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Asked by anon-201776 to Meirin on 15 Mar 2019.
Question: How long did take for you to get your degree?
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Meirin Oan Evans answered on 15 Mar 2019:
It took me 3 years to get a university bachelor’s degree. For a bachelor’s degree you’re mostly learning about physics, things that people already know.
It then took me a year to get a master’s degree. For a master’s degree you’re typically doing about half and half learning and researching new stuff.
Now I’m in my first year of PhD (what lets you be called doctor at the end). This will take 4 years overall. During a PhD you’re doing mostly research. But of course, this means you’re learning all the time from your research!
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Comments
Andy commented on :
In the UK it’s usually 3 years for an undergraduate degree, and another year for a Masters. Most people going into a PhD have a Masters qualification. When I did mine, I studied for 4 years and then got given both degrees at once: that’s also pretty common! In Scotland, high-school education is a bit broader and so we have 5 year physics BSc+MSci degrees; it’s possible to enter in year 2 if you come from outside the Scottish school system and are prepared to put in the extra work to catch up.
As @Meirin said, UK PhDs usually take about 4 years: most are funded by the government and they have a pretty tight requirement that you submit your thesis (a book-sized description of your work) within 4 years. This all seems like a long time, but a PhD is as much as a job as a degree (and you get paid!)… and you have more freedom to get things wrong and to learn than comes later, so it’s good to make the most of it!
Sophia commented on :
I did what’s called an integrated masters so my degree was four years and then at the end I got a master of physics degree.