It's about the library. A Bachelor's degree means you have demonstrated to a committee that you know, vaguely, what a library is and can be trusted, usually, to use it without chewing on the bindings or going potty on the floor and using the pages for ass-wiping or otherwise requiring an inordinate amount of supervision. A Master's degree is conferred upon writing (!) a paper that demonstrates that you are able to use the library well enough to find statements in its volumes that support your idea or assertion--or at least appear to. A Doctorate is awarded when you write a work that the committee can grudgingly admit is not too terribly out of place in the library.
I like that. The library as the center of gravity for all academic work and levels. Next question: who determines that a Library is of proper quality - and that the Librarian his/herself is a proper gatekeeper and/or arbiter of the quality(!) ?
@@OgamiItto70 Knowledge is virtuous - no doubt about it. But the #1 reason I don't want to be an academic is because of the elitism of it all. I just straight-up... don't want to be like (nor accepted by) those type of people. It's not how I want to spend my life. It doesn't seem like a good lifestyle. Anxious-ridden & validation-dependent.
@@charlescurtis6321 good point, the only reason i want to take doctorate degree is that will be good to put it on my name on my son wedding invitation card.
That's not really the point. The point is that the author 'knows' what is in it. It makes him/her an expert in that research and that's a personal achievement for those seeking knowledge.
I quoted alot from master thesis in my bachelors, although that wouldnt be counted by him as actual readers I guess, since the bachelors isnt published aswell. Still there might be some unknown lurkers enjoying ones masters thesis.
Depends. My master thesis is included in my book. On my phd now and will likely use it in a book also. But many times in my field will publish the thesis.
Huh, I am just writing my Masters thesis in Computer Science and this actually motivated the heck out of me right now! Seeing the differences between your PhD and your masters thesis made me realize that I kinda don't have to worry about all of this too much. Man, what a relief! Thank you so much :D
do you mind telling me what you're writing about? I'm starting my CSE degree soon but if you want to keep it confidential, it's alright! I just need a general idea about what thesis in CSE is thank you :)
@@revalovesyou It's about a Serious VR Game to teach lean management :) I think in CSE, you're really open to explore many topics, and often it can be a more practical master thesis (at least at my uni)
@@Memo-sq1bb Learn how to learn! Starting in 2nd semester I rarely went to any lectures, but always attended any exercise lessons where we went through task sheets! I can sit down for two weeks before the exam and actually learn everything from the semester using provided slides. You gotta know yourself and learn how you work most effectively! Teaching others is an INSANELY effective way to solidify anything you've learned! Don't put too much pressure on yourself, if it takes an additional semester for you, it won't be the end of the world (and any future employer etc will most likely not care) Hope that helps, and best of luck
I am currently writing my PhD thesis, looking back at my masters it was easy back then. I was able to monkey around in a lab for 6 months, trying things out to improve CIGS solar cells, which worked. I got large improvements which I found through experimentation. We even were able to write a paper and publish it. Which was great. My masters is in Nanoscience, now I am doing a PhD in physics, developping new methodology in surface science analytics. It is hard and from time to time I am a bit defeated. But I am writing my thesis, and a paper for publishing and going back to the lab for more experiments soon. Looking back at my masters, that was easy, since the research question was simpler: find a way to improve those solar cells While my PhD is harder: develop a new method, find ways to make it work. Sometimes it is hard to find the motivation each day to get up and just do it. I guess many feel the same way, and I hope you find the strength to see it through.
I think if you're achieving these fantastic things and it seemed easy, you were one of the more exceptional students. Congratulations though for both your past and ongoing achievements.
My wife, used to chase me down in social media and yt comments to tell me to stop screwing around and to get back to writing my thesis, so what are you doing here ;)
I just finished my Master's thesis to which I dedicated the last year of my life and I have feeling in between of what you said. I felt I could get much more with more time, but at the same time I didn't want to hahaha It wasn't something ground-breaking but was new and I feels like a great achivement. If I ever make a PhD, I'll probably feel prouder, but I'm content with what I have now.
I agree with you. There is no comparison between a Thesis and a Dissertation. My PhD made me feel proud and excited about the future. Whereas my Master did not have that feeling. Thank you for sharing your journey on youtube. Best,
It is always interesting to look back and realize how much smaller all the previous hurdles used to be. I am currently writing a Master Thesis (drug metabolomics in crops) and looking back a Bachelor thesis looks much more relaxing and during writing the Bachelor thesis I looked back at my high-school thesis (in Austria we have to write a small thing called "Vorwissenschaftliche Arbeit" or "pre-scientific work") and I felt like I could write one of those in a week-end, not the months of time afforded to highschool-students. One grows with the challenges at hand I guess. ^^ ps: I really also get the pride part. When I finished high-school I was kinda proud, because I got the best marks in my grade you know its something. And when I entered university, there are some single exams or seminar-papers that I am more proud of than that my high-school diploma. The "higher up" something is in the tiered education system, the prouder I am upon achieving it, but that is normal I think. ^^
@@CptMole read "A Random Walk Down wall Street" and understand that for each high school dropout that makes 10x what I do, there are 1000 of them making 1/10th what I do. If want the best risk-adjusted return, then getting more education is basically always better.
@@CptMole nah. I am not a big money guy. The only thing that pisses me off in that regard are landlords, who just happened to inherit a bunch of wealth and are now price-gouging people who just want a roof over their head. But as long as you are working for a salary I see you as an ally. ^^
@@Orach3n Yeah. Ifs just crazy to look back and realize how much one has grown, because when looking forward it feels like you have achieved nothing and everything is still as daunting as it was years ago.
I feel like Master’s level is of course original but not yet a novelty, as it is a piece of work to confirm established knowledge and what is found from the thesis can be utilized to critique literature in your chosen topic/field. For PhD, it’s definitely novel as the research dives deep into new knowledge and provides a credible, peer-reviewed scholastic paradigm and prepares you for an academic profession if chose to.
@@makingadjustments Yes unfortunately thats what it has become, especially in India. There is no quality or practical usefullness. But thats how Research and Development advance, a bit here a bit there and time.
My masters thesis a 248 page document was examined outside of my university, defended in a viva voce and I've been asked to covert it into a book or pull out several papers for journal publications. I actually spent time in the film. All I can say is, it depends on what and how the thesis is done.
I agree with the sentiment. My Bachelor Thesis was 125 pages long and in it I described how we identified the Enzyme responsible in plants for detoxifying apocarotenals. My Master Thesis by comoarison was 72 pages long and mainly the result of a few succesful Experiments, while most of them were a disaster. I am currently almost finished with my first year of PhD and am not certain what will happen
@@andso7068 Yeah, books. not university level papers. 250+ without attachements is nuts for undergraduate level. Even the OP comment indicates that this is overachieving, majority (normal) thesises dont get afapted into books
The size of the dissertation doesn't really matter. I've seen plenty of professors who preferred shorter ones as it spares them lots and lots of time reading through and back-checking it. I worked as assistant for an institute at my university while I was preparing for my masters degree and while being there I often heard complains that people writing walls of text when essentially the same could have been said in 3-4 lines. I.e. look at John Nash's dissertation which has 26 pages. Some mathematicians also have dissertations of roughly 30-40 pages as they prove certain theorems and the language they are using to explain their solution is pure math equations. So, it's not about the size, it's about the novelty of the content.
