‘Emergency masters’ at Cambridge is a thing…

[Emergencymasters]

DS is now final year of humanities degree at Cambridge. Doing well - high 2.1 and possibly a 1st. He has just announced that he wants to do an ‘emergency masters’. I had no clue what this is - apparently ‘emergency masters’ is commonplace slang at Camb for students staying on for an extra year coz they don’t want to leave (not coz they love their subject!)! All very well but we will have to fund. Happy to do this - will be a financial stretch though - as DS is living his best life at Camb but just wanted thoughts from wise MNs

It's not new. I did this 20 years ago at Manchester. Thing is, the tuition fees for a humanities masters back then was 3k. Will the masters be useful? I wouldn't appreciate being told rather than asked by my child to fund one.

The advantage of Cambridge is that it had short terms and lovely long holidays - in which your son can work to earn the money to fund his masters. He has at least 5 months between now and emergency master starting to save up for it.

Don't pay for it unless you want to continue to raise an entitled bellend.

That may hold true for sciences but isn't true for arts/humanities where the funding is very scarce in many subjects (my cohort of about 30 students had 1 AHRC place and 1 scholarship place -at Oxford). It was 15 years ago but I don't think the landscape has changed. However, PG loans are now a thing.

But Cambridge degrees tend to require vastly more work than other degrees. I remember being set 70-80 hours a week in my first year, while friends at Edinburgh, Bristol, London were partying and laughing at how easy the one or two essays a term were compared to A levels! Perhaps some subjects are more standardised, though.

Mine were in English lit. Matriculated in 1997.

He can get a loan

Really common. Often decided upon after people have looked at the application forms for graduate schemes!

I did an undergraduate masters, but loads of my humanities friends did a postgrad masters, either to specialise or to alter subject a bit (and yes, in some cases varsity sport/being a society President helped the decision). Also humanities PhD funding isn't as easy as sciences, so some did it to get research experience so they'd be more competitive applying for a PhD later.

Loan for masters is £11k max to cover tuition and living costs.

A lot of masters fees are £20k for decent places. Even for uk students.

Postgrad loans barely cover tuition, let alone accommodation, for most courses.

DD is interested in a very specialised and well-regarded Master's once she finishes her BA degree (she is just starting second year right now). She is planning on working part-time and studying-part time, with a PG loan, to fund it. We've offered to help financially, but her take is that after her first degree, it's her career and therefore her responsibility! She might change her mind as it approaches, though.

Annoying stealth boast.

It's been a thing since I was at university nearly 30 years ago and it's not exclusive to Cambridge.
Lots of people in my year did one - mainly the people who hadn't got a job lined up but also a few people who were having such a great time at uni they didn't want it to end and a few people who had 2:2s and wanted to increase their employability.

I'm even older and people were doing it at my uni in the 70s. Except at my uni many of us had all already done 4 years for an honours degree - although back then we were funded and had a grant to live on.

No local authority grants available to do a masters, so outside funding had to be found - which it rarely was unless you had a first.

I think it entirely depends what the masters is in and whether it realistically furthers his job prospects. It’s a lot of money for something to just buy time and delay entering the job market.

Maybe that depends on the subject. For some, the Xmas and Easter vacations are spent studying, revising with maybe a week or so actual holiday within them.
The Cambridge whole terms are actually longer than the 8 week so-called full terms, dd had some supos and mock exams in them.

The summer vacations,for sure, allow for decent chunks of paid work, one of DDs internships was 3 months. I really don't think there's 5 months available to work from this point in a final year though.

Why do you have to fund it? Can he just get tuition on loan and some form of minimal maintenance then he can work all summer for the living expenses? I wouldn't expect a parent to be funding a master's by year 4.

You don't get a maintenance loan for post grad degrees, and often the loan doesn't even cover the tuition fees.

The advantage of Cambridge is that it had short terms and lovely long holidays

I don't this applies to post grad dedrees, which are full on and full time for a whole year.

Except it's known as being what it is by competitive employers. An oxbridge MA is not a postgraduate qualification. Neither Oxford nor Cambridge offer postgraduate MAs. If you take an actual masters you receive an MLitt or MPhil or MSc etc. while it's true that the general public won't know all this, employers like banks, law firms, accounting, management consultants, BBC etc all know this.

CountessKathleen you're woefully out of date of funding for humanities masters. It's a barren world out there atm and made significantly worse by Brexit.

The postgrad diploma I did helped me get a job in the line of work I wanted to go into and was also a fun year (though I did it in my late 20s after several years of working).

I would make sure there was a point to the year rather than just putting off getting a job.
No doubt an emergency masters is a thing but if it’s going to cost you it might as well lead to a point where he will be able to start making his own money.

Oh stop it. The OP was not off on giving background. If he was pootling along not putting in the effort it would be a definite no. That he really wants to focus on his sport gives context into why he may want to do the masters. You need to keep your insecurities and bitterness at others success in check. All good news is not boasting.

Masters' at Oxbridge have no holidays. Teaching stops for a bit but work continues. It's nine months or twelve months straight.

Because it's not a real masters. It's an honorary masters and doesn't count as a postgraduate qualification. Whilst the average Joe/Jennie may not know this, big employers and academia certainly do.

I know several men who got their first graduate job via the old boys network by wearing their uni sports team tie to interviews and just talking about their sporting achievements. So yes getting a blue probably would give him an (unfair) advantage in certain job markets. My ds is taking a year out to work/travel and then may do a masters or conversion course which allows him to go in a different direction than his first degree that’s more vocational. But I’m glad he’s going to spend a year growing up doing temp jobs in the real world first and told him I expect him to part fund it and treat it like a job. He may do it online and live at home or part time depending on costs. More modern equitable employers who don’t recruit through old boy networks would rather have someone with face to face customer experience and proven self reliance than someone who has no work experience. Employers generally complain new graduates these days don’t have soft skills not that they dont have a masters.

I didn’t want to come home, but I couldn’t afford a masters so I got a job in my university library - still got access to the union etc but could afford to support myself! It was great for an extra 3 years of essentially student living.

Why is it an 'unfair' advantage? These conversations usually crop up at the final interview for top grad jobs. After all the tests and uni grades etc. It's to test communication and enthusiasm and energy as much as anything else. Seems completely legit.

I never even claimed my Cambridge master's anyway - didn't see the point. I did a "proper" master's years later.

I’m all too aware of the depredations on UK academia of Brexit — I left the country in 2019, after working at UK universities, as did many academic friends. My point re my Oxford experience that I thought might be applicable to the OP’s son at Cambridge is that there were lots of Oxford-specific, college-specific or discipline-specific scholarships that were ‘internal’, not AHRC etc.