Enroling in a Masters degree program and (completing it of course!) can not only provide you with new knowledge and skills, it might also open new career opportunities and increase your value in terms of commanding a higher salary. Until the 19th century, a bachelor’s degree represented the first degree in a particular faculty, with Arts representing undergraduate study, thus the Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL) at Oxford and the Bachelor of Laws (LLB) at Cambridge, for example, were postgraduate degrees.

Requirements for an academic master’s degree include taking a minimum number of advanced graduate classes (typically between five and eight)and submitting a research thesis which is examined orally by a panel of at least two examiners (three is the preferred number), sometimes including one external member who must be from another university or research institute.

As a consequence, there is no de jure “honours degree” (although some universities market some of their programs as being de facto honours degrees in their English-language materials, citation needed ) but there are some specializations called “concentrations” in French, which are mostly taken as optional courses.

In countries following British tradition (the University of Malta is an exception), medical students pursue an undergraduate medical education and receive bachelor’s degrees in medicine and surgery (MBBChir, MBBS, BMBS, BM, MBChB, etc.). This was historically taken at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin after the initial BA degree, and in Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin the BA is still awarded for the initial three years of medical study, with the BMBCh, MBBChir, or MBBChBAO, respectively, being awarded for the subsequent clinical stage of training.

Advanced Highers add an optional final year of secondary education, bringing students up to the level of their A-Level counterparts – students with strong A-Levels or Advanced Highers may be offered entry directly into the second year at Scottish universities.