An old post I made regarding this topic:

https://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?showtopi...post&p=60779762

This post has been edited by jonoave: Aug 28 2013, 09:22 PM

I'm a bit annoyed with the general obsession to take the shortest time. Doing things faster isn't necessarily better.

A Master's degree is a Master's degree.

Applying for PhD requires Masters, or some places might accept a first-class bachelors.
In PhD, you need to come upt with a doctoral thesis, which is like your final-year project in Bsc. Did you jump into your Bsc with your final-year project straightaway? No right?

You will spend the initial months or even first year mostly learning and bit of trial and error. If you obtained a Master's degree by coursework, then the learning curve is even bigger as you lack even more research skills and background. This is espeically true in the scientific field.

if social science, then maybe a Master by coursework or research doesn't make a big difference.

As far as I know, there is no such thing as PhD by courswork. A requirment for receiving a PhD is to produce a doctoral thesis, i.e. a research project.

Sure you can take courses, but those are just complimentary for your research project or other skills.

If TS just wants a quick Master degree to advance a career outside academia, then yes.

But if he/she intends to pursue PhD or a research career, I disagree with your opinion. Making the leap into research at PhD level is quite difficult without a research background, and even more so as TS don't have research background even at degree level.

Sue he/she can learn by himself, but then he'll also spend more time at the initial stage just learning. So while he might save time at the Master coursework level, he will still have to spend more time at PhD level to figure things out.

If you want to pursue on academia, one thing you can consider is the fast-track Masters to PhD, i.e. Masters (1 year) then PhD.

This kind of program usually revolves around the same project, so you can cut down on the learning time in PhD since you already spend some time in Masters. This is different than the regular kind where the Masters and PhD is usually separate programs and unless you're lucky to get the same supervisor where you might get to continue the same project.

I've not seen this kind of Master programs being offered in local unis, but they're quite popular in UK. But of course, I'm not sure how heavy this kind of fast-track Masters program is, and whether it is possible to do it on a part-time basis.

Edit: Also to add a bit more, some unis (like UKM) offers a chance to convert your Masters to PhD. Before the end of the third semester, you can apply to convert. Then you will need to do a presentation before a panel, and what extra additions/research you will carry out to qualify it as "PhD level research". As well as your current progress and grades by the third sem (you'll need 3.5 at least IIRC).

The goodside is you can save time. The downside is that if you mess up, there is no going back and you cannot downgrade it back to Masters to get a Masters degree since you're now enrolled in a PhD program.

This post has been edited by jonoave: Aug 30 2013, 11:04 PM

If you read my replies carefully, I already said you can: "A masters' degree is a master's degree, though the learning curve will be even bigger for you".

One more things to note: most universities/groups will favour students who have some research background. Most applications for graduate studies require students to fill in a "research skills/experience section". This could be something to consider depending on your uni of choice.