Taught Postgraduate Master's Degrees
(MSc, MA, LL.M., MLitt, MSSc, MSt, MEnt etc.)
The most common types of postgraduate taught Master's degrees are the Master of Arts (MA) awarded in Arts, Humanities, Theology and Social Sciences and the Master of Science (MSc) awarded in pure and applied Science. A number of taught programs in Social Sciences also receive the Master of Science (MSc) degree (e.g. MSc Development Studies at the London School of Economics and University of Bath).
However, some universities - particularly those in Scotland - award the Master of Letters (MLitt) to students in the Arts, Humanities, Divinity and Social Sciences, often with the suffix (T) to indicate it is a taught degree, to avoid confusion with the MLitt (see Research postgraduate Master's degrees below). In the universities of Cambridge and Oxford on the other hand, the MPhil is a taught master's degree (normally also including a short research component), whereas the MLitt and the MSc degrees are offered as pure research degrees only. Some other universities, such as the University of Glasgow, previously used the designation MPhil for both taught and research Master's degrees, but have recently changed the taught appellation to MLitt.
In Business Schools a special Masters of Business Administration MBA type of a degree is available to those who have business practice experience. For example Salford Business School in Grater Manchester offers a degree which is only available to those who can show professional experience.
In Law the standard taught degree is the Master of Laws, but certain courses may lead to the award of MA or MLitt.
Until recently, both the undergraduate and postgraduate Master's degrees were awarded without grade or class (like the class of an honours degree). Nowadays however, Master's degrees may be classified into a maximum of four categories (Distinction, Merit, Pass or Fail), while others can have a more simplified form of assessment by only distinguishing between a Pass or a Fail.
Read more about this topic: Master's Degree In Europe, United Kingdom, Postgraduate Master's Degrees
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