Master of Arts (postgraduate)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A Master of Arts (Latin: Magister Artium) is a postgraduate academic master degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is typically studied for in English, Fine Arts, History, Nursing, Humanities, Geography, Philosophy, Social Sciences or Theology and can be either fully-taught, research-based, or a combination of the two.
At Oxford, Cambridge and Dublin, it is awarded without further examination to those who are entitled to the undergraduate degree of Bachelor of Arts after a certain number of years, and in the ancient universities of Scotland it is awarded as a first degree to undergraduates. The Master of Arts degree traces its origin to the teaching licence, or Licentia docendi, for the University of Paris.[1]
Contents |
[edit] North America
The Master of Arts (Magister Artium) and Master of Science (Magister Scientiæ) degrees are the basic type in most subjects and may be entirely course-based, entirely research-based or (more typically) a mixture.
Admission to a master's program is normally contingent upon holding a bachelor's degree, and progressing to a doctoral program usually requires a master's degree. In some fields or graduate programs, work on a doctorate begins immediately after the bachelors degree. Some programs provide for a joint bachelor's and master's degree after about five years. Some universities use the Latin degree names, and due to the flexibility of word order in Latin, Artium Magister (AM) or Scientiæ Magister (SM) may be used at some schools. For example, Harvard University, the University of Chicago, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania use the degree abbreviations A.M. and S.M. for some of their master's degrees.
Graduate students in the Fine Arts typically receive a Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.), a variant of the M.A.(Magister Artium) degree specific to a Fine Arts program.
[edit] Masters level theological degrees
Graduate theological degrees require special attention because they are amongst the oldest and differentiated Master degrees offered by universities. The prerequisite for enrollment in the following graduate degree programs is usually a Bachelor of Arts degree in either philosophy or theology.
The Master of Arts in Practical Theology (M.A.P.T.) is a more practical—as the title suggests—academic graduate degree than the M.A. in Theology, focusing primarily on pastoral theology.
The Master of Divinity (M.Div.), (formerly Bachelor of Divinity), is not a Master of Arts degree but a professional graduate degree which is required by the Roman Catholic Church in the United States as well as by many mainline Protestant denominations as a prerequisite for public ordained ministry and consists of both academic and pastoral courses in theology including Scripture, theology, church history, pastoral counseling, and church administration. The M.Div. balances academic rigor with pastoral approaches.
The Master of Arts in Theology (M.A. in Theology) is a traditional academic graduate degree which consists in the study of theology, focuses upon a specific area such as dogmatic, historical, moral, sacramental, or scriptural, and normally requires the writing and defense of a thesis.
The Master of Theology (Th.M.) is an academic graduate degree which, like the M.A. in Theology, is more academic than the M.A.P.T. and the M.Div. The Th.M. is considered by some as a half-step between the Master's and Doctoral level. The Th.M. almost always requires a thesis of at least 100 pages.
[edit] Poland
The Polish equivalent of both Master of Arts and Master of Science is "magister" (its abbreviation "mgr" is placed before one's name, like Dr). In the 1990s, the MA programs usually lasting 5 years were replaced by separate 3-year bachelor and 2-year master programs. The degree is awarded in the arts (literature, foreign languages, etc.), natural sciences, mathematics, computer science fields, and economics. The completion of a research thesis is required. All Master's degrees in Poland qualify for a doctorate program.
[edit] Scandinavia
In Denmark and Norway, the candidate degree is a combined taught/research degree, awarded after 2 years of studies after completing the bachelor degree. The student is required to write a scientific thesis.
This programme was earlier called a candidate degree, abbreviated as cand. and followed by a suffix denoting the subject of study - e.g. cand.mag. (Master of Arts), cand.scient. (Master of Science), cand.psych./cand.pæd.psych. (Master of Psychology), etc.
In both Norway and Denmark, there previously existed a higher degree, the magister degree, which in Norway required 7 years of studies including a 3-year research thesis, and was roughly comparable to a PhD.
[edit] United Kingdom
The Master of Arts (MA) is awarded in Arts, Humanities, Theology and Social Sciences. However, some universities—particularly those in Scotland—award the Master of Letters (MLitt) to students in the Arts, Humanities, Divinity and Social Sciences. (It should be noted that the MLitt is a research degree at the University of Cambridge, where the Master of Philosophy (MPhil) is the name given to the standard one-year taught degree, in contrast to the use of MPhil at other institutions for a research degree.)
The MA is typically a "taught" postgraduate degree, involving lectures, examination, and a short dissertation. Taught masters programmes involve 1 or 2 years of full-time study.
In law, the standard taught degree is the Master of Laws, but certain courses may lead to the award of an MA, MLitt, Master of Studies (MSt), and at Oxford, the Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL). These degrees are all considered susbtitutes to one another and are thus generally equivalent.
Until recently, both the undergraduate and postgraduate masters degrees were awarded without grade or class (like the class of an honours degree). Nowadays however, masters degrees are normally classified into the categories of Pass, Merit or Distinction.
The degree of Master of Arts may also be awarded, in the case of the oldest British universities only, without further examination to those who have graduated as Bachelor of Arts and who have the requisite years' standing as members of the university or as graduates. This happens, in England, only at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge (see Master of Arts (Oxford, Cambridge and Dublin)). It is also the case at the University of Dublin in Ireland. In Scotland, the degree of Master of Arts is awarded in some universities as a first degree to undergraduates (see Master of Arts (Scotland)). The practice of awarding these degrees of Master of Arts without postgraduate examination or coursework is very ancient although, among modern universities, anomalous.
This education pattern in United Kingdom is followed in India and many Commonwealth Nations.
[edit] References
- ^
"Master of Arts". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Master_of_Arts.
|
|||||
