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Navigating Advanced Degrees in the UK - Ep 287
542 Plays6 months ago
Are you looking towards the UK as you consider graduate schools in archaeology? This week, Doug gives us a rundown on how the system “over there” works, and we compare it to the US system. Even though both countries speak English, many words mean different things when the systems collide - you have been warned!
Transcripts
- For rough transcripts of this episode go to https://www.archpodnet.com/crmarchpodcast/287
Blogs and Resources:
- Bill White: Succinct Research
- Doug Rocks-MacQueen: Doug’s Archaeology
- Chris Webster: DIGTECH LLC
- Andrew Kinkella Kinkella Teaches Archaeology (Youtube) Blog: Kinkella Teaches Archaeology
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Transcript
Introduction to CRM Archaeology Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. This is the Serum Archaeology Podcast. It's the show where we pull back the veil of cultural resources management archaeology and discuss the issues that everyone is concerned about. Welcome to the podcast.
Episode Introduction and Co-Host Banter
00:00:44
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the CRM archaeology podcast, episode two hundred and eighty seven. And I am your stand in host, Andrew Kinkela. And I'm here today with only Doug, everyone. And I was just saying hi to everyone. Oh, you're trying to say hi.
00:01:04
Speaker
See, already, already there's tension between us, Doug. And I think we should fill everyone in, though. The reason why it's just you and me is because everyone else had something better to do. What's up with that? You know what I mean? Leaving Doug and I in a thing I'd like to call the lurch.
00:01:22
Speaker
So here we are deep in the lurch. And we actually, though, I think came up with a really interesting thing to talk about.
Exploring UK Advanced Degrees (Q&A)
00:01:32
Speaker
And I had class yesterday and a student of mine was asking about.
00:01:40
Speaker
Advanced degrees in the UK, you know, of which I know precious little. And so in talking about that right before this show, Doug said, hey, I work in the UK and I'm like, oh, yeah, that's great. So I think for this show,
00:01:57
Speaker
It'll be me just sort of asking Doug about what it's like to work in the UK as an archaeologist. How does the education system work for an archaeologist in the UK? How do you bring that experience back if you move back to the United States and so on.
00:02:14
Speaker
Doug, that's what I got. I guess I'll just start with the question on sort of the advanced degrees, whether they be masters or PhD. How does that work? Yeah, actually probably be slightly easier. So it'll make a little bit more sense if I just slightly go back. Yeah. And we start with undergraduate. And then one key thing to sort of
00:02:35
Speaker
understand about working in the UK or coming over and doing school is so it's a United Kingdom. So technically, it's three different kingdoms, and they all are semi-devolved. Plus, Wales adds a little extra thing in there. Wales is not a kingdom. It was a principality. They're conquered way too soon.
00:02:54
Speaker
they can do the union, all historical stuff, but they are in charge of their education system. So the four nations of the UK, England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, each sort of control their own education systems, a bit similar to how it is in the States with each state essentially setting a lot of standards, having some slight differences, but then you have like sort of federal government where it puts down
00:03:22
Speaker
regulations, if you want to accept federal money, you have to follow those and most everyone dies. But that's kind of key because there are some differences. And the rest, most of the UK, it's actually a three-year undergraduate and it's very different
00:03:40
Speaker
than America where you would typically get a much broader education. You know, a liberal arts education is, I believe, the correct terminology for that, in that, you know, you go to university and you have certain crises you have to do, so you might end up having to do
00:03:58
Speaker
two math classes, maybe one, you have to do some sort of English class or up to like, you know, English 102 or, you know, each university would be slightly different. You'll have to do like a sociology or, you know, you have to do some sort of hard science and you have to sort of mix that together.
Comparing UK and US Undergraduate Education
00:04:14
Speaker
In most of the UK, that's not it. You basically jump into
00:04:19
Speaker
your degree and you pretty much do that. You don't usually do classes outside of your degree and what's required. You could do sort of what's like double honors, which would be like the almost the US equivalent of like a double major.
00:04:35
Speaker
as it were, so you can kind of mix up stuff. But usually people tend to do it the same. I think the most unique one I saw was probably Tristan, who helps run the podcast network. I think chemistry and archaeology. But usually you actually get something like ancient history or history and archaeology. They don't actually usually double up that far apart. And the difference though is Scotland, where the undergraduate is actually four years.
00:05:05
Speaker
And then just to confuse everything and everyone, technically some of the Scottish degrees, the four years are actually called MAs.
00:05:21
Speaker
Along with Cambridge and Oxford as well, you can also apply to have your undergraduate actually be called an MA. It's still a bachelor's. It still ties into this whole, well, back when the UK was part of the EU, but this international bachelorette. It's this whole system of being able to align all the different countries and make sure their degrees are
00:05:46
Speaker
fairly similar. So if you got a degree in say, Italy, it would count in France. And so that's somewhat standardized it and it's somewhat standardizes it to America as well. So even though like Edinburgh, like Scotland has that as well, where there's like the Scottish MA, like Edinburgh, even though it's a four year, it's, it's all bachelor's. It's the equivalent of a bachelor's, but it's very different. And then like shockingly,
00:06:16
Speaker
Time as well. So, all right, Andrew, it's been like almost, God, we're starting to get at least 15 years, maybe 20 years since I was an undergraduate. Yeah. Is it 16 or 18 weeks typically in the US? Per semester? Yeah. It actually depends. You can have, I think 16-ish is more typical. It's like 16 and a half is a very typical semester.
00:06:42
Speaker
Yeah. I also remember like some people can also do like tri-semester things. Yes, quarters. They call it quarters even though there's three, but you count summer as a fourth. So we have our own oddities, you know, on our side. Yeah.
