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In the US the first two years of a PhD are heavily focused on classwork, with a research component; the latter years are the "sabbatical to focus on your own re
by arkades 6y ago
In the US the first two years of a PhD are heavily focused on classwork, with a research component; the latter years are the "sabbatical to focus on your own research." People who quit after the first two years are often granted a parting Master's degree, because that's basically what a Master's is - the two years of graduate coursework that kick off a PhD.
This does, of course, differ by program.
- p_l 6y agoFrom my possibly outdated research, it might be because you don't normally leave university with Master's degree in the USA, just the Bachelors, and there is no "normal" Masters program - essentially you do mastery as part of PhD and then get "moved over" automatically to PhD. Of course you can leave with Master's degree at that point, it's just that it seemed to me that USA generally didn't got for MSci style degree, not in CS related areas at least.