buying an MA degree

Zaph0d

Is it still possible to purchase an MA from TCD a few years after you've been awarded a BA?

This used to be the case, but I can't find anything about it online. Has this process got some euphemism?

Time Magazine

Yep you can do it.

It's in the Calender.

After three years, you can apply for it. If I recall correctly, it costs €494.

Check it on the calender, which is online somewhere.

BossArky

Isn't there something blatantly wrong with buying an MA?

Why does TCD think that there degrees are of an MA stanard? Rubbish.

Time Magazine

Because our degrees (by and large) are a year longer than everyone else's.

Seems logical enough. If Maynooth's degrees are 3 years, and Trinity's are 4, is that not a higher standard of attainment?

Do ya really reckon you know more about the conferral of degrees than the University of Dublin, whose head is one Mary Robinson? .

Time Magazine

And it's not really buying it. That's the conferral/commencement charge.

ApeXaviour

This sounds like an arts thing..

Zaph0d

Thanks to mr banana. I found the calendar online.
The cost is €474.
http://www.tcd.ie/Secretary/College_Calendar/

the euphemisim is

Bachelors of the University of at least three years’ standing may proceed to the degree of Master in Arts.

geraghd

BossArky wrote:

Isn't there something blatantly wrong with buying an MA?

Why does TCD think that there degrees are of an MA stanard? Rubbish.

Thats the education and degrees you get when you go to TCD. Its not "buying a degree", you are duely awarded it, and like all education you have to pay for it one way or the other..

Oirthir

Angry Banana wrote:

Seems logical enough. If Maynooth's degrees are 3 years, and Trinity's are 4, is that not a higher standard of attainment?

So if I do a four year degree in, say, IT Tralee, should I get myself a masters after 3 more years?

It's a fuzzy logic...........

egan007

Oirthir wrote:

So if I do a four year degree in, say, IT Tralee, should I get myself a masters after 3 more years?

It's a fuzzy logic...........

Yea if you work for it then of course!

A degree from TCD might be worthless if you actually know nothing.
I'm sure there are many students in IT Tralee that are more capable at their discipline than some of the people with Degrees from tcd.

A degree does not denote knowledge it denotes the ability to obtain it.

Barry Aldwell

egan007 wrote:

A degree does not denote knowledge it denotes the ability to obtain it.

So I guess all those exams are just there for fun then :rolleyes:

ApeXaviour

Angry Banana wrote:

Seems logical enough. If Maynooth's degrees are 3 years, and Trinity's are 4, is that not a higher standard of attainment?

It was my understanding that 3 years denoted an ordinary degree and four an honours degree. This is certainly the case for science anyhow. As such it is being benchmarked such that diplomas are having their name changed to ordinary degrees as they are the same.

I find this quite strange. By this logic, should I complete my third year of physics and simply pass, i.e. not be qualified to enter fourth year and thus not be entitled to a B.A. (hons). Yet all I'd have to do is accept my ordinary BA (which is stipulated in the paragraph just prior to the one in question here: http://www.tcd.ie/Secretary/College_Calendar/Part_I/pdf/d1.pdf ). Then wait three years and accept a masters!?

Bit dodgy methinks, explain around that one mr banana

thecheekofyou

Could I point out that four years in College has nothing to do with the Magister in Artibus degree. It's awarded to those of seven years' standing (i.e. seven years after matriculation). In Oxford and Cambridge, the Baccalaureus in Artibus is often awarded after three years; consequently, graduates must wait four more years before they can apply for their MA.

Not really the same thing, but this year the College Board approved a proposal that all staff with more than forty years' employment be awarded an MA (jure officii).

europerson

It's important to realise that the MA being discussed here is, in fact, and undergraduate degree, and not a postgraduate degree. The Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Dublin all offer MA's to Bachelor students, without having to sit further examinations. In Oxbridge, one must have held one's Bachelor's degree for at least seven years. To obtain an MA from the University of Dublin, a candidate must be of at least three years' standing. The Oxbridge versions confer the right to vote in certain University elections. In Trinity, there are no longer any additional voting rights attached to being an MA. However, the title does allow one to dine at the top table at Commons. Holders of the MA degree from Dublin may apply for the same level of qualification from Cambridge and Oxford, ad eundem gradum. The fee for the Dublinn MA degree is €498, payable to the Proctors' office. The fee is waived for graduates of more than fifty years' standing.

EdgarAllenPoo

So technically does this mean that once I have my LLB that instead of going straight for an LLM and having to pay €6000 all I have to do is wait three years and pay a smaller fee.

punka

No. The Trinity MA is, as europerson says, not a postgraduate qualification. It's completely separate to the MPhil, MLitt, and the LLM - all of which are postgraduate qualifications. It's similar to the way Scottish universities award an MA instead of BA to those who've completed their undergraduate education.

edit: besides, you should be doing an LLM for its inherent educational value, not for a qualification.

thecheekofyou

"europerson": Oxford and Cambridge graduates wait seven years from matriculation, not graduation. And it is the same here for Dubliniensis.