00:07:00
Speaker
generally in the UK, the semester, so they do do like a sort of split in half semesters, basically, though not quite, they don't always quite break exactly how we do
Semester Structures: UK vs US
00:07:13
Speaker
it. And they have a, like their Easter break, like they actually call it Easter break, and it can be several weeks long. It's, it's a bit different system, but it's also about 10 to 12 weeks. So sorry, what is what is 10 to 12 weeks?
00:07:29
Speaker
the semester in the UK. And then also like, you know, again, I'm going, I know like across the United States, was there 8,000 colleges and universities? Everyone's are slightly different, but you know, credit hours is a fairly common one. So, you know, in the US, if you had three credit hour class, that meant you were going to be in class for, you know,
00:07:53
Speaker
three hours a week, usually. Unless, of course, you did something like Art Studio and then you just double that. So if it's three credit hours, you're actually doing six. I know some degrees do it slightly different, but that's a probably pretty general rule. I think so. That's true. For the equivalent, you might actually only spend eight hour a week in the UK. So it's a lot shorter and it is
00:08:19
Speaker
a lot less, like you just have so much less time face to face. Like, you know, cause usually, you know, if you're doing like 16 credit hours, you'd probably be in class, you're about 16, 17 hours a week or something like that. In the UK, you might
00:08:38
Speaker
You might push 10. Dude, I don't see. I didn't know any of this. And I just find this whole conversation fascinating. Like, I love all of this stuff because students have asked me, you know, for decades at this point about some of this stuff. And I would just sort of mealy mouth it. You know, I'd be like, well, I think and I knew none of this. This is this has just been, you know, this black hole mystery to me. So I think this is awesome.
Pre-University Education Systems
00:09:05
Speaker
I have one or two questions just in terms of
00:09:07
Speaker
OK, so if in the UK system you're kind of specializing very early, it sounds like, right? You're going for your bachelor's and it's very specialized. Is the understanding that I learned how to read and write in in high school like is that like is that the understanding? Like I already know how to write because I got that in high school, so I'm going to college to focus.
00:09:28
Speaker
Yes. Also there's different, again, sounds super confusing for different people because technically some parts like college is actually, most people essentially finish high school at 16 and then spend the last two years, which sometimes is called college, even though you also have like, so there's like Edinburgh college as well.
00:09:54
Speaker
But sometimes like that, basically you study for these various exams and Scotland has a different name for it and England has a different name for it. You take these ones and then basically your entire university career is based off of these exams. You might take a big, deep exam in history and English and math and geography and
00:10:20
Speaker
underwater pottery basket weaving something. You take so many of them and then you get like an A or B or various different scores. Again, slightly different in Scotland because it was a union in 1707 and they were able to keep their own education system because it was a union, not a conquest. But yeah, basically, they do that. Imagine if it was the ACTs or SATs,
00:10:49
Speaker
but you've actually studied for like two years for them and they're much more intense. Actually, oh, I mean, that was becoming a thing. I'm pretty sure it's still a thing. SAT twos. Is that still a thing? I've never heard it called that, but we have we have the SATs and then God, for grad school, there's the the the GREs, I think.
00:11:10
Speaker
SAT twos was a thing, or at least about 20 years ago, where you could take like a history SAT testing. And sometimes universities would count it as a college credit level. We call those AP tests, advanced placement. So you take the AP test. That's what those are called now.
00:11:29
Speaker
Yeah. Well, so actually different, slightly different than AP, because AP definitely, if you got it, most schools would accept on that five point scale, like in three or four or five. Yes. It's harder to say, but then universities
Liberal Arts vs Specialized Education (Debate)
00:11:43
Speaker
basically
00:11:45
Speaker
they offer places and they'll be like, oh, all right, if you got out of your four tests, four A's and one B will give you a place at Oxford. Well, they'd be like, you need six of these A level A's and all these different things. But it is a lot more intense at that level. Like your exams, again, at the university are more intense.
00:12:06
Speaker
So I did master's and PhD, so I actually ended up doing some teaching as well. I am going to piss people off, but I think they think much more hire themselves, thinking that their students are much more advanced coming in and don't need a liberal arts.
00:12:26
Speaker
And you do see it, especially with what they'd call first years, we'd call freshmen. I would say that they're almost at comparable level to the US.
00:12:40
Speaker
maybe a little bit better in that they might be there and then might not. But honestly, to be 100% honest with you, I do think liberal arts, they should be taking more classes and developing better writing skills or better science skills and more broad-based
00:12:59
Speaker
Yeah, education to help with those areas. I totally agree. I've always been. I've always been a fan of that. I understand the critique of people just taking ballroom dancing as their major and then coming out of college in huge college debt with like no skills. I totally get that critique, but I never want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I want to be like, no, dude, like I want I want it all. You know, I want, hey, let's have a strong liberal education and at the same time a focus that also has, you know, skills and that kind of thing.
00:13:29
Speaker
on top of it. So this is fascinating. We're already at the break for the first bit. So when we come back, more on learning in the UK. So we'll see you guys in a minute.
00:13:45
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the CRM archaeology podcast, episode 287. And Doug and I have been talking about the education system in the UK and we will bring it around to archaeology as we go. So Doug, you were on a roll and it's just been fascinating. So if you just want to continue, just, just go for it. Yeah, I think we'll pick up a little bit where we were just talking about, you know, preparedness of students.
