Oxford degrees

[karen2205]

I become eligible for my MA in Trinity 2006* and would quite like to go and get it in person. It'll be much more fun if I can coordinate it with some other people I know who want to graduate at some point that term, so a poll for you. Please note that different colleges are allocated different degree days, so you'll need to check with your own whether you're allowed to graduate in person on the days I've listed below.

You become eligible for an MA in the 21st term after you matriculate, so if you matriculated in MT 1999 (and didn't take any time out) you become eligible for it in TT 2006.

[Poll #459858]

* No, this isn't me being ridiculously organised - it's necessary if this is going to work 'cos slots to graduate in person get booked up a long time in advance.

Comments

[terriem.livejournal.com]

That's interesting - I'm getting my Cambridge MA on April 2nd and we've been specially invited to it by the College, which means most of my year will be there. It'll be lovely to see everyone and (fundraising hat on) it's a good way for the College to foster good feeling.

[karen2205]

*nods* - most Oxford Colleges allow you to choose when to go and graduate from a number of specified degree days. If I can't coordinate a group of LJ people/real life people who want to come and graduate with me, I'll probably just leave it and wait till I have children and can take them along.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Despite having to call you an insensitive clod, I'm quite interested in the results of this poll because it might be an excuse for an Oxford-based LJ picnic, which means we could invite lots of people who would not be picking up degrees on whatever date it is...

[karen2205]

This is sounding like a very good idea - even if the trying to coordinate people graduating thing doesn't work too well:-)

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

The final date on the list happens to be smallclanger's third birthday so there's a strong chance we'd be organizing some kind of picnic/party the weekend before or after anyway, but if some people are actually in Oxford on the day it sounds like a good excuse for lunch to me!

[karen2205]

We'd probably be better off with an afternoon picnic than lunch, 'cos Merton certainly (and I believe this is true of most colleges) offers its graduates a free lunch after the ceremony.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

You forget I am a parent of a toddler - lunch is a moveable feast that can happen pretty much any time between 12.01 and 3.59pm AFAIC. ;-)

[wicker-girl.livejournal.com]

Oh. This is confusing. I'm about to retake my third year, and I don't even understand the question.
I am ashamed.
I thiiink I'm eligible for that then.

[karen2205]

When will you take your finals? If you're going to start retaking your third year in MT 05 eg. this October, you'll do them in Trinity 2006. IIRC, you're an English student - English finals are always early so the results come out fairly early, but we'd need to pick one of the dates in the summer vac and you'd need to be organised about applying for a place as soon as you can.

[wicker-girl.livejournal.com]

That's right. So I guess I will be graduating then.
Crikey though, I didn't even know that different collages had different days, and that you have to book them. I sort of assumed that the whole uni did it on one day in a mahoosive giant room and it all got arranged for you. Like a big version of school prize giving day. Which, now I think about it, would be both ludicrous and impossible.

[karen2205]

Nah, it's Oxford - we have to do things differently and I quite like that we get to chose when to graduate and can arrange to go with friends etc.

The University Gazette (http://www.ox.ac.uk/gazette/) gives a full list of Degree Days, but you have to contact your college to find out which ones are allocated to it.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/karen2205/22860.html is my LJ entry about my BA graduation

[juliet]

Some colleges have started doing a thing where they try to get all/most of one year along to graduate at the same time - September after you take your Finals. Pembroke did this when I was there. Dunno if your place does. The admin office would be able to tell you.

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

Dates: don't know. Have got my BA gown but not my MA gown. Not sure whether I ever will do in person or just in absentia it. My parents were there for the BA celebration, so the rest is, well, even more token than usual. If Meg desperately wants me to see my MA gown then I might, but I can think of more fun was to spend holiday time.

[karen2205]

Yeah - hence why I'm thinking it'd be good to coordinate a group of us going to collect it in person on the same day - 'cos while it's still in many respects a token, in other respects it's really quite profound (or so I'm told by a friend who has got his) *and* any excuse to meet up with LJers is a good one:-)

[hsenag.livejournal.com]

You may find that even colleges that have ceremonies on the same days have them at different times.

[karen2205]

Yep - I was just remembering that - still, I believe the last ceremony is 4.30pm so it should still be possible for everyone to meet up for a drink/meal in the evening.

[(Anonymous)]

i got mine last year and was told by the university that they don't now allow people to turn up in person for fake MAs anymore - to save space.

[shreena.livejournal.com]

I think this is just a rumour. It doesn't make sense to me that they could disallow you from collecting a degree (albeit one that you haven't done a separate course for) that they are granting you. They can make it difficult for you by giving everyone else priority for the ceremony dates but I don't think that they can prevent you entirely.

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

When I was arranging my MSc, I got the standard graduation blurb from Hilda's which said that they (Hilda's rather than the uni) won't let people take MAs in person any more :-(.

