Not necessarily, but in the UK there are a lot of ungraded assignments. Even if the assignment is mandatory, if it doesn't count towards your grade you don't have to worry about correctness, so if something comes up, you can slap something together and revisit the material later. In the US, ungraded assignments are not a very common thing. They give us mock exams and problems that would be nice to practice, but that's considered study material, not homework. Our actual homework is graded for correctness, so if something comes up and you slap something together and it's all wrong, you get a zero, and that goes toward your final grade which goes on your official transcript. They assign the material on a weekly basis at my university, so we don't usually have the opportunity to get a head start on it if we know something is going to come up later. Other universities do sometimes give students access to all course materials at the beginning of the semester, though.
That is fair, I come from a STEM background where funding is far easier to come by for a PhD. I don't think I know anyone who has self funded a PhD, they tend to not do one if it's not available. I can tell you also disagree with the notion of "buying" your way onto a MA or PhD (which I believe was the remark from the OP where the original conversation started), which I also don't think is really a thing in the UK, and presumably not in Ireland. I don't think Ruby could have paid her way onto it, even if she tried.
It’s interesting how different countries vary. Mine is in the humanities so totally different ball-game I’d imagine. I can’t speak for other countries but definitely here there isn’t a concept of buying an MA or a PhD. I guess the attitude is that if you can afford it, you should educate yourself if you can and it’s been like that for centuries really. In the US especially, I’d imagine the funding opportunities are much better so maybe there’s more of a stigma there about paying for your own postgrad course?
No problem! I've always found it interesting that the UK and the US have completely different systems for secondary school, but by the time one exits university, there's not a noticeable difference in education level.Oh fair enough! Thank you for your great replies, they’re so detailed.
True, however, I know some US schools (such as my own) are trying to adopt some of the UK style stuff for universities (like modules, class rank, etc) which is honestly really interesting.
While my own PhD is fully funded, self-funding is not uncommon and isn’t strange at all, at least in Ireland. It’s no different here to self-funding any other degree. There are more people doing self-funded PhDs than there are receiving grants, as funding in this country is notoriously bad and scarce. PhD places are still very competitive and limited and I know more than a handful of people whose applications were rejected even when funding wasn’t on offer. Getting a place alone here is a big achievement in itself so to be “accepted” at all is to be fully accepted. A lot of universities here don’t offer scholarships at all and when they do, it’s usually only in certain disciplines/departments and you would usually need to already hold a 1:1 MA degree. I have no idea how things are or how these things are viewed in the UK or US though.
I'm at uni rn. I started in 2021 when lectures were online and seminars were on-campus, but since last year everything has been on-campus. They've kept online exams for about half the modules though, which is a blessing and a curse since it means less memorisation but much more applied and difficult questions to stop everyone getting 100% by copying from their notesGuessing you guys are all over 25 or so like me- the uni experience seems to have really changed for the worse
I've become quite familiar with the UK education. There's this misconception that in the US you can't specialize in a subject earlier on in your degree, and that's not true. There are gen eds that we're required to complete and most people don't declare their major until their sophomore year, but that's because in order to declare your major you have to meet the major requirements. For example, I'm an applied math major with a minor in physics. I was admitted to my university in the college of science because like most students I did not enter university undecided. I was not able to officially declare my major or my minor until I passed several classes in my major and minor. I was still taking 4 math classes and 1 physics class, but I could not officially declare my major. For the college of engineering at my university, they have to pass certain classes too, but they also have to maintain a higher gpa than my program or they have to pick a different major. So in the US, we do specialize early on but while we are taking classes in our majors and minors we also have mandatory gen eds and it's not official until you've proven you can handle it. I was fortunate enough to take a lot of university-level classes in high school that transferred over, but some students are stuck taking the max amount of credits to graduate on time, especially if they double major. When I'm referring to course load, I'm referring to the fact that we often cannot focus on just one or two subjects because if we did it would take 6+ years to graduate because of all the graduation requirements and if you drop below full-time you lose your government aid.@crowleyskeeper I'm just tagging you in here as the discussion's not that relevant to Ruby. I agree with this bit
''The part that's supposed to be challenging in a master's degree is the independent thought and analysis. Not the course load'' but then you say ''Her course load is not anything to write home about in either education system but especially compared to the US''.
You honestly can't really compare the UK to the US when it comes to degrees. US is broader although you 'major' in stuff, but UK you specialise quite early. You can literally do a whole essay on a pencil visible on a piece of art from the 1600s for a whole term and that's it. Neither method is better or worse- like plenty of Brits do MBAs for example at Harvard as the breadth of education is better. But suggesting there's more work in a US course is slightly off base
Not fighting with ya and I'm noooo expert, just you probs don't have a super deep knowledge of exactly how UK degrees work- no reason why you should!
There is a hint that you’re saying ‘just focusing on one or two subjects” is less work though? I do get what you’re saying about juggling the workload and timetabling of lots of different courses