Sadly not true for most professors at my old uni... I literally developed my "make senctences longer" skill specifically for uni, naturally im quite blunt and short
I'm getting to my first year of PhD study and I feel a bit overwhelmed by all the theoretical reading, but yes I have learnt A LOT in this year. I completed my masters 15 years ago, and been working all those years in between. I liked what you said that it is truly representative of your life, because for me to do this research will also allow me to crystallize all my work experience from the past 15 years.
Both my thesis and dissertation were original questions that were published. The real difference was the scope and scale of the project, one was 50 pages the other was 220. The level of independence and methodological sophistication was much higher on the PhD too. I also despised both my thesis and PhD by the end, none of the pride you discussed. Being so close to them meant I could see every flaw and worry and I felt like a fraud.
Masters thesis research proposal is what I’m working on. I’m so proud of you too Andy! 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ for all of your hard work! Building new knowledge is an immensely valuable contribution in the academic world. Congratulations 👏
Loved the comparison of meaning in the end. This is what every artisan or handymann is experiencing everyday, but a scholar could bei searching for his/her whole Life. An original and unique piece of Work.
Your videos were just randomly recommended to me. I just started my master’s. Don’t believe no one will look at your thesis if it’s published. Last year in one of my undergrad class I found someone’s thesis that documented the history of a novel drug class really well.
Thank you, Doctor Stapleton, for your unique contributions to the world's future, and all the personal sacrifices you had to make in order to contribute such value. One day our descendants will make use in their daily lives of what you've done.
While writing my master's thesis, my PI told me that a master's thesis is basically a single section of a PhD thesis. That may have been a bit reductionist as my thesis was certainly longer and went into more depth than a single section from a PhD thesis, but I feel like the spirit of the statement gets the point across. After all I'd expect someone to have produced significantly more after 6 years of advanced research than I did in two years fumbling around the lab with my micropipette. However I will say that while my master's thesis was certainly novel, I had the benefit of being part of a multiple decade long project related to the molecular mechanisms of aging in plants and would have absolutely floundered without the help of my team.
Actually, the PhD isn't 6 years of dogged research. More like 3 at best as it takes time to keep such concerted efforts over that long a period of time. Some go on to complete it in 2 years after doing their master's.
I like how this video starts like a proper research paper or thesis, with giving an abstract. Most videos on youtube will learn you at least half way in before even touching the main points hinted by the title and thumbnail.
I spent 4 years trying to figure what my masters was going to be in, I spent 2 years trying to get to that masters. Now I have to rethink everything since my original plan is falling apart since the classes I want to take don't work with my work schedule. I am sad, but I am happy to see your accomplishments since it is inspiring and if not now, hopefully I will be as proud as you when I reach my academic goals.
Andy, thank you for the video. I could see your enthusiasm in your explanation of the acknowledgement section of your PhD, which demonstrates how proud you are of the new information generated. That section really encouraged me, and I promised myself that one day I will have such a document and be as proud of my work as you are. Thank you for continuing to share; I'm always inspired to keep going.
My master thesis was externally evaluated and based on extensive original research that contributed to the field. I feel like I've written two PhD theses tbh. I even had an oral defense with external examiners for the masters. What is expected varies to widely from university to university, country to country, even between institutes within a university. Important to keep in mind. Im almost done with my PhD thesis and Im proud of it primarily because I did most of it during Covid lockdowns and am still managing to finish on time.
Here in Hungary/ELTE, my BSc Thesis was done with a viva voce and 2 external examiners and 3 internal ones plus my supervisor who said "it can go to be defended."
Currently writing my PhD thesis after nearly 5 years of research and I really agree with what you mentioned. A PhD thesis is like a historical record that documents your entire growth throughout the years of doing research. I find myself jumping back to my acknowledgement from time to time, thanking individual that happened to appear at the right place, right time to say the right thing that helped me obtain breakthrough in my research. Really proud of my PhD thesis as I am writing it and happy to know that the joy is shared amongst those that has went through the similar processes.
I feel like the main difference is the journey you go through. Finishing my regular studies and writing my first thesis was more like dipping my toe into the water whereas the doctoral thesis was really starting to swim. So while in terms of size they may not be that different, the amount of knowledge, learning, doubt and growth as an academic were very different for me. Both are fun in their own right though.
They were pretty much the same for me, except the PhD took longer because that was the expected norm. It's possible that my Master's thesis might even be better quality work than my PhD. Of course I didn't intend it to be that way, but different projects will have different results, and its not always possible to fully control the outcome. Neither of them were fun, and both were somewhat damaging to my physical and mental health, despite my interest in the subject matter and general love of learning.
Well, my PhD thesis saved my mental health. I have been working on it for 10 years. It was a terrible mess of fragments. Lo and behold, some unpleasant event happens in my life. And the only way to overcame it was to edit my PhD. The more the text looked tidy, the brighter became my mood. I haven't received philosophy Doctor status yet, but I hope I will manage to do it.
Schools & programs have a great deal to do with how these are completed. My first MS thesis was essentially the research design and how data would be analyzed and eventually used. My second MS consisted of all 5 chapters of a dissertation: the experiment design, methodology, analysis, etc but using smaller sample group (dissertation light, if you will). My doctorate was a bit less stressful since I knew pretty much what to expect, though each degree was from a different school. What I didn’t expect was how some advisors would drag their feet (not just slow in returning chapters, but all but disappearing). Nearly a complete semester of waiting. Check the dissertation/thesis requirements beforehand if you see the accepted process might be an issue. Hint: Purchase the book ”Surviving Your Dissertation” by Rudestam & Newton as it provides some useful tips.
Finished my M.A, Thesis, Literature,awhile back...but Video brings memories back..., all during time of no RUclips advice.....Laughed and cried ( figuratively), to finish all and present it.....Passed.....What a relief Thanks
Well done getting over that milestone of acquiring a PHD. Given me a bit of a jolt to comtemplate extending my own Masters into the former. An objective comparison betwixt the two ,this well elucidated, should aid many weighting up their options.
I just got my bachelor's in chemistry and my work has been used by the professor I was under and integrated by her PhD students to make a publication. It was about the potential of ginkgolides to act as antioxidants in cell membranes. It felt incredibly satisfying when the paper was published and my name was on it, bear in mind that I'm 22! I'm now enrolled in a master's course and I hope I'll be able to progress further and become a researcher
You got my like when you immediately began answering the title question without any watchtime extending banter at the beginning of the video. Also, great explanation!
Great video! I just recently finished my master's thesis, sadly in the field of theoretical psychology while I was actually studying clinical psychology. Therefore the "procdure" aspect you talk about, just something that is part of the process instead of something truly in line with me as a person and my valued accomplishments was really relatable for me :)
I just discovered your channel, and I'm about to start my PhD in about 6 months. I am very excited! Interestingly enough, while I did write proposals and write ups for my MS, the main thing for me was the comprehensive exam, which was pure hell.
