9 ms·
Maybe--very much depends on the source and destination country. Fact on the ground is lots of people have ended up choosing that as their path, optimal or not.
by mehrdada 5y ago
Maybe--very much depends on the source and destination country. Fact on the ground is lots of people have ended up choosing that as their path, optimal or not.
You can master-out in the middle of a PhD program, which is frowned upon, but it is difficult to get funding if you directly apply for a masters degree.
Perhaps the solution is to decrease the negative cultural backlash against predisposed intention of leaving with a masters despite applying for a PhD, which is currently seen as some sort of betrayal of the adviser if you are going to have your grad students do boring work. It'll be a win-win deal in that case.
- auxym 5y agoIn Canada, research masters are a prereq for entering a PhD program.
- simplestats 5y agoIn the US I think it's entirely up to the school. Or at least the accreditation bodies in different fields and regions. When I was in school, one applied to "MS/PhD" programs most typically. And all imaginable variants existed in terms of funding and likelihood of leaving with only a MS. Some schools would fund no one till they finish the MS stage, and others would fund everyone from the beginning (just give every accepted student a full fellowship for the first couple years). And also some schools were pretty notorious for kicking people out at the end of the MS stage, with a difficult exam at this step or not enough advisors to take them on for the PhD. One positive side, though, is if you wash out of a PhD program at any later stage, you at least walked away with a Master's.
- throwawayjd 5y agoI don't think so. It is funded and recommended, but direct doctorate is also possible, unlike many European schools.