Linguistics in the UK?

[antecedent]

Hello!

One of my Masters admits is for a British taught program, and I was wondering if anyone here had any experience with British degrees? I am hoping to apply for a PhD in the fall of 2013 (for entrance the fall of 2014, as none of my PhD apps came through this year) and I want to make sure a British taught Masters would be competitive (I imagine it would be, but I'm also come from the English Department, and I know things can be different there). I am hoping to do an historical linguistics/sociolinguistics PhD in North America, if that changes things.

Thanks for any thoughts! If you've done part of your linguistics study in the UK, any relevant info.experience would also be greatly appreciated.

Edited March 1, 2012 by antecedant

[antecedent]

To add to this, I'm also curious if any of you have experience with one year MAs? Good or bad?

[katelynnlindsey]

I also considered a British MA/PhD, and many of my advisers advised me against it - in that a British PhD is much less competitive than a US PhD if you want to go into teaching/research as a career. (Mainly because they tend to be research heavy and coursework/teaching deficient. This could be good or bad though, depending on what you're looking for. And not all programs are the same). However, a British MA is probably better than taking a year off, especially if it involves lots of coursework and perhaps would be comparable to a US MA, for applying to PhDs. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong! Best of luck

[antecedent]

Yeah, I am planning on applying for North American PhD programs in the fall 2013, but since I got soundly rejected this time around I figured I should take one of the Masters offers I received to bolster my application and hone my skills. My UK offer is the most prestigious of my offers and, at the end of the day, the least expensive (only one year of fees does wonders to a decision). I realized that most of the PhDs I'm looking at don't have terminal masters degrees anyways, so I'll have to do at least another year of coursework (if not two) once I get in, so paying for two years and doing all that work only to do it over again might not be worth the money it would cost to so it. It also means I can work on my apps when I don't have school to distract me

You can see I ended up making my decision...hehe

[annette2010]

Yeah, I am planning on applying for North American PhD programs in the fall 2013, but since I got soundly rejected this time around I figured I should take one of the Masters offers I received to bolster my application and hone my skills. My UK offer is the most prestigious of my offers and, at the end of the day, the least expensive (only one year of fees does wonders to a decision). I realized that most of the PhDs I'm looking at don't have terminal masters degrees anyways, so I'll have to do at least another year of coursework (if not two) once I get in, so paying for two years and doing all that work only to do it over again might not be worth the money it would cost to so it. It also means I can work on my apps when I don't have school to distract me

You can see I ended up making my decision...hehe

Hi!

Just saw this and thought I might offer some of my experience here in the UK (not that you need it for you've made your decision! lol)

one thing I can say about the one-year MA here is BUSY!!!

hahah coursework and everything, guess that's what we get when trying to finish an MA in one year though...

But you'll enjoy it if you love pressure

not sure about how competitive it is comparing to an MA in states, but if you can get a good grade (and yes, i mean distinction), i'd say pretty good chance that you will be accepted into PhD programmes in the US and Canada!

Good luck anyway!