DrIndy

You need an MA to be a member of staff in TCD - and to be a member of certain committees. Hence Dublin University graduates receive it and other staff members who went to lesser universities first like Harvard are given an honorary MA to permit them to vote etc....

europerson

Yes, thanks the cheekofyou! The cheek of me for having my facts wrong!

Barry Aldwell

DrIndy wrote:

You need an MA to be a member of staff in TCD

Academic staff only, I assume. Unless all the cleaners and security are TSM graduates who just couldn't let go of Trinity

Laguna

DrIndy wrote:

You need an MA to be a member of staff in TCD - and to be a member of certain committees. Hence Dublin University graduates receive it and other staff members who went to lesser universities first like Harvard are given an honorary MA to permit them to vote etc....

LOL LOL LOL

Lesser universities like... Harvard?... LOL.. are you out of your mind?!

John

Of course he isn't. Everyone knows that Harvard is the equivalent to an underfunded tech

Agent Smith

ie. UCD


i just have this Image of me Going into the SU Shop and there being a sellection of degrees...


"have you anything in deaf studies?"
"yes, a Diploma, or if you can wait a year or so, a degree"
"ah sure, the Diploma is Just Grand"

godtabh

Does this aplly to all students or ones of certain discplines?

europerson

kearnsr wrote:

Does this aplly to all students or ones of certain discplines?

It applies to all disciplines, once one has any Bachelor-level qualification.

DJDC

haha trinity better than harvard:D
thats the most ridiculous statement ive heard for a long time
Trinity maybe the best uni in ireland but in in terms of international recognition its nowhere im afraid.whats it rank again.220 in the world!
pathethic!there are at least 20 UK uni's with better rankings than that!
So stop comparing yourself to oxford and cambridge(they are both top 10):D
They are in a completely different league!
The only reason you have any connection with them is because your old and where seen as an important outpost for english protestant values for the last couple of centuries.
So stop being snobby when u got nothing to be snobby about.
haha

Nietzschean

and tis is where i play the ban the idiot...........

WigWam

Serenity wrote:

and tis is where i play the ban the idiot...........

I would say he has a valid ridicule. Trinity is certainly 'living off the legend' and the differential between Trinity and the other Irish universities has diminished considerably.

TCD is under a process of homogenisation alongside the other 6 universities 'UCD','DCU','UL','UCC','NUIG','NUIM'. Portobello, Griffith, American 'CDs' will jump on the bandwagon next I'm sure.

Look at http://www.iua.ie/ and their random assignment of the various crests across the top page. Hamilton, Lecky, Schrodinger, Salmon, whatever about creaking in their graves, would fall into them if they saw uniformity and unanimity amongst institutions such as UL and DCU.

TCD needs to step aside from this government steering and stand out, like it has in the past, get rid of administrators and restore order to the academic elite. It would be great to restore the Dublin, Oxford, Cambridge triangle, but I am pessimistic rather than optimistic and forsee the trend of our brightest leaving cert students opting for Oxbridge/US over domestic universities becoming more and more pronounced.

Trinity's not bad, but it cetainly ain't a pick on what it used to be.

godtabh

OK so I did engineering and I can get my MA after the set time peroid?

What letters you can put on the end of your name, and what significance it has compared with a real MA

geraghd

No significance than a thesis/examination assessed MA you mean, since they would both be real.
The only gain one might get from it is probably in teaching where you get extra salary for having a Masters.
And yes you can, you get the BA and BAI... I think.. which qualifies you asa Bachelor of the Uni

geraghd

DJDC wrote:

haha trinity better than harvard:D
thats the most ridiculous statement ive heard for a long time
Trinity maybe the best uni in ireland but in in terms of international recognition its nowhere im afraid.whats it rank again.220 in the world!
pathethic!there are at least 20 UK uni's with better rankings than that!
So stop comparing yourself to oxford and cambridge(they are both top 10):D
They are in a completely different league!
The only reason you have any connection with them is because your old and where seen as an important outpost for english protestant values for the last couple of centuries.
So stop being snobby when u got nothing to be snobby about.
haha

Wow, so you can of course tell me why Harvard is better then TCD? I mean, you are aware of the details of the ranking system that you mention places TCD at 220 in the world arent you?

WigWam

geraghd wrote:

Wow, so you can of course tell me why Harvard is better then TCD? I mean, you are aware of the details of the ranking system that you mention places TCD at 220 in the world arent you?