That's really cool, I'm probably never going to get anywhere close to phd in my life (since I rely entirely on self-education) but I'm still hoping to create something new and useful for everyone.
I suppose that ought to be commendable actually 🤔 That way one isn't doing it for any commendation/approbation but only for the pure love of learning itself .... Good going 👏
I found it more beneficial to get a careerfield specific doctorate, doctorate in nurse anesthesia practice, I’ve got the best of both worlds where I’m able to conduct research as well as handle patients under a medical specialty. I’d say to go that route if your profession has a specific career-field related doctorate.
My biggest and ongoing grad school blunder is turning my master's thesis into a PhD thesis. Too late to fix now, but advice to everyone else here: keep it boring, be done with it, spend your full potential on the PhD instead. Edit: I notice this may confuse the USians. I don't mean a formal conversion, I mean picking too big/ambitious a project for your master's.
@@amentrison2794 I mean that depeds, but in my case my first project was a quantitative analysis of word stress in some language. It was much more complex than it initially seemed, and then we found out methods weren't settles enough to just take something and apply. Mu current project is similarly methodologically somewhat novel, in discourse analysis, and I am suffering from similar problems, but to a lesser extent. Too much novelty is difficult.
Maybe you should’ve done a masters thesis on the tragedy of a sound that is saying the word USian out loud lol. I never get the logic that “wow Americans are so arrogant to call themselves Americans” while you are literally deciding that because you don’t like it your changing their name for them.
I am working on my masters dissertation right now and there's only one thing I can say about how it makes me feel: disappointed. I feel like I am doing nothing but collecting previous data and presenting it nicely. Yes my ideas can be found here and there throughout the paper but it's anything but original and new.
When my friend got his Master's degree, the advisor who helped him strategize his thesis-writing told him that one of the principles of writing a Master's thesis is "nobody cares what you think." So, if you have some Big Idea you want to expound in your paper, you have to bury it under tons of copperplate sourced from personages much more august than you and kind of sneak your idea in with all that corroboration from the previous eminent scholar big-wig types' works.
I just want to add that different countries have different standards. My masters degree was by research, meaning I had to produce a dissertation. My dissertation was examined by 1 or 2 external examiners (I can't remember exactly). If the work was novel enough it could be upgraded to a PhD, it wasn't (but I wasn't surprised by this).This varies by field of course too so it's a lot more complex then 'a masters is x'. Our masters are also graded but PhDs are not. Some naturally get offered the option to extend into PhD, I didn't get this but I also didn't want it having seen how long PhDs took people to complete and what it took out of them. Research is a dangerous time consuming activity and a supervisor bent on getting everything perfect can totally ruin the experience. My masters took 5 years to finish not just because of my supervisor but also because of personal circumstances. I'm proud I did it but I do view it as an extreme waste of time. However it's a 150 odd page document that likely no one will gain much benefit from (in part due to not pushing back on certain decisions).
There can be different standards for different projects, even within the same University, because it's so difficult to standardise research work across a wide variety of topics. Usually PhD theses take more work and are of higher quality, but this isn't always the case. It can be very dependent on the specific project and the student and supervisors involved. My Master's in the UK was by research, and it took 2 years after BSc graduation. My supervisor said that it was almost a PhD, and asked me to keep working to convert it. However, I declined, as I had worked pretty much 24/7, and found the whole experience to be quite unpleasant. I went back and got a PhD later, which took another 6.5 years. I produced a larger volume of results for this, but in terms of originality and quality of work, it wasn't particularly any higher than my Master's. 5 years for a Master's sounds particularly extreme. In the UK, the only way that I can think of to take so long for a Master's is for those who submit their PhD, and their examiners give them a Master's degree for it! This happened to a couple of people that I know.
@@sebfox2194lol 5 years for a masters is possible and I ve seen it happen countless times. Research rules vary per country and institution and whether one is studying full time or part time
Interesting. When I did my masters in the early 2000's, my institution had several requirements. These included an external, secret examiner from the field and you had to publish a research paper in a journal. Some of us did original research work while others did literature studies of existing work.
I did a masters thesis and then decided later to go into the PhD program and do the dissertation. Your explanation is excellent and sometimes comes up with PhD candidates. The only regret I had was I chose not to publish my masters thesis and I ended up reproducing and mailing about 20 copies to people who wanted to read it. From my perspective, the masters thesis was a chance to practice some of the elements of doing a dissertation and it helped me decide whether or not to continue to the PhD. Your mileage may vary.
I found my Masters thesis the other day. I had lost it in my several moves since university 30 years ago. You did a good job describing the difference between the two. I never got a PhD. My Masters was just an extension of my Undergraduate senior project, which was a design of a computer. My Masters took that project and added a level of complexity by expanding the computer to 64 processors and adding reconfigurabilty to message passing between them. I felt great when I was done. My professor wanted me to stay for a terminal degree but I knew coming up with new and defendable ideas would be tough for me. My office mate and friend was a brilliant man and struggled to finish his PhD dissertation. I knew I didn't have a chance. I'm sorry I didn't try now but I fear it would not have gone well anyway. I had a plan to get my Masters (Electrical Engineering) and then get a job and I stuck to that.
Interestingly, my Master's thesis was 190 pages. My PhD dissertation was 124 pages. Both were original contributions to knowledge. Just saying that there can be significant overlap between the two.
@@austinbarton6874 That's why I decided to make my dissertation as short as possible. Part of what motivated me to do this was hearing about 300 page preliminary exams in my department that just seemed excessive.
In almost all cases, the only person who will ever read either document is the author, so it's really up to them. I'm not a big reader, so I kept them as short as I could.
Hi Andy. Really love your content. Could you please make a video on how to convert your master's thesis to a journal article? I believe it would be really helpful for loads of masters students trying to get into PhD programs.
I finished my masters last year (2021) and I was in doubt if I should do a PhD or pursue a convetional job. Thank God I found a nice job! However, I congratulate you guys who continuous in academic life.
What is the field in which Dr. Andy Stapleton earned his Ph. D.? Shouting At The Camera! This is a skill few RUclips presenters have attempted, but Dr. Stapleton has convincingly mastered the technique. In this video, Dr. Stapleton shouts at the camera in standard RP English. However, he is equally adept, after years of rigorous training, at shouting with Scottish, Irish, Australian New South Wales, and Midwestern American accents. Kudos, Dr. Stapleton. I hope you are successful in your bid to become Town Crier for Newcastle upon Tyne. I'll be rooting for you--and SHOUTING for you!
I am very proud of both my undergrad and masters degree dissertations, and the improvement from undergrad to masters is evident (even though I made a product for my undergrad and my masters was empirical). I hope to continue this improvement as I embark on my PhD journey (with Andy's help of course)
I submitted as a Masters by Research. It was originally a PhD programme (Civil Engineering), where within the first 3 months my main supervisor left. Then when I needed to do field work and testing the covid pandemic caused a lockdown (march 202). Whilst I worked hard I knew my thesis was not robust enough because I only had remote sensing data to use (I couldn't test against field data). I therefore just submitted as a Masters of Science by Research and gained employment soon after. I won't be working in research so having a BSc, MSc (x2) is enough.
