Help needed finding MA courses

[Enid]

Just a quickie - I'd like to begin studying for an MA in a couple of years. Does anyone know where on the web I can find comprehensive listings of all Universities offering MA's, and the subjects that they cover?

Any decent university will offer MAs, but what subject are you interested in? What part of the country do you want to study in etc?? I have recently started some teaching on an MSc Educational Psychology course which is obviously a professional qualification, if you want to do academic work after you would be better off doing a PhD as (IME) Masters which aren't a professional qualification tend to be done by people who haven't made the grade academically/are ditching their phD, and don't count for very much. If you're doing this for you then that won't bother you. Also fees can be a shock and it's hard to get funding for Masters.

I want to study English Lit, in particular Old English, Old Norse, Early English etc although I haven't exactly decided yet.

Its just for me, I enjoy studying, its not for any qualification reason.

Didn't realise you could do a phd without a masters. I prefer the idea of an MA as I would quite like meeting people on a similar course, rather than being too isolated...although I may have completely the wrong idea about Phd's.

Is there a guidebook like the old UCCA handbook from years back?

Obviously English Lit isn't my subject but i don't think a Masters in that field would automatically be a taught course. Nevertheless there's a lot of camaraderie between post-grads (sharing offices helps!) so I think you'd meet some interesting new people. I am not aware of their being a particular handbook, you'd probably be better off looking at universities which it might be feasible to attend and checking out their websites. That said I'm a psychologist and DH is a neuroscientist/psychologist so my knowledge of the arts side of things is limited!

Don't worry folks (as if you were!) I've answered my own question and found a great site which is just what I needed. If by any chance anyone else is interested its here

Hi there. Enid's site is OK, but I think this one is more user-friendly and searchable (you can serahc by course, by level, by university or by keyword. It's www.prospects.ac.uk and its an official national university site. Good luck with choosing.
If you want to see which universities are highly rated (from a research point of view) and hence have better funding, bigger libraries, more options etc, look at the Research Assessment Exercise, conducted every five years on all university departments. I think its rae.ac.uk, but I'll check in the morning. The higher the rating (lowest is 1, highest is 5-star) the stronger the department.
Hope this helps

Ooh, thanks Bee.

I agree that the prospects website is excellent.I do some sessional careers advice at our local university and we have an excellent careers library and drop in advice sessions including some evening appointments. It may be worth you contacting your local university or just dropping in to see what is available. Addresses are on the prospects website. Funding is often the biggest problem. It may be worth contacting a few places that you are interested in to see how past students have been funded. Good luck
helen