Are you trying to suggest that Trinity cuts it against institutions such as Harvard?

godtabh

geraghd wrote:

No significance than a thesis/examination assessed MA you mean, since they would both be real.
The only gain one might get from it is probably in teaching where you get extra salary for having a Masters.
And yes you can, you get the BA and BAI... I think.. which qualifies you asa Bachelor of the Uni

Good stuff just have to remember this in 2 years time!

Nietzschean

prove your point or shut up wigwam

WigWam

Serenity wrote:

prove your point or shut up wigwam

Well first of all, you don't need to tell me to shut up.

I'm giving opinion about how Trinity is not what it used to be. It under a process of homogenisation by various government policies.

Harvard is consistently in the top 10 of various well respected league tables. Trinity only hits it in the top couple of hundred in the world.

I'm giving my opinion on how Trinity is 'living off the legend'. Offering my opinion for debate, so don't tell me to 'shut up'. You'll have to lock the thread for that.

Nietzschean

you already made your opinion known, you showed no evidence to back up your position, you just stated it again. The poster put forward a point which you completely ignored.


And i do need to tell you to shut up obviously, and next time i won't be closing any thread i'll just ban you. You are adding nothing to this board and are just annoying all the users.


As regards those tables, do you blindly accept them or have you actually researched as to what they are measured on?

WigWam

Serenity wrote:

you already made your opinion known, you showed no evidence to back up your position, you just stated it again. The poster put forward a point which you completely ignored.


And i do need to tell you to shut up obviously, and next time i won't be closing any thread i'll just ban you. You are adding nothing to this board and are just annoying all the users.


As regards those tables, do you blindly accept them or have you actually researched as to what they are measured on?

Ah I see, you'll get me to "shut up" by banning me instead of locking the thread? It's up to you. I call your bluff. (If you do decide my contributions are not worthy of this message forum, my last request is that you have the gut to ban me in a public fashion rather than in an offhand manner).

You know what, I do have a certain amount of respect for the various league tables both world-wide and european. And yes, they do influence my opinion - are you trying to suggest they are way off the mark and completely irrelevant?

Trinity may not even deserve to be in the top 200-300 universities in the world, since, for many of these analyses, one of the criteria is the number of noble prizes that have come from the university, regardless of when. Trinity hasn't had a noble prize in several decades and I'm sure if we ignored noble prizes, UCD would be about the same rank, if not higher given the greater number of students and postgrads working on research.

Anyway, the point I am making is a wider one and not specifically about league-tables which you seem so hung up on.

I'm saying Dublin is miles behind Oxon. and Cantab and I'm sure most Fellows would concurr with me. This all goes back to the ridicule that DJDC made of DrIndy with her outrageous statement that "other staff members who went to lesser universities first like Harvard are given an honorary MA". All the 'evidence' goes against this statement and I did not 'ignore' the issue: I answered with an question of my own that nobody seems to want to answer. What 'evidence' have you got to support your claims?

Maybe I will (to satisfy further pestering) answer the feeble challenge of geraghd that "you can of course tell me why Harvard is better then TCD? I mean, you are aware of the details of the ranking system that you mention places TCD at 220 in the world arent you?" ?! Is this guy for real? Harvard is better than Trinity College Dublin because
- they have 43 Nobel laureates
- they had a $2.6 billion budget for university fiscal expenses in 2004
- a $22.6 billion endowment fund at end of 2004
- countless Nobel Prizes, most recently (2005) by Roy J. Glauber from their physics dept.

Nietzschean

WigWam wrote:

Ah I see, you'll get me to "shut up" by banning me instead of locking the thread? It's up to you. I call your bluff. (If you do decide my contributions are not worthy of this message forum, my last request is that you have the gut to ban me in a public fashion rather than in an offhand manner).

WTF, you really are an absolute twat.

Anyway, the point I am making is a wider one and not specifically about league-tables which you seem so hung up on.

Did i bring them up? no.

I'm saying Dublin is miles behind Oxon. and Cantab and I'm sure most Fellows would concurr with me.

Who can we quote on this?

This all goes back to the ridicule that DJDC made of DrIndy with her outrageous statement that "other staff members who went to lesser universities first like Harvard are given an honorary MA".

Firstly, the original comment was intended as a joke, but anal people like yourself took it differently which caused all this.

What 'evidence' have you got to support your claims?

Since your quoting me, I've made no claims, heck i'm not even in this discussion, I only pointed out your previous posts were lacking substance to the point of requiring your banning or their deleting.

Maybe I will (to satisfy further pestering)

Is it you want me to ban you so you can moan somewhere?

- they had a $2.6 billion budget for university fiscal expenses in 2004
- a $22.6 billion endowment fund at end of 2004

2 of your 4 reasons are based solely on income to the college, warped reasoning imo

WigWam

Serenity wrote:

WTF, you really are an absolute twat.

Instead of addressing what I've said, you've resorted to attacking my person. I take it you've nothing else to add.