Love your videos and content! I would like to humbly request if you could make more videos on Master's and Master's thesis advice and tips, as there ain't many content like these and this quality on RUclips 🙇
Imagine the hardest part of your masters that you were glad to move past after a few months. The PhD is this, for years, finishing with an expert making sure you know it.
@@sparkequinox Sounds about accurate. I'd add to this the need that, after years of failing, you still need to wake up every morning and try again. Pursuing a PhD is truly mostly a lesson in humility and a railroad to burnout if you're not careful.
My phase 3 literature review, has helped me to more understand; and comprehend my topic. Knowing that this is a terminal degree, it may be the topping on the cake of my educational career. Education is a staircase, and the student can get off on whatever step he/she may like. That's the reason for a transcript. Transcripts record where the student paused. Nothing is lost.
This was a very interesting video to listen to, especially because it shows the differences in thesis' between countries and cultures to me. The university I went to in Czech Republic wouldn't allow a "simple compilation of previous works" as a valid Master's thesis. Previous articles are of course a part of the thesis, but the Master's (and partialy even Bachelor's) requires something new that hasn't been done yet, based on an original hypothesis or idea. Of course, it can still be quite shallow and in many ways derivative, but if you were to just combine three different works together, you wouln't pass the exams, unless you really figured out something new. A compilation cannot be your goal here, it might be only a way of achieving it, if you are very lucky - let's be honest, reading a couple of papers and summarizing/combining them, is something very easy. That's actually why I didn't want to get my doctorate after the engineering degree. The master's thesis I wrote took quite a toll on me and it wasn't even a good one. I cannot imagine what would be required from me to get a PhD. The other reason is teaching. I love to teach, but unless I get at least a decade of experience in the field, I don't think I am competent to teach and evaluate other students.
Same here, Poland univ (at least when it comes to history) won't allow it even at bachelor lvl. However history remains quite different from this type of studies - maybe in this we may find an answer.
Probably not much more would be required of you to get a PhD. Just a bit more time, and more of the same kind of work. I studied in the UK, and there wasn't a lot of difference between my Master's and PhD theses, except I spent longer gathering results for my PhD.
@@sebfox2194 Exactly. The period for the doctorate just allows more data gathering and volume to be put into the research work. It is not necessarily novel, as many are not precisely offering new knowledge but the idea might be.
I think as a Dentist who is preparing for his Master's in Dental Surgery (MDS). I think just give a few more seconds to the point that based on the course the thesis part can vastly differ. Because although technically we are only doing a master's course but the thesis and dissertations go through the same process as you mentioned like that for a PhD. Like external examiners, selection of topics and its approval by the University. The toughest part is you have a 3 day exam in which the external examiners evaluate your patient work, lab work, your course knowledge, and on top of all that your thesis defense.
If I'm going to be honest I believe I am kind of ashamed of my masters... It was in Organizational Leadership (social science) and it was (1) a capstone, (2) the university picked the project, (3) it was a group project where my advisor was the project leader (4) there wasn't even a final report, only a presentation. The upside of it was that I carried most of the group on my back and I had the opportunity to do qualitative research and dig deeper into the findings. But I definitely was expecting MUCH more from it!! I am applying for a PhD this year and I hope I get my hands dirtier this time!! #FingersCrossed
@@Feministt Do you want to talk more about this through email or something?? I literally don't know how or even if I can help you but maybe my experience can help you somehow. I don't know.
Not getting my hands dirty/dirtier makes me so ashamed of my masters. In my program you didn't have to write a thesis, and could take two more courses instead. I knew I was going to be doing a PhD, so I chose to take courses in bionanotechnology and a course on regulation of new drugs and biologics. Part of me is happy with the decision because both courses have already proven to be significant for future career objectives, with many of the projects I'm interested in having nano-components, and being on the fence about leaving academia for industry having regulatory background will be quite useful, but having a degree without doing novel work feels cheap. I was doing research at another institution and contributed to several major publications, but even then, I often felt like I was more a pair of hands than a contributor to the actual information. Going into PhD it's making me want to work extra hard because I want to feel I've earned my education. Best of luck with your PhD applications!
wow that phd thesis is lovely, i bet its really nice to have like a classy looking fully bound text book… written by you. the hard back with the black cover and the gold text very nice
Could you make a video on getting a PhD later in life? Is it ok to get a PhD in your 40s, 50s, or 60s? Is it ever too late to get a PhD? Or is there a point where it no longer makes sense (since you may be too old to work or have to retire soon)
I submitted my doctoral thesis aged 52, when I was already a full-time lecturer. I then published it as a book. It helped the last phase of my career, but I retired voluntarily at 60. My main motivation though was personal satisfaction (and now aged 73, I still use the title Dr because I earned it).
@@1000pollak where do you use the title if you are retired? I can't think of anybody I know with a PhD (including myself) who uses their title outside of an academic setting.
@@1000pollak OK, I don't remember filling out many forms that ask for a title, but fair enough. I must admit, I have never used my title out of academia, because using it otherwise would feel a bit cringy, and I think most people would confuse it with a medical doctor. But, if you feel the need, I can understand.
My Masters' was kind of an 'along the way project' while doing my PhD. The way it was explained to me (by my supervisor), the Master's was a convenient exit point for grad students who wanted to give up on the PhD (at least they didn't waste their time and earned a degree) or for PIs who did not want to see that student through to the end 😟. Already published a paper when I was an undergrad, so on day 1 my supervisor started by just giving me a project to get done. Got that done within a year while learning R and Python and then published it as my Masters' thesis and as a paper. Then the real fun started and I had way more autonomy over the PhD research.
@@komalpatel7564 Self-taught, but I had 2+ years of experience with Matlab during undergrad, so coding wasn't new to me. Matlab I learnt on the job during an internship in an engineering lab (but I was a psych major). After that I worked in a psych lab, putting that Matlab skill to use, which led to a publication, which led to me going to grad school.
I think this is a good video to show to ~16 year olds to give an idea of what would be coming depending on what academic path they go down. I know I was clueless heading into university.
No 16 year old is going to get a master first or a pHD. First they go for the bachelor or an associate. A college student going for their undergrad is who would benefit from these videos
The type of thesis (masters vs phd) doesn’t matter. It’s the quality of the research that really counts. A colleague of mine coauthored a paper with a 2nd year undergraduate student, and the student was the paper’s first author because the student came up with the idea and did most of the work. Most professor are conservative, and have a fixed mindset that publishing can only occur while doing a phd, and it is this mindset that gets past onto students. My advice to students is don’t let the insecurities / fixed mindset of your professor hold you back! Also, become more discerning who you choose as a project supervisor
True. Unfortunately, this mindset that an undergrad or a master's student is not required to have an original research outcome has negatively affected academia in many ways. Most Masters and undergrads are just considered cheap labor for PhDs and Postdocs despite many of them working very hard and being active in the lab. However, undergrads and masters should not underestimate themselves and they should always push for more despite the limitations. Ambition is the key.
I'm not an academic, I just watched this in case I wanted to write a PhD character some time and in that respect you have served me well, Sir with that last section, Thankyou.
