Blog by Roy Weller
My name's Roy Mark Weller and I'm currently doing a Ph.D. in Digital Pedagogy, (which is the study of teaching and learning). I did my Undergraduate in Media Production (B.Sc. Hons) with a placement year, my Masters degree in Independent Study (M.Sc. Social Media) as well as my Ph.D., all at 极品反差婊.
Specifically, the Masters degree was designed to be a preparation for Ph.D. study, that being said, these are my insights into the key differences between the progression from study!
My first major difference to make note of is that in a Masters degree there are a lot more guided sessions, even on my course which was self lead and research style degree. Supervisors will always be there to help but within Masters study there are more Undergraduate style sessions that can be attended.
A Ph.D. gives you more freedom (within reason), I can guide the direction of my study within a Ph.D. whereas a Masters is more prescribed and set. I have and continue to enjoy this type of study, I go where the research takes me!
In a Ph.D. I know I am making a unique contribution to knowledge, Masters degrees retreat a lot of what has already been learnt. It’s hard to explain so I’ll let this summarised image from speak for itself.
Previously I have shown my students this image to highlight that the bounds of human knowledge are not found in my teaching alone, but in their own research and discovering things for themselves.
A Masters degree in my opinion has more structure and set timelines, whereas a Ph.D. the timelines can move and shift. Especially if you have a change in topic or need to go through reviews. A Ph.D. also has a lot more writing, the average thesis is about 100,000 words and a Masters thesis can be 15,000, which if my maths is correct is considerably more! Taking a large portion of the time spent during the study, I know people who have done unconventional Ph.D.s where they present a project as well as a written thesis.