00:14:09
Speaker
It also would be different in the UK in that in America, there's a larger range of educational opportunities and sort of educational opportunities that can move you along
00:14:22
Speaker
to get a degree. So Andrew, you're at a community college, you're doing two-year degrees. And there's a lot of people who go for a two-year degree associate. Some just stop at that point. Others are using that as a springboard to go to a full bachelor's. And honestly, I highly recommend it in the States, depending on where you are. Because two years at a community college costs almost nothing. You save so much money. I know. People didn't realize sometimes. It's pocket change, dude, in comparison.
00:14:52
Speaker
Yeah. It's a great thing. The UK doesn't really have that. And also they've had a huge change over the last decade and a half with their, well, a little bit longer with their educational system. So Scotland, still mostly free university. Wales charge is much lower. England, it's about 9,000 a student. And it's all locked. There's a much higher central control.
00:15:17
Speaker
there, so all universities have to charge the same amount. There's no variation, there's none of this, you can go to Harvard for $60,000. You pay the same amount if you go to Seaside College as you do to Oxford. But there's been a lot of changes, there's been introductions, and part of that is they basically gutted what we would call continuing education. They'd sort of call it lifelong learning over here.
00:15:43
Speaker
And you know, it's like a community college. You probably also get a lot of people who come in sort of later, later in life. And yes, they're, they're interested in, sometimes it's just like one class or, you know, they just, you're just taking a class because you're interested in a subject. They just want to learn stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And there's still like tiny bits of departments, but there used to be like, ah, the numbers, it was like maybe 8,000,
00:16:08
Speaker
I think at the peak, which was maybe 2006 or 2005, 10,000 people taking these lifelong learning courses in the UK, and now it's down in the hundreds. They basically gutted it. Also, a lot of those courses lead people on to potentially degrees later in life.
00:16:29
Speaker
They do. I've seen it. Yeah. Yep. I've seen it multiple times. What happens is you'll get people who have retired or maybe they were successful, maybe they were a successful lawyer or something, you know, and they've retired, but they've been like, man, I've just always been super interested in archaeology, you know, and I've seen people like have full on second careers, you know, then it starts in that lifelong learning phase.
00:16:51
Speaker
Yeah. Mostly in the UK, there's not that sort of pipeline, as it were. They've killed most of it. And then also that sort of sink or swim. As we were talking about, when you get to university, actually, the liberal arts, being able to get that extra support or a different class to teach you maybe some of those other skills, if you basically fail out, you fail out. It's much more of a, you go to university,
00:17:19
Speaker
Or you go learn a trade and there is, there used to be, it used to be like huge retraining programs, especially when they closed down a lot of the mines and stuff. A lot of the miners went on to actually go to get university degrees, second careers. That just doesn't exist
Lifelong Learning and Second-Career Opportunities
00:17:34
Speaker
anymore. It's, it's much more of a, you either are in there, you get the degree this way.
00:17:41
Speaker
Or again, if you're coming back, there are some lifelong courses, like universities still have a very small department that does that, what they call lifelong learning. It's very small. You can kind of slightly build your way into a degree, but really not all of those credits will quite transfer correctly. And because it's so specialized, like the lifelong learning, you'll have a whole range of different courses. It's actually really awesome. So in like Scotland, I've done,
00:18:08
Speaker
a course on data visualization at Glasgow. I've done a, okay. So actually I shouldn't use the term course course would be like what we call a degree course. They'd actually call a module. So instead of like a class or a course, what we call in the States, they'd call a module. So I've done module. Yeah. Different terms. I've done a module on like data visualization at Glasgow. I did one with Dundee, which was how to communicate with comics. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. But those credits.
00:18:37
Speaker
If you were to build up in the United States, you could build up a bunch of that liberal arts credits and that would count. You really can't do that because it's so narrowly focused. Coming back for a second career, you basically have to commit to doing a full-time or part-time degree, three years, six years, or four or eight if you're in Scotland. There's not really a chance. You can maybe pick up
00:19:07
Speaker
occasional few credits here or there, maybe start a few in archaeology, but then you have to really commit. And that's the same with pretty much any degree. It's much harder than in the states where you can sort of, you know, over a couple of years, take a couple classes, maybe get an interest and then go back. And then you have a bunch of other credits that can really help you to get like a build up to get your bachelor's. It's really much all or nothing.
00:19:34
Speaker
So I've probably talked enough about the undergraduates. Um, there are some, you know, you get some students and a few Americans who come over to do undergraduates again, three years. If you're in the rest of the UK, four years, if you're in Scotland, it's, you know, also be careful. Like, yeah, while the fees are, are 9,000 for UK people in England, free in Scotland, they can charge. There's no cap on foreign students.
00:20:04
Speaker
Yeah. For an undergraduate, it doesn't actually make that much sense because you can come over and you're paying like 20, 30,000 or 40,000 pounds. It used to be worse when the pounds were worth a lot more dollars. Now, it's not too bad of a deal. If you go to like the England where it's only a three-year degree, you could still probably make it
00:20:24
Speaker
financially viable, especially compared to doing out-of-state. In-state, I don't think there's an economic advantage. The only thing is it's cool because you're in a different country, different cultures, different ways of doing things.
00:20:41
Speaker
where you can really make really good money on most places is when you come and do the master's degree. Because they have basically two types of masters. One is a top masters, which is you basically do, it's only one year. And that's the same across all the UK, so Scotland for once isn't different. And basically,
00:21:02
Speaker
It's taught again, shorter semesters, shorter contact hours. I mean, you're looking 10, 12 hours.
UK Grading System and Student Support
00:21:10
Speaker
It's a lot more, you're doing stuff on your own. Oh, also something else is, you know, in the States, you'd have like midterms and you probably have assignments happening throughout the year. So you might have like an essay due maybe like four weeks in or like a, a small project or a little test or a quiz or something like that.
