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Comment by was_a_dev | Hacker News Reader

Problem sets for a second year PhD?

Is that common in the US?

Yes, the first two years in STEM Ph.D. programs are typically coursework-heavy and include qualification exams as part of your courses. You must pass X quals, of which Y must be from this subset.

Because of this, if you leave the program after the first two years, they will often issue a terminal master's degree as a consolation.

Ah ok, I have no such examinations.

Do most in the US start their PhD from a Bachelors degree?

I had a masters degree prior to starting my PhD. It is also possible to start a PhD with a Bachelors, however you wouldn't likely be awarded a masters degree if you failed to complete

> Do most in the US start their PhD from a Bachelors degree?

Yes, it's almost always in the student's interest to go direct, for two reasons:

1) Master's degrees are frequently unfunded. PhDs in STEM are fully funded basically as a rule.

2) You are going to be in school significantly longer if you complete a Master's degree at a different institution from your PhD.

In general the biggest reason a student might complete a Master's elsewhere is because their academic performance in undergrad was poor.

>1) Master's degrees are frequently unfunded. PhDs in STEM are fully funded basically as a rule.

PhDs in the humanities and social sciences are also often, or usually, fully funded as well; my sense has always been that for pretty much any academic-career-path field in the US, not being funded for a PhD is essentially an indication that the university doesn't actually want you there. Meanwhile, I think many simply don't offer Master's programs at all.

One aspect of this is that in the US, PhD students can make up a significant part of the teaching staff at the university, with class structures that are heavily built around having large lectures by a professor and PhD students who do quite a bit of the more one-on-one instruction. So departments with many general education requirement classes, like History, can actually end up having a significant amount of funding for PhD students.

Great points, thank you.

I did an undergraduate Master's degree for similar reasons, which is four year vs three years for a Bachelors + 1 year for a seperate Master's degree.

At the time of starting, it was a much easier funding route. The majority of my cohort chose this option

Most often than not yes.

Some will continue after a master's. Still, they will usually need to change universities (or at least go through the full selection process again), so if you're interested in a Ph.D., you should apply for that rather than a master's.

For that reason, most master's programs in the US are professional degrees, not research ones.

Also, almost no university advertises or promises a terminal master's degree. It is a very subjective process as well.

Here in New Zealand you cannot go directly into a PHD.

You have to get a first class honours or complete a masters before you can start a PHD.

An honours degree is a Bachelor’s degree. It’s a Bachelor’s degree, with honours.

Correct, my wording was poor. You can go from Bachelor's to PHD but only if you achieve first class honours.

Here honours is an additional year of study as well.

That's another big difference with the US. Honors are about GPA here, nothing else.

The whole A-level system was confusing for a long time because of this kind of conflation of terms between the systems.

At many schools in the US there is an honors program that is separate from Latin honors.

Such programs generally require you to complete x honors classes. Honors classes are either regular classes with additional components or they’re just harder.

For example when I took honors biology long ago, we had an additional lab section where grad students lectured us on their research, and we had extra assignments.

So I graduated with “Honors” based on completing the honors program, and also cum laude based on my GPA.

Oh yeah, but that’s still different than an extra year. More like high school advanced placement programs. It’s the same material, but at a more rigorous level.

Their system is closer to combined bachelors and master’s program.

Honours are grading-related (in Scotland at least) as well. After three years study if you pass but not very well you'll be able to graduate with, say, a "BSc". If you have good enough grades you can do a fourth year and shoot for a "BSc (Hons)". The qualification you get after the fourth year depends on your average grades, either:

- honours of the first class (aka a "first")

- honours of the second class (two levels: upper and middle, aka a "2:1" or a "2:2")

- honours of the third class (aka a "third")

- fail, in which case you get an "ordinary" degree

So when this person is reporting that you needed "first class honours" to go directly to a PHd, they're saying you needed to sit that final fourth year and finish with an average grade of (I think) an "A"

Yes exactly that. I managed first class honours and the only benefit is that I'd be able to start a PHD without finishing a masters.

We had a fourth year as our engineering degree was part of an internal agreement such that it would be globally recognized. The states requires four years so we had to match that. However, if I'd studied in the USA I think I'd have had more than two elective papers over the four years.

First year is general classes (e.g. in economics that would be Micro, Macro, Econometrics, etc), 2nd year is classes more specific to your area of study.

What about the following years?

In my PhD in the UK, I had three months of part-time classes and then onto my research.

Just curious, as I didn't realise it was such a difference

PhD programs in the US and elsewhere are different: most PhD programs in the US are significantly longer, and could be seen as combined Master's and PhD programs, admitting students directly after their undergraduate degrees. The first year or two could be seen as more of a Master's program, and many programs give Master's degrees at some point in the process (some by request, such that the difference between having a Master's and not having one can be whether you decided to file a form or not). There can also be a certain filtering process at some point in the process, with some form of qualifying exams with three possible results of failing, being given a Master's degree but not being permitted to continue in the program, and continuing on to a PhD.

The result is that for many PhD programs, the first year or two transitions from being fully class-based (though often very small classes) to more and more research, and then finally a switch to having no classes, and only research (and teaching).

Great to know. Thank you

US undergrad is much more general than most of Europe (especially compared to the UK). So you get to grad education with a much wider but more shallow knowledge base.

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