I didn't even do a real thesis for my Masters in Computer Science. I built a number of tools and other programs based on the courses and my interests and wrote some documentation about them.
Our thesis director at American Military University made us work hard. My M.A. thesis was 158 pages long (80,000+ words) and he required it to be as original as possible. So, as I am now in my PhD program I am wondering what I am going to write on as I have been published in journals for the past 12-years and I feel like I may have already written one or two of my best ideas a journal contributions. Most researchers publish, at least from what I hear, their PhD thesis in paper form since each of the chapters is about 26/7 pages long in a dissertation. I am also wondering how I can top 158 pages for detail and depth of coverage. At the end, I believe that I will feel better about my accomplishment given that I have so many pre-loaded obstacles.
In finished my master's degree about a year ago, and am looking forward to make the PhD soon (I want to work a little on the industry before continuing my academic journey.) I feel very proud of it, although it was not completely original as PhD thesis, I still got to explore something completely new, I published a journal from it. The jury in my disertatiom congratulated me about the work, and my advisor told me it was frontier research.
This video is an interesting perspective and a bit different from my master's experience. I did a one year masters of research and because the course is designed with PhD progression in mind there was a heavy emphasis on producing publishable results, plus there was an external examiner who read my dissertation and watched my presentation to confirm the marks my two partnered institutions have me. Thank you for the comparison though, anything I can watch to prepare me for the upcoming PhD is appreciated!
I think this is fascinating to hear. The general idea is more or less the same across many fields, but the means to get there differs radically. I hear about a 229-page Ph.D. dissertation and I drool just a bit. Of course, the information is orders of magnitude more dense, so that is understandable.
That's true about the Master's degree feeling... I just haven't ended the meticulous details that my reviewers are doing to my masters thesis because I feel nothing for it, no proud, excitement, etc. I feel that nothing in my life will be different if I end up or not. I abandoned it almost a year and days counting...
The Masters was difficult, but it was done over a shorter time period, which made it easier to deal with mentally. For my PhD, I was put in a situation, that at the time, I perceived to be a combination of unprecedented, perpetual, and insurmountable amounts of stress.
I stopped the Master's (software engineering). I took way too long doing the Master's thesis, part laziness, part procrastination, part not enjoying it. Especially towards the end I was not even that happy with it and just wanted it to be over and to not have entirely wasted the time invested. I briefly considered continuing onto the PhD but nah. Master's is good enough for me, I wanted to apply my knowledge real life, and not do another couple years of academia and honestly, I was just not sure I could actually do it.
Anyone can do it, but that doesn't mean they should. I view mine as a pretty massive waste of time. If you get a good job in engineering, you will learn much more, much faster.
I am a computer science MSc student in Hungary and here an original contribution to the field is required for a master's thesis. Obviously the contribution is minor compared to a PhD, but it still has to contain original research results.
Im heading into my second year masters thesis… I truly enjoy the work, I had so much fun with my first one. I’m considering a PhD because being paid to teach and quench my addiction for knowledge
Thank you very much Andy. I about to start my Master's Thesis and thought to check out if there is any good guidance on youtube. Glad I found yours. TBH, I want to do the best out of my Master's Thesis, probably try to do realistically on whats possible but the outcome to be very usefull, application oriented and valuable. So that I can use this experience to probably publish a research paper and learn from it. Also I have plans of doing my PhD in the near future. My intention is to deep dive on my topic and study current state of art and its best practices.
I kinda have to disagree on some parts. Doing my masters in chemistry right now and my project has a seed paper on which I try and develop new molecules to use in a different manner. Once I‘m done synthesizing those molecules will be evaluated and at the end of the day there will be a paper published with this data (It will be in my mentors name though). However, this is not an extension of another project it rather is its own piece of scientific work that will hopefully bring this field a teeny tiny bit forward. I guess my point is not every masters thesis is just a project to combine two known pieces. And not every PhD is something ground breakingly new. My mentor is doing the same stuff as I am just with more derivatives and with another target. I just took over one of his projects and either him or I will further establish my findings (I‘ll hopefully do my PhD in this field right after). And in chemistry at least I have never heard of a Dissertation to be downgraded to a masters degree. We all have our masters degrees before starting the PhD. Also our PhD requires us to have at least one first author publication (usually it’s three publications total) and the Dissertation is always published, you don’t get the title until it is. Furthermore, the dissertation is defended in a Kolloquium with between three professors (for everything but summa cum laude) or four professors (for summa cum laude, only then one prof is from another university). I‘m from Germany though so maybe different countries have different rules on what goes in a dissertation.
This is exactly how it is in the Netherlands, atleast in the field of Biology. There might be a big difference between social science and beta science though.
Things must have changed a lot since I have gained my doctorate in the same field and country as you. There was no requirement of having a firtst author publication of your results, my results are published with me as co auther but not first author. At least when I was defending my thesis, 4 professors were the norm, with at least two of them being from adjacent fields.
I am not even a master's student as I barely got my BA about 40 years ago. Then, when I became a website designer with my own business, my husband asked me to design another website for the alumni of his high school. On this site, we have posted 80+ yearbooks with all the pages and covers scanned along with 3,000+ articles on the school, the community, the school district and the people it took to make this school a reality. It is a group effort that took my daughter and I and my husband to make happen. My husband and I loved history, so this site was not a surprise to me. The surprise comes when I realize I have another 50 or 60 years worth of newspapers to read and post on the site. This website is the one place that has the largest collection of the yearbooks available. It is more complete than the school's library. I do have 5 or 6 of the early volumes that I haven't found yet, but will post them when they are found. Oh, by the way, thanks for answering my questions about these two documents you discussed.
I did my MS and PhD in Computer Science quite some time ago (2005 and 2008). I was at the time in the theory part of Computer Science (combinatorial optimization) so it looks a lot more like math than what you could expect CS to be. My MS thesis was essentially "I looked at this particular problem. We applied these standard tools. That wasn't easy because technical stuff. These are the results we got. To go further on that problem we would need to address challenge X and Y". My PhD was actually in the very same field than my MS. To the point where the extension of my MS are actually a chapter in my PhD. In my PhD I looked at other problems that looked similar to the problem of my MS. I was able to show that the different problems actually grouped in 2 different category and depending in which category they were, you could be able to derive similar types of results. So all the problems we found in category 1, they responded well to techniques A, B and C and not D, E, and F. But the problems in category 2 responded to techniques D, E, and F, and not to techniques A, B, and C. 14 years later, I still don't know why this appears to be true, but we haven't found counter examples yet.
How can you compare a honours thesis with a masters thesis? Andrew, the way you put it is like my honours thesis is more or less similar to a masters thesis (except it’s hardly going to pass the novelty check for a publication). The other thing I want to mention is how can you compare the difference of a master of research and master of philosophy? I’m going to do the latter despite having a honours degree and I’m not quite sure whether I’m going to be delivering the same type of thesis that I wrote in my honours or whether I have to demonstrate the research caliber as a PhD student.
Exactly! And as I saw many pages without any illustration there, of course nobody is going to read it! The thing is to put pictures and plots and tables to give it a bit of structure and easiness for the reader. If you're going to do PhD/doctorate only for yourself, that's ok. But would you have patience to re-read and understand what you did there easily?
