Integrated Masters (4 yr) courses

[ProfGrammaticus]

Poring over courses again for DS1 who will apply for Maths next time round, it has occurred to me - why all these four year courses? They didn't exist, I don't think, in my day, or if they did they were much less common. I could be wrong as I studied Law and just didn't look at science courses. But is it a new thing? And why? (And is it evidence that A levels just aren't sending people to start courses at the right level, so the unis are having to pick up the slack?)

Mine was a RG uni. There were modules in the 4th year that BSc students couldn't take so I assume they were masters level. However I'm fairly sure that my impression that they had to dumb down the first year came from the professors.

Unis are always moaning about falling A-level standards though, so maybe that wasn't the official reason for the 4th year!

My DCs MSci fourth year was certainly not undergraduate level, the research project was undertaken with the support of a specialist research team of PhDs and senior academics (including a leading Professor in the field) and was part of the team and attended team meetings. I do think that if she had cashed in her degree as a BSc she would have lacked that direct experience of research Science. She was pursuaded to switch into the Masters stream rather than do a standalone Masters because she had developed an interest in that research area and there wasn't a specialist Masters course that gave her that opportunity to work with one of the teams in that research area, though we would have funded the extra cost. Obviously another specialist Masters course would have been undertaken over a full calendar year but it hasn't been an issue in her PhD application.

My DD was accepted onto the integrated Masters undergraduate course for languages at Manchester, 6 years ago now. It was a four year course and no year abroad. With a year abroad it was 5 years. Manchester made it very clear that it was not a post grad Masters and if she wanted a PhD, she would have to continue with a post grad masters. This was probably the first MFL integrated masters. However, definitely not worth doing. They also told us employers did not know the difference between the integrated masters and a standard degree!

I think the Southampton one is 4 years but looks just like a standard MFL degree in length so what makes it a Masters is beyond me when the equivalent at Manchester was 5 years? Do they not have holidays or go abroad? How is the 4th year different from the one at Oxford or Cambridge?

Weird bojo - Manchester state quite clearly the final year is at Masters level: http://www.manchester.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/courses/2016/09027/chinese-and-japanese-ipml/

Introduced twenty years ago, you say

I'm so old!

This was probably the first MFL integrated masters. However, definitely not worth doing. They also told us employers did not know the difference between the integrated masters and a standard degree!

Given the OP was asking about Maths, the value and employer knowledge of MFL masters degrees is not particularly relevant. (MMaths degrees are definitely well understood by relevant employers, since they have been around for decades and have a a relatively high uptake.)

I'm not sure how one can state that MFL masters are definitely not worth doing without looking carefully at where the graduates go afterwards. It's also not standard policy that MFL masters degree holders need additional masters degrees before starting a PhD (at least for UK institutions - some European institutions do insist on full MA/MSc).

At Southampton the MLang students have a year abroad studying at a partner Uni and also have to submit work back to S'ton. Their marks in the modules taken abroad count directly to their degree classification. Also, they do not finish in May like the BA students but stay on until September completing their Masters dissertation.