What is an honours degree?

[Ppgsaefdsad]

I've been really confused as to what an honours degree is. What does it actually mean when it says "BSc Hons"?

Similarly a professional masters (like law conversion) isn’t seen the same as an academic masters -it’s just a masters for student loan purposes.

And not go to prison.

you cannot receive postgraduate government funding for the GDL.

The GDL is not a master's

This sqe course is a masters

https://www.bpp.com/courses/law/postgraduate/sqe/llm-sqe-1-2

Same.

It's not.

https://www.allaboutlaw.co.uk/law-courses/sqe/is-the-sqe-a-masters#section-3

It's a qualifying exam that can be done with via a master's.

But you’d have an llm at the end.
which is the same name (an llm) as the academic legal masters you’d get from say kings or ucl. All I am doing is agreeing with someone else that not all masters are equal in academic terms.

I have an honours degree where I didn't get a particularly high grade, and a Ordinary degree where I got an honours grade. From what I understand the degree is set as an Honours or Ordinary by the 3rd level institute and is nothing to do with the grades achieved. I don't understand it fully but the place I got the Hons degree from was a reputable university that only did honours degree courses. It was very difficult to get into. There was no honours degree equivalent for the field I got the Ord degree in. It was a 'lesser' academic institution I guess. That's my understanding. Neither required a dissertation

I got it, I just thought I'd carry on the joke.

Me neither.

@ZacharinaQuackis the only one that seems to be correct. I’ve been in exam boards and awarded ordinary degrees because the individual has achieved less credits. The degree I teach on does not have a dissertation. It’s still an honours degree. ( it’s also a RG university).

Why did you ask the OP which bit she didn't understand then go on to give her an entirely incorrect definition?

I've got a BSc Ordinary degree, a BA honours and and MA general degree. I didn't do a dissertation for any of them.

As I said upthread, writing a dissertation has nothing to do with the classification of an Honours degree versus an ordinary Pass degree.

Nope this is wrong in the UK context.

In Australia and NZ, however, yes, the extra Honours year involves a dissertation & to be accepted into an Honours programme you need to have an overall Credit average (65% so a mid 2, i in UK terms). These former colonies have a version of the Scottish system.

😂😂😂😂

That was me agreeing with this!

True, this was in NZ 😊

I did four years at Cambridge and came out with two masters degrees. By now I actually have three. All in different subjects. I wonder what those who know would make of that.

Meanwhile someone I worked for had no bachelors degree but had done a masters course and publicized himself as an MA.

Most three year degrees that are taken in English and Welsh Universities (I'm not sure about Scotland or Ireland ) are honours degrees. They will also get classified as either first class, upper second (2.1), lower second (2.2) , third class,. Or a standard pass degree without honours.

In my case, Honours meant that after sitting a broader range of exams for two years, we specialised for another two years. [ETA Graduated at Glasgow, '83.]

In order to pass at Honours level, we had to sit a diet of 10 final exams over a fortnight, submit a shorter dissertation, research and submit a group project and sit aural and oral exams. (This was a language degree.)

Between 40 an 49% would have meant a Third Class Honours Degree. Below 40 would have been a fail for Honours and possibly an Ordinary Degree would have been awarded, provided all the coursework had been handed in across the four years.

My degree back in the 1980s was either three years, where you got an Ordinary degree, or you could do a fourth year and then you got an Honours degree. Which is what I did because it was all free and I got a full grant.

Back in the day we left teachers' training college with a Certificate in Education (Cert Ed). My old college has now been incorporated into a university which has now, in its wisdom, decided to award us retrospective B Ed degrees! Can't wait for the awards ceremony in September. A bit late to enhance my career prospects as I left college sixty two years ago! I have bought the full academic outfit rather than hire it so that I can hang it up in the wardrobe and GLOAT!

My (humanities) BA required three years of coursework at honours level, with a 10-15k thesis submitted in the third year.

Entry to the honours level classes required attainment of high grades in the three first year subjects, one and sometimes two of which would be dropped after the first year, with students proceeding to two-subject or single-subject honours courses.

Single-subject honours involved the same number of courses as two-subject honours, but in that single subject. Single-subject honours was the track that required the thesis. I don't think two-subject honours people had to produce two or even one.

Students who didn't achieve the threshold for honours degrees in first year could proceed to two-subject general degrees. The standard expected was lower than honours degrees.