00:21:31
Speaker
Yeah, not in the UK. Basically, most of it goes all the way to the end, and then you might have a final essay you turn in, and it's one, and you might have a final exam. And you might have a combination where it's a mixture of a final exam, a final essay, and they might split up wherever your grade is between those two.
00:21:53
Speaker
But especially at undergraduate level, it's mainly exams. And they'll differ between different degrees and different subjects and stuff like that. But basically, it's all or nothing. So there's not like that sort of you can sort of mess up once and that's it. You mess up on your final exams, you have to retake. Then you have to do the course again. There's none of this sort of averaging it out. Doing those calculations at the end, I remember always, you get to your final and you're like,
00:22:23
Speaker
I want to pass all depth to get like a 70 on that. I'm OK. Yeah. No, it's totally different. That happens all the time. You know, students are like, OK, if I can just get a sixty eight point two five, I'll be all right. And honestly, I never liked that. It's funny, as we've been talking for the most part, I've been like, yeah, United States, U.S. USA. Right. I've been like, like we're doing things right. The one thing about that sort of all or nothing, there are aspects of that I kind of like, you know, it's that's not all bad.
00:22:51
Speaker
What do you like about that? Because on the flip side, it just it just cuts out the whiners in the middle, man. You know, it's like, look, you're here to learn, learn for this class. We have a test at the end, you know, and then as a professor, I'm here to like help you as best I can through this whole journey. But then we're going to have this test barring like when you do stuff throughout the semester, sometimes they'll be like, like it enables much more magical thinking. And what I mean by that is like
00:23:19
Speaker
Soon I'll be like, why did I get an F in this class? I got a C on the first test. And it's like, yeah, but you got like an F on everything else. You know, it's when it's just sort of a thing at the end, it just calls it. It's like, here you go. You know, so I'm I'm of I'm of two minds. I'm not saying I'm all in on it, but I respect that side. That's that's what I would say.
00:23:42
Speaker
I'd also say it's a bit different as well, grading. So, you know, usually, again, mostly across the state, and this will be generalization, you're grading your students' papers and you know the student you're grading, correct? Yeah. Yeah, totally. Always.
00:23:58
Speaker
Yeah. It's anonymous in the UK. So you get it back and you basically grade and you don't. You may know because maybe the students have come to like office hours and you've worked on that essay with them. So then you'll know. I've always recommended to students to do that because, you know, there's ways to, it's the best way to improve. Yes. But it's anonymous and it's usually, there's a second person who reviews it.
00:24:23
Speaker
And then again, those grades go out to another review system that this whole review system where allegedly name doesn't matter. So all degrees, they have external examiners or external
00:24:41
Speaker
No, eternal exam is not the right term. I forget what it's called. But basically, every degree, every program in the UK has to have externals who basically look at the entire program and make suggestions. And so they're like, oh, well, maybe you should teach this slightly different, things like that. And then they also review a sampling of the essays. And the idea is that whether you get a degree in Oxford or whether you get a degree in Glasgow, they're equivalent.
00:25:10
Speaker
Right. I get that. Name doesn't. They're not because name makes a huge difference. So that's like the grading. Sorry, there's a roundabout wave. I sort of had to explain. So it's anonymous. No, this is dude. It's like sometimes on the show, you know, we go over and I'm like, oh, man, we got to reel it in. I think this is great. You're explaining things like straightforward. People want to know. Just go for it, man.
00:25:33
Speaker
Well, so this comes back to like the slight problem with the like all or nothing is basically, especially like for that first year students, you get to the end and you don't know if anyone's been struggling along the way. And then also it's anonymous. You can't like, I'd get essays back and I don't know if the issue is maybe they had dyslexia.
00:25:58
Speaker
if they weren't just prepared or if English was a second language. And the promise is like, I get this back, it's all or nothing. So yeah, the archaeology part's not bad.
00:26:14
Speaker
but it's not a coherent essay. And you basically like, there's no way to catch it. And then there's like, I remember writing in, in one of the things I was like, Hey man, you, you, as a feedback, I was like, you really need to go see, so the library at, at the university Edinburgh had like support and stuff for essay writing in English as a second language and stuff like that.
00:26:36
Speaker
You know what I hate, Doug? You know what I hate? I hate it when you have a really good point. God damn it. I totally agree with you. I get that. I get that. I get the like intervention earlier on. I was just thinking in terms of tests and stuff. I'm like, oh, oh, nothing at the end. That's cool. But but I'm always for liking to know the students. And you're totally right to get something from them early on just as a check of kind of like, how are you doing? What do you know? What do you not know? I stand aside to your mastery.
00:27:06
Speaker
Well, it also, it's, it's hard as like, I put in comments like suggesting that they go and possibly get support for English as a second language or dyslexia. And those comments were stripped out. Yeah, that's a bummer. Cause it had to be anonymous. Right. And if, if I was saying things like, I get it, like.
00:27:30
Speaker
There's a lot of issues with writing that people can have, and there's different reasons behind it. They either had dyslexia or English was a second language, and they needed support with that, but I couldn't put those comments in there. If they didn't do well in my class,
00:27:50
Speaker
I'm assuming the same problem occurred in all the other ones. And they probably just were hammered at the end. And either this is another thing. Grading skills completely different in the UK. What is this alien landscape you're taking me to? Yeah. So you have what's called a first, which is anything above a 70.
00:28:12
Speaker
You have a 2-1, which is between 60 and 70, or 60 and 69. A 2-2, it's there. Basically, if you get below either 40 or 50, depending, you failed. But they do a huge grading on a bell curve. The biggest shock for Americans when they get there is all of a sudden, you get a 65.
