A license is an academic degree. Originally, in order to teach at a university, one needed this degree which, according to its title, gave the bearer a license to teach. The name survived despite the fact that nowadays a doctorate is typically needed in order to teach at a university. A person who holds a license is called a licentiate.
In Sweden, Finland, and in some other European university systems, a license or 'Licentiate' is a postgraduate degree between the master's degree and the doctorate. The Licentiate is a popular choice in those countries where a full doctoral degree would take five or more years to achieve.
In some other major countries, such as France, or Belgium or Poland, a license is achieved before the master's degree (it takes 3 years of studies to become licentiate and 2 additional years to become Master) in France, while in Belgium the license takes 4 years while the master itself takes 2 more years. In Switzerland, a license is a 4-year degree then there is a DEA degree which is equivalent to the Master's degree. In Portugal, before the Bologna process, students would become licentiates after 5 years of studies (4 years in particular cases like Marketing, Management, etc.; and 6 years for Medicine). However, since the adoption of the Bologna Process engineering degrees in Portugal were changed from a 5 year license to a 3 year license followed by 2 years for the MSc: Not having the MSc doesn't confer accreditation by the Ordem dos Engenheiros)
Famous quotes containing the word license:
“Only one marriage I regret. I remember after I got that marriage license I went across from the license bureau to a bar for a drink. The bartender said, “What will you have, sir?” And I said, “A glass of hemlock.””
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“I go out of my way, but rather by license than carelessness.... It is the inattentive reader
who loses my subject, not I. Some word about it will always be found off in a corner, which will not fail to be sufficient, though it takes little room.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“It would much conduce to the public benefit, if, instead of discouraging free-thinking, there was erected in the midst of this free country a dianoetic academy, or seminary for free-thinkers, provided with retired chambers, and galleries, and shady walks and groves, where, after seven years spent in silence and meditation, a man might commence a genuine free-thinker, and from that time forward, have license to think what he pleased, and a badge to distinguish him from counterfeits.”
—George Berkeley (1685–1753)