Serenity wrote:

Did i bring them up? no.

Well you obviously are hung up on league tables when you demand an answer to "As regards those tables, do you blindly accept them or have you actually researched as to what they are measured on?"

Serenity wrote:

Who can we quote on this?

Now look who's answering points with questions of their own.

Serenity wrote:

Firstly, the original comment was intended as a joke, but anal people like yourself took it differently which caused all this.

It's worth thinking what would happen were I refer to you as being 'anal'. You should really reflect on that 9 letter word under your name.

Serenity wrote:

Since your quoting me, I've made no claims, heck i'm not even in this discussion, I only pointed out your previous posts were lacking substance to the point of requiring your banning or their deleting.

Ok, you're opting out of the discussion. Mmm. However for some reason you seem to want to accuse me of not responding to others' questions. You also opine that "tcd just doesn't have the same resources as the other big colleges". I agree. It seemed to me you wanted to participate.

Serenity wrote:

Is it you want me to ban you so you can moan somewhere?

No thank you. I quite like boards.ie.

Serenity wrote:

2 of your 4 reasons are based solely on income to the college, warped reasoning imo

Yet you fail to address the other two points. I find it hard to understand your assertion that basing part of my reasoning of why Harvard is better than Trinity on college income is somehow 'warped'.

Nietzschean

WigWam wrote:

Instead of addressing what I've said, you've resorted to attacking my person. I take it you've nothing else to add.

O dear, look i've gone and hurt your feelings.....

Well you obviously are hung up on league tables when you demand an answer to "As regards those tables, do you blindly accept them or have you actually researched as to what they are measured on?"

I was pointing out the fact that you ignored the previous posters challange to you regardin the tables.

Now look who's answering questions with questions of their own.

You brought up a new topic without any facts or figures, just asserted it.

It's worth thinking what would happen were I refer to you as being 'anal'. You should really reflect on that 9 letter word under your name.

The point is, I said it, not you. And based on your previous posts its perfectly justified.

Ok, you're opting out of the discussion. Mmm. However for some reason you seem to want to accuse me of not responding to others' questions. You also opine that "tcd just doesn't have the same resources as the other big colleges". I agree. It seemed to me you wanted to participate.

I was never in the posts, I was merely pointing out what seemed like flawed logic, i've no interest in the stature of trinity globally.

No thank you. I quite like boards.ie.

Could have fooled me.

Yet you fail to address the other two points.

See previous points, i leave it to someone else who cares to rebuke the others

I find it hard to understand your assertion that basing part of my reasoning of why Harvard is better than Trinity on college income is somehow 'warped'.

Think about that for a second, you've basically just said achademic excellence and resources are the same, which is obviously not the same.

WigWam

Serenity wrote:

O dear, look i've gone and hurt your feelings.....

No not really, sticks and stones and all that. You're still engaged in diversionary tactics.

Serenity wrote:

I was pointing out the fact that you ignored the previous posters challange to you regardin the tables.

Yeah well, they can't all be wrong. Professional statisticians compile the data. Who are you to say otherwise?

Serenity wrote:

You brought up a new topic without any facts or figures, just asserted it.

And addressed this charge by with 4 points (there are many more, but nobody has convincingly addressed the initial 4).

Serenity wrote:

The point is, I said it, not you. And based on your previous posts its perfectly justified.

I'd appreciate an apology. Attack my points, not my person.

Serenity wrote:

I was never in the posts, I was merely pointing out what seemed like flawed logic, i've no interest in the stature of trinity globally.

Great.

Serenity wrote:

Could have fooled me.

'fool'? I wonder what makes you say that. You also seem to quite enjoy boards.ie given the number/frequency of postings you put up.

Serenity wrote:

See previous points, i leave it to someone else who cares to rebuke the others

Mmm.

Serenity wrote:

Think about that for a second, you've basically just said achademic excellence and resources are the same, which is obviously not the same.

No I didn't say that. You're attempting to put words in my mouth. Obviously, academic excellence and resources are not directly proportional to each other. However, I very much doubt Trinity could afford to pay to have some of the most technologically advanced equipment that Harvard have. You still ignore the other 2 points I made.

thecheekofyou

Discussion are rarely allowed to get off the ground here. I don't think it would be a good idea to lock this thread.

Pet

thecheekofyou wrote:

Discussion are rarely allowed to get off the ground here. I don't think it would be a good idea to lock this thread.

That may be true, but there's a lot of pedantry and pettiness going on here. If you stick to the points about Harvard vs Trinity, I see no reason why it would be locked.

ApeXaviour

thecheekofyou wrote:

Discussion are rarely allowed to get off the ground here. I don't think it would be a good idea to lock this thread.

This is not a discussion, this is [wiki]flaming[/wiki]

PM me should anybody wish to dispute this or if you want the thread split but otherwise:
thread locked.