00:28:42
Speaker
That's actually a pretty good grade. People used to like 90 or 90s. Again, they usually don't give like 80. When I say like a 70 or above, it's usually you're getting 70, 71, 72. I think the highest grade I was able to get, because again, had to go to a second person to grade and agree with. I think the highest I was ever able to give out was like a 76.
00:29:10
Speaker
Right. Wow. See, I didn't know any of this. Like, like this is I just think I just find this fascinating, dude. And actually with that, I get looking at the time, man, we'll have to go to segment three, where we'll just have to like, you know, answer all the questions. And we got to get to the sort of the master's and PhD and their and their their length of time. I'm so interested in that. Anyway, we'll continue in a moment. We'll be right back.
00:29:38
Speaker
Okay. Welcome back one more time to the CRM archaeology podcast, episode 287. And Doug has been talking about the strange, wonderful world of the UK education system and we'll just keep going. So Doug, just continue. This has been a total eye opener and super interesting for me.
00:29:58
Speaker
So actually, it's kind of built up.
Master's Degrees in the UK
00:30:01
Speaker
So now that I've given you a lot of background, I can actually sort of explain the masters, which basically, there's two types of masters. And it's the same, it's the same sort of setup that we've just gone over for sort of undergraduate, you know, what they call a degree would be a course, you take a course in archaeology, or, you know, whatever that is, and that's actually a degree, they call it modules, which would be our classes, what we'd probably call courses, well, you know,
00:30:24
Speaker
one or two hours a week for each class, maybe 10 to 12 in a week of hours, maybe a little less, not a lot of FaceTime, you know, 12 weeks ish, but sometimes it's not really a real 12 weeks because
00:30:40
Speaker
The first week is sort of a blow-off week, and then the last week, you know, it's shortened. It's about two semesters. And usually, same as undergraduate, in your master's, there'll be either a test. You tend to do a lot more essays by the time you get to a master's, at least in archaeology. Oh, yeah.
00:30:56
Speaker
But yeah, again, it is like you turn in one paper and that is, that's it. That determines what happens in your course. And that's basically it. So you have two semesters, maybe like five or six modules. It depends how big the modules are.
00:31:14
Speaker
So that's maybe eight to 12 hours of contact with your professor, which again, has a slightly different thing. When they call it use the term professor, it means full professor. Whereas your assistant professor would be a lecturer. And then sometimes they have a thing called associate or a reader, which is your associate professor. And again, there's been some Americanization where some terms have been imported.
00:31:43
Speaker
Bristol does like assistant professor, associate professor and full professor. Right. But for the most part, yeah, it's like lectures, like what you'd call your assistant. Dude. Okay. Yeah. I'm trying to get all the terminology correct in my head. Yeah. So yeah, but like, so I'm going to use the Americanism, but yeah, your contact with your professor, usually it's actually a lecture. There's going to be that and you do that. And then if you're, so that's for taught, like, you know, do like, you know,
00:32:12
Speaker
It depends on how many credits are in the module, and then you have to end up with the same amount of credits. They're not the same as credit hours, but you break it up. Then you do that, and then you have a dissertation thesis that you do at the end. It depends on the degree, but for a taught,
00:32:35
Speaker
maybe between 12 or 14,000 at the low end and 20,000 max. This is words, words. Yeah. About how many pages? So that's it. Um, another thing is in the UK, it's all by words. Yeah. So you don't turn essays by pages by words.
UK PhD Programs and Research Focus
00:32:52
Speaker
So your essay, like for one of those modules might be 3000 words, 1500 and
00:32:58
Speaker
And that doesn't quite work. Cause then, you know, you can do larger font, like people aren't fiddling with like the margins of fonts. I mean, there's a standard, you know, Romans 12 font, a double space, stuff like that. But yeah, yeah. You don't end up with America where people are slightly trying to adjust a little bit of font here and there to hit that, that page limit. So it's all by words. And so, yeah, it's, it can be as low as like 10,000 words up to about 20.
00:33:28
Speaker
There's also sort of a masters of philosophy, which you could take as standalone.
00:33:36
Speaker
That'd be a Master's of Arts or a Master's of Science. Luckily, those terms are the same. It's not different. That's your top master's. You can also do an MPhil, Master's of Philosophy, which doesn't really have any teaching. You might have maybe one or two modules and it'd be like a 30,000 word thesis. You can either take a standalone or you can take that as part of your PhD, which is supposed to be three years.
00:34:06
Speaker
So if you didn't do a master's, so I did a top master's and they didn't make me do the MPhil again for my PhD. If you go straight from undergraduate into a PhD, which you can do, you don't have to do a top master's, you basically do a 30,000 sort of mini PhD thesis, 30,000 words.
00:34:31
Speaker
you, they look at it and your outcomes are either like you fail, you fail everything, they kick you out of the course, you, you've somewhat failed and that they fail you to an infill. So like they're not going to get your PhD and you, you end out with an infill. You can also take an infill standalone as well. So
00:34:53
Speaker
You got to be careful because some people will be like, oh, did you fail out a PhD? No, I just took it in. Yes. OK, so the United States system is actually vaguely similar on this. What's funny is, as we were talking, I did some quick calculations in terms of your word counts. And I actually think the length of a master's thesis in both countries is vaguely similar. You know, like like we're talking 75 pages, that kind of thing. Yeah. You know, it's about.
00:35:20
Speaker
That's that's what I think. I think my master's thesis was 70 pages. You know, like that's that's so. So we're not talking crazy differences. It's just the labels for everything are different. The UK system, the whole I won't go into how it compares specifically to the US system because it'll just get way in the weeds. But but it's not far off in terms of, oh, in the US, it'd be like, oh, we're just giving you a terminal masters instead of being able or
00:35:47
Speaker
We're just throwing, sort of throwing your master's degree instead of allowing you to continue on to the PhD. You know, so it's not a complete waste of your time. Very similar system. It's just less taught time. So like, yeah, usually, so if you were in the terminal masters, which would be maybe two years of teaching.