[shreena.livejournal.com]

You're quite right - just looked it up on the college website which blames it on college quotas being cut due to health & safety regulations at the Sheldonian. That's really irritating - had I known that, I'd have waited and taken BA and MA together. I have to say, though, that I think they'll eventually be forced to change this. The quota things are renegotiated year on year and so it's not unlikely that it'll change in a few years.

[karen2205]

I find that rather unlikely. It's the kind of thing that my college would make clear on its website (http://www.merton.ox.ac.uk/alumni/ominfo.htm) and it's also the kind of thing I'd have heard about via general gossip/the media.

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

Alas, Keble does not say either way in at all an obvious fashion on their web site. Given Keble's size, I'm not optimistic.

[bitterlight.livejournal.com]

What the heck is an MA? If you were American I would figure you meant master of arts, but does it stand for something different in the UK?

[karen2205]

Yep MA is a Master of the Arts.

Oxford and Cambridge are weird and unlike other universities they award MAs for undergraduate study for historical reasons.

When the universities started it used to take seven years to gain any degree (the MA). Over time degree courses shortened to the normal three or four years and the university began giving arts students a BA at the end of their time studying, but the MA was always seen as the 'proper' degree and you couldn't get that till 21 terms (essentially seven years since there are three terms a year) after joining the university (matriculation) (BAs were given out to help people show their interim achievements to employers). The belief is that the three years you spend studying doesn't teach enough - the additional four years experience of the world at large is necessary for you to be ready for an MA.

Until various reforms took place in 2000, you didn't become a member of Convocation (the body of graduates of the university) until you had an MA. Convocation used to (can't remember the exact dates but definitely up until the beginning of the 1900s) be the absolute governing body of the university - now that function is carried out by Congregation (made up of the fellows of colleges/university lecturers/senior university staff and some others) and the only jobs left for Convocation are electing the Chancellor (currently Chris Patten (Lord Patten - formerly an EU Commissioner and formerly Governor of Hong Kong) and the Professor of Poetry).

MA status is still important for various bits and pieces eg. invigilating university exams/supervising students who have to be kept incommunicado between exams, access to various books in the Bodleian (main university library + one of the UK's copyright libraries).

Science students tend to do four year courses and get undergraduate masters degrees eg. MPhys (for physics) - they never become entitled to a 'pretend' MA, because they already have the masters - but once they pass the 21st term from matriculation they are counted as equilvalent to an MA.

So, essentially I'll be entitled to an MA having done no extra work other than that for my BA. Convention dictates that if I use the title I write it as 'MA (Oxon)' to show that it's not an 'earned' MA.

Apart from the historic reasons for Oxbridge 'pretend' MAs, the 'justification' for keeping them is that Oxbridge degree courses are significantly more difficult than those from other universities and we should, therefore, be entitled to the higher degree title.

You've been with the professors

[hoiho.livejournal.com]

Oxford and Cambridge are weird and unlike other universities they award MAs for undergraduate study for historical reasons.


As do the Ancient Scottish universities of St Andrews. Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh (for their 4 years Arts degrees). And there you get it straight off, no intermediate BA stage. I've got one. And I've also got Oxford MA status, from my time as a researcher there in the 80s.

Yrs, August West, MA MSc

Re: You've been with the professors

[shreena.livejournal.com]

As I understood it, the reason why Scottish universities do the MA thing is because they have a compulsory research component to their undergraduate degrees like the Oxford four year science degrees but unlike most of the Oxford arts degrees. But do correct me if I've got that wrong.

Re: You've been with the professors

[hoiho.livejournal.com]

Oooh, now, that's an intresting idea. Certainly, one of my 8 finals papers was a compulsory research dissertation, submited in the fist term of 4th year. 6 of the other papers were based on honours options courses, and the lastone was one the traditionally Scottish "General Essay" paper (my chosen question was "Mountains?")

It may be just me...

[shepline.livejournal.com]

...but matriculation sounds extremely painful?!!!

Re: It may be just me...

[karen2205]

Well, if you consider getting up and being in a quad ready for a photograph to be taken at 8.20am on a Saturday morning after you've been at university for about two weeks painful....

It involves dressing in sub fusc (see http://www.livejournal.com/users/karen2205/22860.html for a definition) and going to the Sheldonian where the Vice Chancellor speaks in Latin. Traditionally one then spends the rest of the day drinking (I didn't - I went to Sainsburys still in sub fusc and then tried to do some work before going to find people to drink with much later on).

[hilarityallen.livejournal.com]

While I'll be eligible to graduate then, I have the feeling that I'll graduate a while before that, so that I can have my D.Phil. as an actual award on my CV, rather than the somewhat wobbly-looking 'award pending'. However, have fun.