Courtesy : The Postgraduate Diploma in Commerce (PGDCom)
Funding
Funding for postgraduate study in the UK is awarded competitively, and usually is disseminated by institution (in the form of a certain allocation of studentships for a given year) rather than directly to individuals. There are a number of scholarships for master’s courses, but these are relatively rare and dependent on the course and class of undergraduate degree obtained (usually requiring at least a lower second). Most master’s students are self-funded. # ISO certification in India
Funding is available for some Ph.D./D.Phil. courses. As at the master’s level, there is more funding available to those in the sciences than in other disciplines. Such funding generally comes from Research Councils such as the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Medical Research Council (MRC) and others. Masters students may also have the option of a Postgraduate loan introduced by the UK Government in 2016.# ISO certification in India
For overseas students, most major funding applications are due as early as twelve months or more before the intended graduate course will begin. This funding is also often highly competitive. The most widely available, and thus important, award for overseas students is the Overseas Research Student (ORS) Award, which pays the difference in university fees between an overseas student and a British or EU resident. However, a student can only for one university apply for the ORS Award, often before he or she knows whether they have been accepted. As of the 2009/2010 academic year, the HEFCE has cancelled the Overseas Research Student Award scheme for English and Welsh universities.The state of the scheme for Scottish and Northern Irish universities is currently unclear.# ISO certification in India
Students studying part-time for a master’s degree can apply for income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance provided their timetabled hours are fewer than 16 hours per week. This also entitles the student to housing benefit provided by their local council Full-time students (of any type) are not normally eligible for state benefits, including during vacation time.
United States
Degree requirements
Additionally, doctoral students who have advanced to candidacy but not filed a dissertation (“ABD,” for “all but dissertation”) often receive master’s degrees and an additional master’s called a Master of Philosophy, or M.Phil., or C.Phil. “Candidate in Philosophy” degree. The master’s component of a doctorate program often requires one or two years, and some students, because doctoral programs are sometimes better-funded, apply for doctoral programs while only intending to earn a master’s degree. This is generally not acceptable and, if a student’s advisor learns of the student’s plans, can result in early termination.# ISO certification in India
Many graduate programs require students to pass one or several examinations in order to demonstrate their competence as scholars. In some departments, a comprehensive examination is often required in the first year of doctoral study, and is designed to test a student’s background undergraduate-level knowledge. Examinations of this type are more common in the sciences and some social sciences, and relatively unknown in most humanities disciplines.# ISO certification in India
Some graduate students perform teaching duties, often serving as graders, tutors, or teaching assistants. In some departments, they can be promoted to Lecturer status, a position that comes with more responsibilities.# ISO certification in India
Doctoral students generally spend roughly their first two to three years doing coursework, and begin research by their second year if not before. Many master’s and all specialist students will perform research culminating in a paper, presentation, and defense of their research. This is called the master’s thesis (or, for Educational Specialist students, the specialist paper). However, many US master’s degree programs do not require a master’s thesis, focusing instead primarily on course work or on “practicals” or “workshops.” Such “real-world” experience may typically require a candidate work on a project alone or in a team as a consultant, or consultants, for an outside entity approved or selected by the academic institution, and under faculty supervision.# ISO certification in India
In the second and third years of study, doctoral programs often require students to pass more examinations. Programs often require a Qualifying Examination (“Quals”), a Ph.D. Candidacy Examination (“Candidacy”), or a General Examination (“Generals”) designed to test the students’ grasp of a broad sample of their discipline, or one or several Special Field Examinations (“Specials”) which test students in their narrower selected areas of specialty within the discipline. If these examinations are held orally, they may be known colloquially as “orals.” For some social science and many humanities disciplines, where graduate students may or may not have studied the discipline at the undergraduate level, these exams will be the first set, and be based either on graduate coursework or specific preparatory reading (sometimes up to a year’s work in reading). In all cases, comprehensive exams are normally both stressful and time-consuming and must be passed to be allowed to proceed on to the thesis. Passing such examinations allows the student to stay, begin doctoral research, and rise to the status of a doctoral candidate while failing usually results in the student leaving the program or re-taking the test after some time has passed (usually a semester or a year). Some schools have an intermediate category, passing at the master’s level, which allows the student to leave with a master’s without having completed a master’s thesis.# ISO certification in India
For the next several years, the doctoral candidate primarily performs his or her research. Usually this lasts three to eight years, though a few finish more quickly and some take substantially longer. In total, the typical doctoral degree takes between four and eight years from entering the program to completion though this time varies depending upon the department, thesis topic, and many other factors.# ISO certification in India
For example, astronomy degrees take five to six years on average, but observational astronomy degrees take six to seven due to limiting factors of weather, while theoretical astronomy degrees take five. Though there is substantial variation among universities, departments, and individuals, humanities and social science doctorates on average take somewhat longer to complete than natural science doctorates. These differences are due to the differing nature of research between the humanities and some social sciences and the natural sciences, and to the differing expectations of the discipline in coursework, languages and length of thesis. However, time required to complete a doctorate also varies according to the candidate’s abilities and choice of research. Some students may also choose to remain in a program if they fail to win an academic position, particularly in disciplines with a tight job market; by remaining a student, they can retain access to libraries and university facilities, while also retaining an academic affiliation, which can be essential for conferences and job-searches.# ISO certification in India
Traditionally, doctoral programs were only intended to last three to four years and, in some disciplines (primarily the natural sciences), with a helpful advisor, and a light teaching load, it is possible for the degree to be completed in that amount of time. However, increasingly many disciplines, including most humanities, set their requirements for coursework, languages and the expected extent of thesis research by the assumption that students will take five years minimum or six to seven years on average; competition for jobs within these fields also raises expectations on the length and quality of theses considerably.# ISO certification in India
In some disciplines, doctoral programs can average seven to ten years. Archaeology, which requires long periods of research, tends towards the longer end of this spectrum. The increase in length of degree is a matter of great concern for both students and universities, though there is much disagreement on potential solutions to this problem.
There are also discipline-specific differences. A person applying for a doctoral program in Biblical studies or theology from a seminary or theological school must already hold a first professional degree in the field, known as the Master of Divinity degree (M.Div.). The M.Div. is a three-year master’s program, however, a thesis is usually not required before completion. The M.Div. is the entry degree for the Doctor of Ministry degree (D.Min.) or the Ph.D.# ISO certification in India
The D.Min. degree is a second professional degree, which includes two years of study and one to two years of research and a project in the candidates local area of work. The Ph.D. degree in this area follows other Ph.D. programs with two years of seminars, comprehensive exams (usually not oral), and then if a person passes the exam, a dissertation. An alternative terminal degree after the M.Div. is a Master’s of Theology (Th.M). a Th.M is one year of seminary study followed by a shorter thesis (usually around one hundred pages) that does not necessarily have to be a unique contribution to the field (unlike a dissertation). A person who fails the comprehensive exam in this discipline may also be awarded a Th.M.