00:36:05
Speaker
or being in talk courses and a PhD, you'd probably do your first two years. When you say two years, I'm sorry to break in just for a moment. When you say two years of teaching, what does that does that mean, going to class for two years? Yeah. OK. So when you say two years of teaching, I feel like, wait, you're a you're a TA for two years. Right. So it's now it's two years of going to class. OK. Yeah. Sorry. In the United States, it's between about two or three years of where you're you're that. And then
00:36:30
Speaker
It'll go on for another couple of years where you just work on your dissertation thesis or whatever you want to call it. In the United States, it's supposed to end at five, but people go six, seven. No, but it goes five. Yeah, it's like never happens. Again, in the UK, it's a similar thing where it's supposed to be three years. Again, if you could do a top masters
00:36:53
Speaker
and then sort of skip the infill part, but it's still supposed to be three years, but it's three years straight research. You don't have to ever take any classes if you don't want to. They might give you like some really basic, your first year, like a how to do research
00:37:10
Speaker
throw away, like it doesn't count as like a actual like credits. Like it's not gonna, it's not gonna count for your PhD. Not everyone does that. And they basically, again, much more of a sink or swim. There's not a lot of buildup. And so you actually have to have like, and you know, like in the U, you ask people like maybe spend that first two years of like while they're taking sort of classes and before they do their big sort of exams where they either decide if you have a terminal masters or not.
00:37:41
Speaker
You sort of work on your ideas. You maybe not have a fully formed one. There's not really that chance. You pretty much have to go in with a thesis. Yeah.
00:37:52
Speaker
And you can sort of revise it. And some people change, you know, topics. Yeah, dramatically. It takes longer. But yeah, it's basically there's nothing else. If you go straight to a PhD, you basically that's it. All you're doing is your thesis. You just write. So there's basically. So what I'm getting is in the UK system, whether it's masters or PhD, you go straight in and you're just researching for your like project. There's no like classes and stuff. Really, you're just like researching.
00:38:22
Speaker
If it's not taught, so there's a taught master's and then there's like the MPhil, which is, yeah, again, peer research and PhD, which again, they might knock you down to an MPhil, also peer research. There's nothing there. They do also a lot less sort of TAing or research assistant stuff. Like you don't actually get a lot of practice. They're pushing more towards it. So they're now offering more sort of student chip where, you know, if you teach
00:38:52
Speaker
one or two classes more towards the US, but probably still again, not as intense because sometimes people in the US will be teaching four and four classes each semester while they're doing their PhD, which is insane. It's still less, but it used to be almost nothing. People would basically come out of their PhD programs
00:39:14
Speaker
not so much anymore, but two decades ago, it was almost unheard of to do any teaching. And so people would come out and then they'd get a lectureship and then that was it. They dropped you in and like, well, that first year of teaching, you got to learn how to teach. There was no practice, none of that sort of being a TA, none of that. It's getting more towards the American system.
00:39:37
Speaker
There are now more funding, but also a whole lot less funding. Again, this is because they're now charging a lot more money for degrees. In the US, and there are certain programs, I think maybe it's Vanderbilt or Vassar or something, they don't accept any PhD unless you have fully funded.
00:39:58
Speaker
Right. In the United States, a lot of people will be partially funded some way. I was. There's a few people that get the National Science Foundation, whatever, PhD stuff. There's a couple of those, couple other funds. But a lot of it is TA teaching undergraduate courses, or sorry, classes. No, that's true. That's what it was.
00:40:22
Speaker
Well, I went, and this was about a decade ago for my PhD. They really didn't have that. They had about two. Right after me, they started two people who basically got part funding, and actually the only reason I was able to do my PhD is I split funding within someone else. I didn't actually have to teach. I taught a little bit for the money, but they'd given out like that year, maybe there was like three
00:40:46
Speaker
three sources of funding and two of us split one of them in archaeology, 10 or 15 people. In the States, at least there are statistics. I think it's like 60 to 70%
00:41:01
Speaker
maybe a different between university will probably have some sort of funding, usually like a TA ship or a research assistant or something like that. Whereas in the UK, it's almost exactly switched where maybe only 10, 20, 30% of the students will be on some sort of funding that way. Yeah. Damn.
00:41:20
Speaker
But this comes back to the money thing. Again, this was years ago, but you can go there. If you have to go out of state in the US, 40, 50, 60,000 per year, that's two years, maybe three for a master's. Even if you're going to the UK where it's 20,000, which is probably about 25,000 US, it's only for one year.
Financial and Career Considerations for UK Degrees
00:41:49
Speaker
It's a great deal, price-wise, and potentially PhD-wise as well. If you can't get funding in the States, only paying for three years, and they only usually charge you for three years, so if you do the fourth or a fifth year, they charge you a nominal fee of
00:42:07
Speaker
a thousand pounds or something, but it's not like a full charge for the full three years. And so if you have no funding in the States and usually, you know, like, especially if you're going to CRM where like you're actually looking for a terminal masters, you're not looking to go to a PhD and they don't, there's not, there's not as many opportunities to get funding for that. Usually it makes sense. I remember cause like, you know, so I went to UNM and UNM thinks that self a bit higher
00:42:33
Speaker
and mightier than it is and wants to be. And they wanted to start at University of New Mexico. They don't accept any of their undergraduates into their master's programs, except very rarely, at least when I went. So I was looking, they only wanted undergraduates from Berkeley and Michigan.
