What's the point of going into honours when you can do a master of research? (1 Viewer)

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Honours usually need a D average, whereas Mres only needs a Cr average. Both can get into MPhil, PhD (if you do well) and transfer credits to coursework master. Is it because Honours is deemed more prestigious in some industries? (e.g. economics)

 

[jimmysmith560]

An Honours component is typically shorter in duration (1 year) compared to a Master of Research, which typically has a duration of 2 years. This may constitute one factor that pushes students to complete an Honours component instead of a Master of Research. Additionally, the fact that some universities offer integrated Honours as part of their degrees (consider a Bachelor of Engineering for example) means that an undergraduate path of the sort is more convenient for students since they will not have to apply separately to complete an Honours component and will not need to complete specific Honours units.

A potential advantage that a Master of Research has over an Honours component is international recognition. A Master of Research is typically considered an internationally recognised pathway into PhD study. While an Honours degree/component is recognised in Australia and may be perceived as "prestigious" as you mentioned, it typically has limited international recognition. Where this becomes relevant is if a student intends to pursue further study outside Australia, possibly making the Master of Research a more viable option.

I hope this helps!

 

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An Honours component is typically shorter in duration (1 year) compared to a Master of Research, which typically has a duration of 2 years. This may constitute one factor that pushes students to complete an Honours component instead of a Master of Research. Additionally, the fact that some universities offer integrated Honours as part of their degrees (consider a Bachelor of Engineering for example) means that an undergraduate path of the sort is more convenient for students since they will not have to apply separately to complete an Honours component and will not need to complete specific Honours units.

A potential advantage that a Master of Research has over an Honours component is international recognition. A Master of Research is typically considered an internationally recognised pathway into PhD study. While an Honours degree/component is recognised in Australia and may be perceived as "prestigious" as you mentioned, it typically has limited international recognition. Where this becomes relevant is if a student intends to pursue further study outside Australia, possibly making the Master of Research a more viable option.

I hope this helps!

Also, don't you get paid $35000 a year and get free tuition for Masters of research because of the Research Training Program?

 

[jimmysmith560]

Also, don't you get paid $35000 a year and get free tuition for Masters of research because of the Research Training Program?

Benefits accessible under the Australian government's Research Training Program are provided in the form of scholarships. Such scholarships may entice students who are thinking of applying for admission to a higher degree by research (HDR), although it is worth noting that students applying for such scholarships still need to be considered, meaning that students are not necessarily guaranteed such benefits.

 

[jazz519]

Also, don't you get paid $35000 a year and get free tuition for Masters of research because of the Research Training Program?

It's not that easy to secure such a scholarship. Maybe you need a credit for entry into the masters of research degree pathway, however the scholarship offering process is not the same. It's not like you get into the degree and you are automatically given a scholarship. This is a separate process / application for the scholarship and it is HIGHLY competitive. To give you some context from my own experience with applying for an RTP scholarship for my PhD studies (which is basically same process needed for getting a scholarship for masters as it's called RTP for that too). You don't get in with average or below average marks. A credit would be considered below the average for a student wishing to proceed to postgrad studies. Even a distinction won't get you the scholarship which is a good mark for most students unless you have some stuff you can back up your application with (but unlikely to get you the scholarship because the student with the high marks probably already has taken this into account as well). To secure a scholarship (at UNSW which I can say from getting a conditional offer first before marks were released), the only way it becomes a unconditional full offer is if you end up getting a HD average (or for Honours degree to PhD, a first class honours performance which is 85+). That is not a result that comes easily and requires a lot of work so you kind of have the wrong idea in terms of how the process works. It's not as simple as that for the scholarship aspect as it is for the entry to the degree.

So many people apply to get that scholarship and not everyone gets it. Doing a postgrad degree without a scholarship is almost impossible unless you are a millionaire or have millionaire parents. If you don't get the scholarship, for my degree I would have to pay around 40-50k in tuition fees each year and then also fund your own living expenses like rent, groceries, utilities etc. That would end up being like close to 80k a year which is a lot of debt to take on and kind of outweighs any benefit of bothering doing such a degree to get a higher qualification. In contrast Honours has less entry marks, more guidance from a supervisor and even if you don't meet the cut off you can still probably get in if you show you have some experience or present your case well and the fees are way lower (only like 8-10k for a domestic student). That's because entry to honours is not like you are taking up the spot of another student who could do the honours, if there is enough supervisors willing to take on students then will probably allow it even if say you need 75+ but you ended up getting 70.

