COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY DEGREES AMERICAN TEACHERS

CAN HAVE

At the doctoral level there are professional degrees and research degrees. The most common professional degrees are the MD for medicine and the JD for law.

The purpose of a doctoral degree program is to train research scholars in a particular field. The doctoral degree typically involves both course work and a major research project. It usually takes four to six years of full-time study to complete a Ph.D. Admission into a doctoral program is considered after a candidate has passed a set of examinations and the research project has been approved.

The bachelor’s degree typically takes four years to complete, though some students take slightly less time to finish, while others may take longer. The associate degree usually takes two years to complete. Associate degree programs may be “terminal” programs, which lead into specific careers upon graduation, or “transfer” programs, which correspond to the first two years of a bachelor’s degree and tend to be more liberal arts based. Under the latter option you could then transfer into the third year of a four-year bachelor’s degree program. Associate degree programs are offered at two-year colleges known as junior or community colleges. Four-year colleges and universities offer bachelor’s degree programs, with a small number also offering associate degree programs.

One of the most attractive features of the bachelor's degree program in the United States is that it is highly flexible. You can usually choose from a wide variety of courses and create your own unique program of study. The degree is awarded after you complete a specified number of credits, which are usually completed in four years of full-time study. The first year is called the freshman year; the second is called sophomore; the third, junior; and the fourth, senior. You may read that students in the United States often take longer than four years to complete their degrees. This may be because they change majors and need to accumulate enough credits in the new major field to earn the degree. Or it may be because they take less than a full-time course load per term for academic, personal, or financial reasons. International students, however, cannot study part-time and must maintain full-time status. Courses taken in the first two years are known as lower division courses, and courses taken in the final two years are called upper division courses. College catalogs usually assign a number to a course, which indicates the level of study as follows:

100-199 Freshman

200-299 Sophomore

300-399 Junior

400-499 Senior

There are two kinds of graduate degrees: professional degrees and research degrees, and two levels: master’s and doctoral. The professional master’s degree provides specific set of skills needed to practice a particular profession and leading directly to employment. Professional master’s degrees are offered in areas such as business and public administration, social work, journalism, public health, international relations, urban and regional planning, communications etc. This type of degree consists of a year of required course work, forming the basic training, followed by a second year of specialized study within the field. Usually these degrees do not include a thesis option or a language requirement, but they may involve some type of internship or fieldwork.

The research master’s MA (Master of Arts) or MS (Master of Science) provides experience in research and scholarship. The research master’s is usually part of the progression to the doctorate. It is often based on a selection process by which those who perform adequately may be awarded their master’s but be denied entry to the doctoral program. Some universities do not admit students in the humanities and social sciences for a master’s degree, as they are only interested in prospective doctoral students.