00:42:53
Speaker
No, it's that's, that was the, that was their sort of in, you know, academic thing. Yeah. Yeah. But so there was no way I was ever going to go be able to go to UNM. I might've been able to go to like the Mexico state, but I was looking at out of state basically. Well, Eastern possibly, you know, there's a couple of options, but small state and the pro closest one to me. So I'd have to move to like, you know, a couple of hundred miles away to a different university, different town.
00:43:23
Speaker
or basically go out of state. So for me, it made so much more sense. Actually, when I came over to the UK, I was actually planning on just doing one year masters so I could get the secretary of interiors qualifications and come back and use VRM. Things happened. I ended up getting partially funded for a PhD. So I was like, well, it was also the middle of the great recession. I was like, yeah, there's not any jobs. I might as well just stick it out a little bit. Yeah, sure. But for people who are coming back,
00:43:51
Speaker
Yeah, this is what I'm curious about because it's like, you know, these these differences in the systems, like what I'm kind of getting is like, all right, the the the UK system is no BS. You just go in and you just like research your project and you finish it. And it seems like, you know, the finished product, whether it be a master's or PhD and the actual research is not too terribly different. But the but so the knowledge in those places would be about the same.
00:44:17
Speaker
But, but in terms of kind of obviously a more broad based education, the ability to teach the sort of heaviness of each degree, like, like the ones in the United States seem a little bit heavier. So I'm curious, like, like can degrees from the UK work in the US? Yeah. So all you have to do is cause you know, in the US degrees work on accreditation. So you either have national accreditation, which is surprisingly considered less. So a lot of like community colleges have national accrediting bodies.
00:44:45
Speaker
any of the regional ones, which tend to do the four-year master's, and those tend to be held in a higher degree. But any degree, again, the United States works in a way of a union. It's a union of 50 states. Each state does their own education, but to be able to accept, and so if you get a degree in Alabama, you can work
00:45:07
Speaker
in Alaska. It's accreditation. And all you have to do is when you come back to the United States, you pay one of those accrediting bodies. When I looked at it, it was like maybe 200 bucks. It's probably like a thousand now, inflation, and also that was like a decade ago. But you just come back, you pay it, they accreditate your degree, and it will count for any
00:45:31
Speaker
anyone who, like any federal agency or state agency that requires a degree, that's it. All you have to do is pay that little extra. Some people do not know that they need to do that. They seem to know, like if you're going over there, just budget, find out how much it costs. It's not, you know,
00:45:48
Speaker
Not right. It's a couple hundred. It's not too much. Yeah. Get that and they have to accept it. Yeah, that is so huge. Like, God, people, you know, advanced students going into this, they need to know that they need to go that know that like out of the gate. It's like if you're going to the UK, you need to know that you can get your degree accredited and it will count. I will say, you know, coming sometimes it's a little difficult to I think for people to get their degrees in the UK because to us in the US, it looks thinner.
00:46:17
Speaker
You know, like on the like when you hear the the time frame, you're like, that just is not doesn't have the depth of a US degree. So sometimes I think if you're in like a hiring situation, somebody with a degree from the United States might have an edge.
00:46:33
Speaker
Yeah. I'd say more than that. Because what I hear is the term, I love it. And not as a sarcastic of love, I do find it funny, is a drive-by degree is what it's called. Yes. Oh yeah. You go over and get that for your masters. Yeah. And there's definitely discrimination. So if people are hiring based on degrees, they're definitely going to look at that and be like, oh, your degree is not worth as much. But once you're in CRM,
00:46:58
Speaker
It's true. Even if you go straight through undergraduate masters and PhD, you're going to be a tech.
00:47:07
Speaker
No one's going to hire you and you're getting hired. You're not getting hired on that degree, really. They're kind of like, okay, whatever. You're being hired on. Have you ever done CRM before? And CRM locally, usually. Yeah. Oh, that's huge. That's another thing that can kind of hurt you is if you go overseas and you get experience overseas,
00:47:30
Speaker
You know, that's the biggest complaint in like the NCRM in the US. And it's a big complaint in the UK as well for archaeology over here when you're doing development-led. It's like, yeah, okay, so you dug in Cyprus. That has nothing to do with the UK. But again, if you don't have that experience,
00:47:49
Speaker
If you don't have actually professional experience, you're pretty much in the same boat. Maybe they're going to hire the local degree or the person who did the local field school over you, and there's going to be that discrimination. But as soon as you have your first CRM job, you're most likely, again, different employers are different ways. Some people are still snotty and uppity and all that stuff. But for the most part,
00:48:14
Speaker
When it comes to that master's, it's like, Oh, can you turn that into get permitted? And as long as you have your degree accredited, that's all they're going to care about. That's not like, if you're looking at the person with like 10 years of experience, but UK degree and someone with two years of experience, but us degree, they're going to take that person with 10 years of say, when I say experience like CRM us, you know, they're always going to go with that. It's always going to be that local experience. I think, I think.
00:48:43
Speaker
I think you're totally right. That's how I would play this game. It's like I would I would get the one year masters. But then think of it as it fulfills that secretary of the interior, you know, stipulation. Right. You're not being hired on your degree necessarily yet. It's like you get the degree, then you get the experience and then you can use the degree as like kind of the icing on the cake to be like, yes, I also have a master's degree.
00:49:07
Speaker
And if for some reason you could do your degree even though it's in the UK on US stuff, that would be all the better to make the world's most dynamic CRM person. But anyway, it's what I did. I actually chose my dissertation both for masses and PhD locations back in New Mexico. So I would have that employability because that plan was always to come back. And also people like Lester does like an online degree.