This is not the same thing for doing a postgrad degree because even if you try present your case to the graduate research school that awards scholarships at the uni, unless you have the marks or some kind of exemplary experience in publishing some research papers already, there is no way you will get awarded the scholarship over a student who has the marks because it is similar to the ATAR the entry process. It's based on the marks, resume, research experience and from that they make a student ranking for all people applying for a scholarship like in undergrad how you need a certain ATAR to get in. In this case if you don't have the mark you are actually taking the scholarship from a student who does and so this is how that differs to honours. As a result your ranking will be lower relative to other students and so being awarded the scholarship is unlikely because they only have a limited number of scholarships they can fund because there is a lot of money involved (a fee waiver of 40-50k and a RTP scholarship of around 30k)

 

[jazz519]

An Honours component is typically shorter in duration (1 year) compared to a Master of Research, which typically has a duration of 2 years. This may constitute one factor that pushes students to complete an Honours component instead of a Master of Research. Additionally, the fact that some universities offer integrated Honours as part of their degrees (consider a Bachelor of Engineering for example) means that an undergraduate path of the sort is more convenient for students since they will not have to apply separately to complete an Honours component and will not need to complete specific Honours units.

A potential advantage that a Master of Research has over an Honours component is international recognition. A Master of Research is typically considered an internationally recognised pathway into PhD study. While an Honours degree/component is recognised in Australia and may be perceived as "prestigious" as you mentioned, it typically has limited international recognition. Where this becomes relevant is if a student intends to pursue further study outside Australia, possibly making the Master of Research a more viable option.

I hope this helps!

This is mostly correct but the Honours to PhD pathway is not only in Australia. It depends more on what mark you got in Honours. If you got a high mark (a high first class like a 90+) and some accomplishments along with it in the degree then you can apply to universities overseas and still gain entry this way.

Adding to the above another reason students do honours instead of masters is because in many degrees the honours part is actually in built to the degree. For example there are degrees like Advanced Sciences (Honours), Computer science (Honours). That way you don't have to separately apply for the other degree for doing the masters and it's a lot cheaper too. undergrad vs postgrad fees is way different

 

[jazz519]

If you have any other questions or anyone else on applying for these types of degrees feel free to post it here and I can answer it from my own experience in applying

 

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If you have any other questions or anyone else on applying for these types of degrees feel free to post it here and I can answer it from my own experience in applying

It's fine, thank you

 

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Benefits accessible under the Australian government's Research Training Program are provided in the form of scholarships. Such scholarships may entice students who are thinking of applying for admission to a higher degree by research (HDR), although it is worth noting that students applying for such scholarships still need to be considered, meaning that students are not necessarily guaranteed such benefits.

Thank you.

 

[Eagle Mum]

Also, don't you get paid $35000 a year and get free tuition for Masters of research because of the Research Training Program?

The tuition fee is waived by most unis if the Masters is by research because the student is essentially doing research work for free, but you’d need money to live on and as per above posts it‘s hard to get scholarships. Many institutions will try to secure funding to offer Masters & PhD students a stipend, but that’s also hard to get.

I worked and saved for three years before I started my Masters by research (full time) but the next year whilst thesis writing, I went back to work full time as I would have had no income. My supervisor really wanted me to do a PhD to extend our research but couldn’t offer me a stipend, so I had to take an alternative career path. I meet him at conferences and after more than twenty years, I’m his professional equal - he’s still resentful that I didn’t do a PhD with him, but it’s just unfortunate that research isn’t well funded in Australia.

 

[brent012]

A potential advantage that a Master of Research has over an Honours component is international recognition.

On this topic, a 3 year undergraduate course in Australia (e.g. Commerce or Computer Science without honours) is not considered equivalent to a 4 year bachelor degree in the US. So those programs without honours will not be sufficient for admission to an MBA or other masters programs at many universities in the US, regardless of what university you attended, how good your marks were etc.

I did an integrated honours, and haven't studied a masters of research, so can't speak from experience but I believe you'd find most masters of research students are considering a PhD while students taking an honours year have more varied motivations.