Idk, I seem to think, through experience, that a PhD is basically a masters, except you don’t just have one study, you’ve got study 2 and 3 and this is where the thickness comes from. In my university at least, the standard of a masters (in medical sciences anyway) should still be producing original work. Nine times out of ten, a professor will go to a conference, see a project using a new technique or measure and then come back home and say, right, here’s a new masters/PhD project: heart rate variability (or machine learning, or some other new model) in this population. Students might then take on ownership and the minor details of the project, but ultimately it was pre-determined. This wasn’t my experience through just the one university, but my knowledge of what happens at many universities. Additionally, my masters had to be internally and externally reviewed all the same as a PhD. This realisation lead me to decide, although prestigious, you learn nothing new in a PhD (except the project specific tasks and outcomes) so why even bother unless I wanted to be a prof. Which I don’t. It is an enormous feat to complete a PhD (as it is twice as long as masters) but to me that accounts for more time spent on a project. Instead I moved into working in clinical trials rather than getting a PhD and feel like I’ve learnt and contributed more than what I could have if I applied myself to a PhD. Indeed, a PhD is essential if you wish to be a prof. That is it.
I'll be doing my masters soon but I'm constantly thinking "Everything's already been written. What can I bring in that's useful and interesting?". This question only applies to some areas of study and mine is political science, which is not as flexible as say chemistry.
My master's advisor told me afterwards that my thesis (original work) would have been a great dissertation, had it had a more thorough summary of related work. Thanks. Of course, internally, I thought I needed to do something more interesting for my Ph.D. Ensue seven years of work (some of it while working full time).
I just realized that what I made for my undergraduate thesis was a masteral thesis level. Our professor always pushed and required us to develop novel ideas to the field of computer science with little time and gave us the beating to create these novel ideas and developments. But unfortunately, the panels that reviewed our paper did not understand anything about the novelty and the sleepless nights of mastering a subject and creating something new that we thought is crucial to fulfill the requirement was wasted. Yes we developed new ideas but with a lot of imperfections that we did not know because of the time constraints and even professors of our field don't know how to solve. And those papers will most likely be unpublished and not be useful because the lack of knowledge and supervision
While finishing my master in biotechnology, I feel like a PhD would completely burn me out. Also having a PhD gives me a feeling of impostor syndrome somehow, with such high expectations that people have Does it make sense?
From my own experience (in psychology), I’d say it’s pretty much impostor syndrome throughout the 3+ years. You constantly get the feeling that everyone around you seems to be reading much more than you do, and more importantly, that they’re also *memorising* much more of it than you do. So you expect it to be only a matter of time until you get “called out” for not knowing something everyone else seems to know somehow. So far, that has never actually happened to me, though - and I’m almost done (about to hand in). Some other colleagues have told me that my supervisors may just have been nit-picky during some of my presentations. That can of course make you second-guess yourself on every theoretical idea you’re proposing. But in either case: You’re always gonna be living with the constant *expectation* to be uncovered as ignorant or less enthusiastic about a subject than your nerd colleague. And that makes it a situation of persisting tension, because you feel like you have to practise constant vigilance.
As im coming from engineering I always find it amusing that there has to be some "novel" knowledge. Ive seen PhD Thesis of Profs that were in the likes of "new optical method to measure and determine vortexes in tubulent fluid flow". Certainly no breakthroughs in chemistry or physics, but absolutely creative and smart applications of scientific knowledge. Afterall of what use are a novel effect or better understanding of it, if it cant be exploited for the better of humanity? I really love engineering for that.
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It's about the library. A Bachelor's degree means you have demonstrated to a committee that you know, vaguely, what a library is and can be trusted, usually, to use it without chewing on the bindings or going potty on the floor and using the pages for ass-wiping or otherwise requiring an inordinate amount of supervision. A Master's degree is conferred upon writing (!) a paper that demonstrates that you are able to use the library well enough to find statements in its volumes that support your idea or assertion--or at least appear to. A Doctorate is awarded when you write a work that the committee can grudgingly admit is not too terribly out of place in the library.
I like that. The library as the center of gravity for all academic work and levels. Next question: who determines that a Library is of proper quality - and that the Librarian his/herself is a proper gatekeeper and/or arbiter of the quality(!) ?
@@charlescurtis6321 Our betters. High and mighty august personages surrounded by the awful majesty of tenure. Or maybe rich donors.
@@OgamiItto70 Knowledge is virtuous - no doubt about it. But the #1 reason I don't want to be an academic is because of the elitism of it all. I just straight-up... don't want to be like (nor accepted by) those type of people. It's not how I want to spend my life. It doesn't seem like a good lifestyle. Anxious-ridden & validation-dependent.
@@charlescurtis6321 good point, the only reason i want to take doctorate degree is that will be good to put it on my name on my son wedding invitation card.
Oof that’s bad news for me! I am in the second year of my phd, having not used a library book since school 😅
"...no one will actually read" sad truth
That's not really the point. The point is that the author 'knows' what is in it. It makes him/her an expert in that research and that's a personal achievement for those seeking knowledge.
I quoted alot from master thesis in my bachelors, although that wouldnt be counted by him as actual readers I guess, since the bachelors isnt published aswell. Still there might be some unknown lurkers enjoying ones masters thesis.
r/swoosh@@TheWinterShadow...and that's not my point nor his point (because I quoted from him), either
Depends. My master thesis is included in my book. On my phd now and will likely use it in a book also. But many times in my field will publish the thesis.
But if they decide to, they shud find smth good.
My son has just completed his PhD in isotopic geochemistry and published a paper, very proud parents.
when will he get a real job then?
@@anderstermansen130 Starting as an associate professor in 4 weeks. $100k.
😁😁
@@johnstirling6597 goddamn that a lot of money
@@anderstermansen130 your comment backfired, you condescending pos.
@@anderstermansen130 ratioed to hell
Huh, I am just writing my Masters thesis in Computer Science and this actually motivated the heck out of me right now! Seeing the differences between your PhD and your masters thesis made me realize that I kinda don't have to worry about all of this too much. Man, what a relief! Thank you so much :D
do you mind telling me what you're writing about? I'm starting my CSE degree soon
but if you want to keep it confidential, it's alright! I just need a general idea about what thesis in CSE is
thank you :)
Like wise I’m on going to my second year of computer science and at least pursing a masters any tips mate ?
@@revalovesyou It's about a Serious VR Game to teach lean management :)
I think in CSE, you're really open to explore many topics, and often it can be a more practical master thesis (at least at my uni)
@@Memo-sq1bb Learn how to learn! Starting in 2nd semester I rarely went to any lectures, but always attended any exercise lessons where we went through task sheets!
I can sit down for two weeks before the exam and actually learn everything from the semester using provided slides. You gotta know yourself and learn how you work most effectively!
Teaching others is an INSANELY effective way to solidify anything you've learned!
Don't put too much pressure on yourself, if it takes an additional semester for you, it won't be the end of the world (and any future employer etc will most likely not care)
Hope that helps, and best of luck
What is your topic?