00:49:35
Speaker
And there'll be people, I know a lot of people in CRM who basically, after their work, they'll come back and they'll do the online degree just so they can get that master. So they'll have a couple of years of experience. There'll be field teching, maybe crew chiefing, depending where you are and permits and stuff. But if they need to get that extra bump, again, even if you're doing it part-time, it's two years as opposed to like a four-year part-time, it's online.
00:50:00
Speaker
And you can basically do it on your own and still cheaper than most places in the States. And if you just need to get that degree and you don't want to give up, go and spend a year just by yourself, you can do those online options. And again, you're going to have that experience. And then that's the best thing. I think where people run into problems is like,
00:50:23
Speaker
They maybe did an undergraduate. Actually, I shouldn't say that because out of my cohort, I was the only one who came over who actually, I took a year off between my undergraduate and master's. I did CRM. I was the only one. And actually, a couple of people who came over.
00:50:42
Speaker
basically just gone straight from undergraduate into master's, did the one year, went back, got accredited. Two of them are in archaeology now. It's typical of a lot of courses. Not everyone continues in the career. Didn't have any problems. One of them was a PI. Unfortunately, I believe they got injured and now can't
00:51:08
Speaker
It had to do with basically balanced stuff, inner ear things. As far as I understand, can't go back to archaeology now, but they got all the way up to a PI level in five years, six years, and that was going straight undergraduate
00:51:28
Speaker
UK masters coming back, going to CRM and it did not affect their career at all. Right. I mean, that's actually quite, quite fast to go up to a PI. I can see how that world works. I can see how that works. You know what I mean? I would just, I would caution people just a little to be aware, be aware, like online degrees and that kind of stuff, because it works for what we're talking about. Like if you play this game, just write like what we're talking
Online vs Traditional Education: Maximizing UK Degrees
00:51:53
Speaker
about. You're like, yeah,
00:51:54
Speaker
That's the time to do the one-year master's, the online degree, that kind of thing. But in the broader world, I always recommend an on-ground degree to online, right? If you have a choice, you know? Yeah. I mean, there'll be less stigma against it. And again, yeah. And you'll learn more. Yeah. It's all about playing that. Well,
00:52:16
Speaker
We probably don't have enough time to jump into that. You dropped that bomb right there, Andrew. I was waiting. We'll do that for the next podcast. Totally not a good one. But I would say, yeah, you know, you play the game. We're talking about playing the game. I'd also say it's not going to affect you either for if you're going into academia as well.
00:52:43
Speaker
because I've done the numbers, various publication reports, I think I put it on my blog, where I looked at every person who did a PhD or everyone teaching archaeology in the US, and there's a couple of percentage of those people got their degrees in the UK. I think the UK is the next biggest, it's like Canada, because obviously so close and
00:53:06
Speaker
stuff like that, but it doesn't really have an effect. Same for US degrees going across to the UK to teach. It's only a couple of percentage points. It's a couple dozen people. It's not a lot, but it's not one of those things where the US has totally blocked out anyone who's ever gotten a UK degree and they can't. No, not at all.
00:53:28
Speaker
No, no. And I work with those people from time to time. They're around. Like I see them in local California archaeology from time to time. And I definitely see them like when I work in Belize, you know, like so. Yeah, I don't want people to think that it's just it's a dark hole and there's no way out or something. Not at all. I see those people. So, dude, with that, I guess. Yeah, we're at 25 minutes now.
00:53:52
Speaker
So I guess to wrap it up, Doug, dude, I just thought that was fascinating. Thank you for talking about that. My students have asked me this my entire career and I had no idea what to tell them. I guess my last question as we wrap up, you just mentioned your blog for a moment. What's the title of your blog? Where do I find your blog?
00:54:13
Speaker
Oh man, it's pretty simple. It's Doug's archaeology. Oh Doug's archaeology. There you go. Yeah, you have to go back. I did that. Oh, maybe like 2014, that analysis and stuff. Yeah. No, that's good. It's buried in there, but yeah. But yeah, I mean, I looked at it and yeah, it has no effect. There's, there's other
00:54:31
Speaker
A degree in this day and age is there's definitely a snottyness, turning up noses about where you get degrees.
Prestige vs Quality in Higher Education
00:54:41
Speaker
You can't avoid that. Right. That happens internally. You know, people always put Harvard above. Andrew, where is the community college you teach at? More Park College. More Park.
00:54:50
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, to be honest, like, you probably give a much better education than anyone I've ever seen. I do. That is the joke. And I'm not just bragging about myself, you know, like the community college system in general is it's structured to teach rather than research. But again, another, you know, topic for another time. Yeah.
00:55:11
Speaker
Anyway, I just thought that kicked ass. And I guess on our rollout, hope everybody enjoyed it. We now know about what to do internationally in the UK if we go there from the United States to get an education. And we will see you next time. And as Chris says, we will see you in the field. Goodbye. Goodbye.
00:55:36
Speaker
That's it for another episode of the CRM Archaeology Podcast. Links to some of the items mentioned on the show are in the show notes for this podcast, which can be found at www.arcpodnet.com slash CRMARC Podcast. Please comment and share anywhere you see the show. If you'd like us to answer a question on a future episode, email us. Use the contact form on the website or just email chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com. Support the show and the network at arcpodnet.com slash members. Get some swag and extra content while you're there. Send us show suggestions and interview suggestions.
00:56:06
Speaker
We want this to be a resource for field technicians everywhere, and we want to know what you want to know about. Thanks to everyone for joining me this week. Thanks also to the listeners for tuning in, and we'll see you in the field. Goodbye.
00:56:22
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, DigTech LLC, Cultural Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Rachel Rodin. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.