What I have written about Bachelors degrees is even more true about Masters degrees. Until the 1980s the Masters degree was relatively unimportant in Britain. It usually consisted of a dissertation, either for students who wanted to do a research project but without committing themselves to several years of research (though nominally three years, the Doctorate often took six to seven years to complete), or for students who were changing direction in their studies. These options are still available, but nowadays, even though the dissertation is still an important part of the degree, up to two-thirds of the degree will consist of taught courses similar to, but more advanced than, those offered at an undergraduate level, and a higher degree of knowledge is expected. A ‘Taught Masters’ can perform a number of roles: as a simple continuation and intensification of what is done at the Bachelors level; as an entry point for those who have a first degree in another subject (especially in countries such as Spain and France where there has been no Bachelors level, but ‘conversion courses’ are also important in countries like Britain where students commonly change the direction of their studies after completing the first degree); as a shift to a more specialized area within archaeology (e. g., geophysics, heritage / cultural resource management; environmental or forensic archaeology, etc.); as a route towards the Doctorate, with an emphasis on acquiring research skills; or as a highly specialized degree as part of one’s professional development (e. g., in deciphering inscriptions in an ancient language). In contrast, most Masters degrees in the States are more generalized, but with a thesis in the area of specialization.
We can expect the provision of Masters courses to develop rapidly over the next decade. In the countries which are changing from the Humboldt structure, the Masters course is generally seen as a simple continuation from the Bachelors, leading directly on to the Doctorate, and so it is not a specialist degree. At the time of writing the first cohorts of students in some of these countries are reaching the Masters level. In some countries, notably Scotland, students will study for four years, and graduate with a Masters degree rather than a Bachelors, and in Oxford and Cambridge, students are offered an automatic Masters degree two years after graduating (which is how I acquired my Masters!). In countries where the Masters has been long established, there may be a great variety of courses on offer; in the 2006 listing of postgraduate courses in Britain, no fewer than 170 different Masters courses are listed under archaeology, taught at 30 different institutions, and even this is not complete as courses with a strong archaeological component may be listed under other headings such as Celtic Studies. Also, it is quite common for students who plan an archaeological career to deliberately take a Masters in a different subject, such as in natural sciences, to gain expertise in the area in which they plan to specialize.
In countries where a degree qualification is a legal requirement to practice, taking the Masters (and perhaps the Doctorate) is a necessity for entering the profession, and there is less flexibility in the sort of Masters course one takes. In Germany, failing to complete the sequence of degrees in the subject in which one originally started is considered tantamount to failure; in the British and American system, changes of direction are encouraged. In countries where the Bachelors has traditionally been the point of entry in one’s career, many students have not considered it worthwhile to continue with further levels of qualification. But we are now in an increasingly competitive world, and the range of skills we require to carry out our jobs has expanded vastly as well (acquisition of IT skills is one of the most obvious developments of the last 20 years), and this has led the bar for entry to be raised. In the 1960s I was told that, with a Bachelors degree, I was over-qualified for a post as City Archaeologist, and when I obtained my first permanent university lecturing post, I had still not completed my Doctorate. Nowadays a City Archaeologist would be expected to have a minimum of a Bachelors level archaeology degree backed with many years of experience, and new lecturers usually have a Doctorate, and several published papers, if not a book, behind them.
Thus, in the 1980s and 1990s there was a huge expansion in the provision of Taught Masters courses in Britain and in the USA, driven by three factors: first the need for more specialist expertise as the archaeology profession expanded and diversified; second, student demand, as students felt they had a better possibility of a post with a Masters rather than just a Bachelors degree; and third, competition between universities, as in Britain the level of funding from the Government depends on the rating of the department in the ‘Research Assessment Exercise’, and one of the factors taken into account is the number of postgraduate students in the department. In the past it was normal for students in Britain to move straight from the Bachelors to work on the Doctorate, but nowadays the Masters is seen as an almost essential step in research training for the Doctorate, and this will become more true as the Bologna system is adopted. However, with only limited funding and scholarships available, the student is faced with the difficult task of deciding what sort of Masters course to take and when to take it, and whether it is worth the financial outlay (fees and living expenses for one or two more years). Many students register immediately on completion of the Bachelors, but others take a year or two off to gain field and work experience, something which I would recommend, as one will get a much greater feel for what openings there are and what expertise is needed (no point in taking a Masters in a field which is already over-supplied): it may also give the opportunity to pay off debts and save money for further qualifications. In the States, however, one needs a Masters degree to work on sites on the National Register of Historic Places.
Whether to go for the Doctorate represents another dilemma, as in most countries this is largely, if not purely, a research degree, and so can lead one into over-specialized areas of expertise. This is less true in the USA where the doctorate contains a major taught component, indeed many students enter the commercial world ‘ABD’ (all but dissertation), that is, they have completed the taught element of the degree, but plan to submit the final part, the dissertation, later in their career. In countries such as Germany where the Doctorate is essential, students will have little choice but to continue to the higher level of qualification, and elsewhere it is essential for students who wish to pursue an academic career, for example, as a university teacher or in a research institute. In most of the former communist countries there are archaeological institutes which carry out major research, and, increasingly, rescue projects. These are based on the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), and in France, entry into this elite group of researchers is highly competitive, and considered of higher status than a university post, though the situation is becoming blurred as members of the CNRS and their research groups often have close links with universities and provide some of the teaching. In some countries such as France and Germany those pursuing a university career may also have to complete a higher level of doctorate, the Habilitation, usually prepared while the researcher holds a junior temporary post in the university.
World History