I am currently writing my PhD thesis, looking back at my masters it was easy back then.
I was able to monkey around in a lab for 6 months, trying things out to improve CIGS solar cells, which worked. I got large improvements which I found through experimentation. We even were able to write a paper and publish it. Which was great.
My masters is in Nanoscience, now I am doing a PhD in physics, developping new methodology in surface science analytics.
It is hard and from time to time I am a bit defeated. But I am writing my thesis, and a paper for publishing and going back to the lab for more experiments soon.
Looking back at my masters, that was easy, since the research question was simpler: find a way to improve those solar cells
While my PhD is harder: develop a new method, find ways to make it work.
Sometimes it is hard to find the motivation each day to get up and just do it.
I guess many feel the same way, and I hope you find the strength to see it through.
I think if you're achieving these fantastic things and it seemed easy, you were one of the more exceptional students. Congratulations though for both your past and ongoing achievements.
Are you fucking hunting achievements? Like steam achievements?
monkey around .. cannot relate .. lol job well done btw
Hey I’m a physics major as well. What kind of books for physics would you recommend that help you to get where you’re at today?
My wife, used to chase me down in social media and yt comments to tell me to stop screwing around and to get back to writing my thesis, so what are you doing here ;)
I just finished my Master's thesis to which I dedicated the last year of my life and I have feeling in between of what you said. I felt I could get much more with more time, but at the same time I didn't want to hahaha It wasn't something ground-breaking but was new and I feels like a great achivement. If I ever make a PhD, I'll probably feel prouder, but I'm content with what I have now.
I agree with you. There is no comparison between a Thesis and a Dissertation.
My PhD made me feel proud and excited about the future.
Whereas my Master did not have that feeling.
Thank you for sharing your journey on youtube.
Best,
It is always interesting to look back and realize how much smaller all the previous hurdles used to be. I am currently writing a Master Thesis (drug metabolomics in crops) and looking back a Bachelor thesis looks much more relaxing and during writing the Bachelor thesis I looked back at my high-school thesis (in Austria we have to write a small thing called "Vorwissenschaftliche Arbeit" or "pre-scientific work") and I felt like I could write one of those in a week-end, not the months of time afforded to highschool-students. One grows with the challenges at hand I guess. ^^
ps: I really also get the pride part. When I finished high-school I was kinda proud, because I got the best marks in my grade you know its something. And when I entered university, there are some single exams or seminar-papers that I am more proud of than that my high-school diploma. The "higher up" something is in the tiered education system, the prouder I am upon achieving it, but that is normal I think. ^^
It doesn't get easier, you just get better. 🙂
Does it upset you that there are high school graduates with no additional education that earn several multiples of what you'll be making?
@@CptMole read "A Random Walk Down wall Street" and understand that for each high school dropout that makes 10x what I do, there are 1000 of them making 1/10th what I do. If want the best risk-adjusted return, then getting more education is basically always better.
@@CptMole nah. I am not a big money guy. The only thing that pisses me off in that regard are landlords, who just happened to inherit a bunch of wealth and are now price-gouging people who just want a roof over their head. But as long as you are working for a salary I see you as an ally. ^^
@@Orach3n Yeah. Ifs just crazy to look back and realize how much one has grown, because when looking forward it feels like you have achieved nothing and everything is still as daunting as it was years ago.
I feel like Master’s level is of course original but not yet a novelty, as it is a piece of work to confirm established knowledge and what is found from the thesis can be utilized to critique literature in your chosen topic/field.
For PhD, it’s definitely novel as the research dives deep into new knowledge and provides a credible, peer-reviewed scholastic paradigm and prepares you for an academic profession if chose to.
@Thee Z, that's exactly what he said in the video.
I think that is more accurate
Feel like this is at least the ideal. "finding novel stuff" is vague enough that I've seen PhD work that is nothing more than a padded Master thesis.
@@makingadjustments Yes unfortunately thats what it has become, especially in India. There is no quality or practical usefullness. But thats how Research and Development advance, a bit here a bit there and time.
Thanks for your conclusion
My masters thesis a 248 page document was examined outside of my university, defended in a viva voce and I've been asked to covert it into a book or pull out several papers for journal publications.
I actually spent time in the film.
All I can say is, it depends on what and how the thesis is done.
I agree with the sentiment. My Bachelor Thesis was 125 pages long and in it I described how we identified the Enzyme responsible in plants for detoxifying apocarotenals. My Master Thesis by comoarison was 72 pages long and mainly the result of a few succesful Experiments, while most of them were a disaster.
I am currently almost finished with my first year of PhD and am not certain what will happen
Pls tell me that majority of those were attachments, because t248 pages of pure text is nuts
@@HelloOnepiece Uh, most noteworthy books are double that.
@@andso7068 Yeah, books. not university level papers. 250+ without attachements is nuts for undergraduate level. Even the OP comment indicates that this is overachieving, majority (normal) thesises dont get afapted into books
The size of the dissertation doesn't really matter. I've seen plenty of professors who preferred shorter ones as it spares them lots and lots of time reading through and back-checking it. I worked as assistant for an institute at my university while I was preparing for my masters degree and while being there I often heard complains that people writing walls of text when essentially the same could have been said in 3-4 lines. I.e. look at John Nash's dissertation which has 26 pages. Some mathematicians also have dissertations of roughly 30-40 pages as they prove certain theorems and the language they are using to explain their solution is pure math equations. So, it's not about the size, it's about the novelty of the content.
The size actually matters for some supervisors. They want minimum 150 pages..
@@zinedinezidane2364 yuck
I agree !
@@zinedinezidane2364 150 pages is a reasonable size for sure.
Sadly not true for most professors at my old uni... I literally developed my "make senctences longer" skill specifically for uni, naturally im quite blunt and short
I'm getting to my first year of PhD study and I feel a bit overwhelmed by all the theoretical reading, but yes I have learnt A LOT in this year. I completed my masters 15 years ago, and been working all those years in between. I liked what you said that it is truly representative of your life, because for me to do this research will also allow me to crystallize all my work experience from the past 15 years.
Both my thesis and dissertation were original questions that were published. The real difference was the scope and scale of the project, one was 50 pages the other was 220. The level of independence and methodological sophistication was much higher on the PhD too. I also despised both my thesis and PhD by the end, none of the pride you discussed. Being so close to them meant I could see every flaw and worry and I felt like a fraud.
Yeah. I think that's kinda natural, since many professors feel the same about their thesis. It's like the more u know the more u don't know.
Dunning Kruger effect.
It proves that you must know quite a bit
Masters thesis research proposal is what I’m working on.
I’m so proud of you too Andy! 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ for all of your hard work!
Building new knowledge is an immensely valuable contribution in the academic world. Congratulations 👏
Loved the comparison of meaning in the end. This is what every artisan or handymann is experiencing everyday, but a scholar could bei searching for his/her whole Life. An original and unique piece of Work.
Your videos were just randomly recommended to me. I just started my master’s. Don’t believe no one will look at your thesis if it’s published. Last year in one of my undergrad class I found someone’s thesis that documented the history of a novel drug class really well.
