2009-05-17, 12:17 PM
EvilCowKing Wrote:Interesting that you have an option in your program like that. Things are a bit different in Canada with respect to Social Anthropology programs. From what I hear, in the States you can go straight into a PhD after an undergraduate degree, and if you drop out, you receive a terminal MA. I think they're trying to phase out the MA here too, but as it stands, at least in my university anyway, it's one year's worth of courses and then one year to write up and defend the thesis.
Congrats on your 4.0! You are definitely working hard to keep that up!
I'll cut the off-topic talk after this post, but I figured I'd describe the MA/MS over here a little for a comparison purely of interest. I'm actually working on education, not anthro (the only anthro course I've ever taken was one on primate behavior at Stony Brook) and my undergrad was in actuarial math and statistics. Additionally, in my case at least, we need between 36 and 45 credits to get a Master's in education (which is the only program I can speak for), which also grants NY certification once we're past anti-drug and sexual abuse workshops, fingerprinting, and three exams (on two of which I've already scored nearly perfect, 291/300). For my program I need 36, and it certifies me to teach 7th-12th grades, plus an extension for 5th and 6th, with a specialty in math, reading, and inclusion classrooms.
The thesis paper or project is included as six of those credits and we take classes associated with them. Other than mine the ones in my class were generally not anything extremely involved or original like yours is (those are usually PhD projects here). Most were more like surveying students or teachers to either find their attitudes about something or correlating two to five outside factors with grades. A standard graduate semester (at least where I go) is 9 credits per semester, so it's 4 to 5 semesters, but some schools have programs that let you get certain bachelor's plus master's degrees in 5 years. I take 12 per semester because I wanted to finish it in 3, but I just found out a few weeks ago that apparently they won't let me attempt full and part time student teaching at the same time.