviations

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Contents 1 Miscellaneous 2 Diploma abbreviations 3 Undergraduate master's x Postgraduate master's 4 Junior\Higher Doctorate distinction

[edit] Miscellaneous

The University of Oxford used to award a Bachelor of Letters (BLitt) It is now a Master of Letters as it is a postgraduate degree. A relevant page can be found here

Also, have a look at the Doctorate entry. The DLitt is the Literarum Doctor or Doctor of Letters. Update: I should mention that the shortened version is based on the latin name while the full name is anglicised. Henry plantagenet 23:08, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've noticed a rather strange theme running throughout the entire wiki regarding Scottish Universities and four year honours degrees. Almost every article refers to the "ancient" universities using this system - but EVERY Scottish university uses the fourth year honours system including Caledonian, Paisley and many others which are far from ancient! Am I missing something in the wording here? 84.71.62.124 20:02, 22 May 2006 (UTC) mtb

It's surely well-known that when comparing different countries primary/ secondary and tertiary education time allocations, Scottish education is a 7:5:4 system while England has a 6.7:3 system.Zagubov 00:38, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Diploma abbreviations

Are there any formal practives or even common conventions on diplomas? I've seen all manner of confusion on these. Timrollpickering 12:32, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Undergraduate master's x Postgraduate master's

My impression is that, with the multiplication of 4-year undergraduate courses leading to an MEng, MSci or equivalent degree, very few engineering and science students in the top universities now take one-year postgraduate taught master's courses (e.g. MSc). Instead, they tend to go straight from the MEng/MSci to a PhD, normally going through a one-year "probationer research student" (PRS) status and then getting the PhD degree in another two or, more often, three years (for total period of 7 or 8 years of study between A-levels and finishing the doctorate).

Although I'm not sure, I believe an MEng for example is not at a disadvantage for admission into a PhD programme compared to another person who has a 3-year BEng plus a one-year taught MSc with a small research component. In that sense, I'm not sure I agree with the statement in the article that a one-year taught postgraduate master's is considered a higher qualification than a 4-year undergraduate master's, at least not in engineering and natural sciences.

I suppose a research postgraduate master's degree is indeed considered a "higher qualification", but, again, not many people pursue research master's course by choice as a stand-alone degree, normally going for a PhD instead. I may be wrong, but I have the impression that research students in the UK who end up graduating with a master's instead of a PhD are mostly those who, in their first-year formal performance assessment, were not judged capable of completing a doctorate and were recommended to read for a master's degree instead. 161.24.19.82 17:24, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Junior\Higher Doctorate distinction

This article in general is somewhat Oxbridge-tinted. While I have no objections to this in principle, I wonder whether the section on the junior\higher doctoral distinction really is appropriate, for the distinction is, I believe (but I could be wrong), limited to Oxbridge. I cant imagine Imperial College or the LSE, for example, ranking a Doctorate in Divinity as trumping that of a PhD. Even within Oxbridge, the distinction is merely a historical relic (or so I understand - again correct me if I am wrong). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.144.81.141 (talk) 02:56, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not so sure. It is rare to grant higher doctorates these days (a lot of university degree committees groan at the thought of the amount of reading and assessment it takes) but the higher doctorates are often still specified (particularly in the relevant charters and ordinances) as being recognition of one's contribution to knowledge in the field over the length of a career. What confuses things is that very often one or more of the available higher doctorates is given as an "honorary degree" (and sometimes the others get called that since they reflect scholarship not specifically undertaken for them). But I think Imperial would certainly regard a Doctor of Science awarded for a career's work as superior to a PhD awarded for initial research at the outset of it.

What I do agree is probably outdated is the concept of a formal order of precedence. Most universities these days seem to regard degrees as qualifications, rather than the historic idea of them being "ranks" in faculties (not least because the degree names have become disconnected from university organisation), and many just don't bother to construct an official order for these things. But the term "higher doctorate" is generally still in use denoting a hierarchy. Timrollpickering (talk) 06:34, 23 March 2008 (UTC)