Thank you, Doctor Stapleton, for your unique contributions to the world's future, and all the personal sacrifices you had to make in order to contribute such value. One day our descendants will make use in their daily lives of what you've done.
Dr Alton Vines loves the Video! Done an awesome job Mr.Stapleton
While writing my master's thesis, my PI told me that a master's thesis is basically a single section of a PhD thesis. That may have been a bit reductionist as my thesis was certainly longer and went into more depth than a single section from a PhD thesis, but I feel like the spirit of the statement gets the point across. After all I'd expect someone to have produced significantly more after 6 years of advanced research than I did in two years fumbling around the lab with my micropipette. However I will say that while my master's thesis was certainly novel, I had the benefit of being part of a multiple decade long project related to the molecular mechanisms of aging in plants and would have absolutely floundered without the help of my team.
Actually, the PhD isn't 6 years of dogged research. More like 3 at best as it takes time to keep such concerted efforts over that long a period of time. Some go on to complete it in 2 years after doing their master's.
@@oluwaogundiran 2 years is super rare. Usually, it takes about 3 - 4 years.
Can you link your masters? I love learning about plant science so I’d be keen to read it!
Imposter syndrome is real. I’m sure your colleagues felt the same way unless they were much more senior.
I like how this video starts like a proper research paper or thesis, with giving an abstract. Most videos on youtube will learn you at least half way in before even touching the main points hinted by the title and thumbnail.
I spent 4 years trying to figure what my masters was going to be in, I spent 2 years trying to get to that masters. Now I have to rethink everything since my original plan is falling apart since the classes I want to take don't work with my work schedule. I am sad, but I am happy to see your accomplishments since it is inspiring and if not now, hopefully I will be as proud as you when I reach my academic goals.
I hope you succeed one day
And you will reach your goals. Keep your chin up!
Andy, thank you for the video. I could see your enthusiasm in your explanation of the acknowledgement section of your PhD, which demonstrates how proud you are of the new information generated. That section really encouraged me, and I promised myself that one day I will have such a document and be as proud of my work as you are.
Thank you for continuing to share; I'm always inspired to keep going.
My master thesis was externally evaluated and based on extensive original research that contributed to the field. I feel like I've written two PhD theses tbh. I even had an oral defense with external examiners for the masters. What is expected varies to widely from university to university, country to country, even between institutes within a university. Important to keep in mind. Im almost done with my PhD thesis and Im proud of it primarily because I did most of it during Covid lockdowns and am still managing to finish on time.
Here in Hungary/ELTE, my BSc Thesis was done with a viva voce and 2 external examiners and 3 internal ones plus my supervisor who said "it can go to be defended."
@@runakovacs4759 Meanwhile Corvinu: The petty professor said it is fine, so its fine
Currently writing my PhD thesis after nearly 5 years of research and I really agree with what you mentioned. A PhD thesis is like a historical record that documents your entire growth throughout the years of doing research. I find myself jumping back to my acknowledgement from time to time, thanking individual that happened to appear at the right place, right time to say the right thing that helped me obtain breakthrough in my research. Really proud of my PhD thesis as I am writing it and happy to know that the joy is shared amongst those that has went through the similar processes.
I feel like the main difference is the journey you go through. Finishing my regular studies and writing my first thesis was more like dipping my toe into the water whereas the doctoral thesis was really starting to swim. So while in terms of size they may not be that different, the amount of knowledge, learning, doubt and growth as an academic were very different for me. Both are fun in their own right though.
They were pretty much the same for me, except the PhD took longer because that was the expected norm.
It's possible that my Master's thesis might even be better quality work than my PhD. Of course I didn't intend it to be that way, but different projects will have different results, and its not always possible to fully control the outcome.
Neither of them were fun, and both were somewhat damaging to my physical and mental health, despite my interest in the subject matter and general love of learning.
Well, my PhD thesis saved my mental health. I have been working on it for 10 years. It was a terrible mess of fragments. Lo and behold, some unpleasant event happens in my life. And the only way to overcame it was to edit my PhD. The more the text looked tidy, the brighter became my mood. I haven't received philosophy Doctor status yet, but I hope I will manage to do it.
Best of Luck with that!
@@tjajaja many thanks!
Have you completed it
@@SA_PASF yes! Now I struggle to defend it, but it is another story ))) wish me luck on 22.10.2024.
Its December 2024, please tell me you managed😊@@yarochkindmitry7631
Schools & programs have a great deal to do with how these are completed. My first MS thesis was essentially the research design and how data would be analyzed and eventually used. My second MS consisted of all 5 chapters of a dissertation: the experiment design, methodology, analysis, etc but using smaller sample group (dissertation light, if you will). My doctorate was a bit less stressful since I knew pretty much what to expect, though each degree was from a different school. What I didn’t expect was how some advisors would drag their feet (not just slow in returning chapters, but all but disappearing). Nearly a complete semester of waiting.
Check the dissertation/thesis requirements beforehand if you see the accepted process might be an issue.
Hint: Purchase the book ”Surviving Your Dissertation” by Rudestam & Newton as it provides some useful tips.
Finished my M.A, Thesis, Literature,awhile back...but Video brings memories back..., all during time of no RUclips advice.....Laughed and cried ( figuratively), to finish all and present it.....Passed.....What a relief Thanks
Well done getting over that milestone of acquiring a PHD. Given me a bit of a jolt to comtemplate extending my own Masters into the former. An objective comparison betwixt the two ,this well elucidated, should aid many weighting up their options.
Betwixt?
@@redstonerti9918 I need a certain candy bar now
@@redstonerti9918 between
Happy that I randomly came across this video. I begin writing my master’s thesis next week, and now I’m way less anxious about it
I just got my bachelor's in chemistry and my work has been used by the professor I was under and integrated by her PhD students to make a publication. It was about the potential of ginkgolides to act as antioxidants in cell membranes. It felt incredibly satisfying when the paper was published and my name was on it, bear in mind that I'm 22! I'm now enrolled in a master's course and I hope I'll be able to progress further and become a researcher
Weird flex but ok
You got my like when you immediately began answering the title question without any watchtime extending banter at the beginning of the video. Also, great explanation!
Great video! I just recently finished my master's thesis, sadly in the field of theoretical psychology while I was actually studying clinical psychology. Therefore the "procdure" aspect you talk about, just something that is part of the process instead of something truly in line with me as a person and my valued accomplishments was really relatable for me :)
Dude!
An accomplishment is an accomplishment!!!
It is all part of the journey!!!
I just discovered your channel, and I'm about to start my PhD in about 6 months. I am very excited!
Interestingly enough, while I did write proposals and write ups for my MS, the main thing for me was the comprehensive exam, which was pure hell.
how is the PHD Life so far...
That's really cool, I'm probably never going to get anywhere close to phd in my life (since I rely entirely on self-education) but I'm still hoping to create something new and useful for everyone.
I suppose that ought to be commendable actually 🤔 That way one isn't doing it for any commendation/approbation but only for the pure love of learning itself .... Good going 👏
Cool! Whatever Works for you ☺
I found it more beneficial to get a careerfield specific doctorate, doctorate in nurse anesthesia practice, I’ve got the best of both worlds where I’m able to conduct research as well as handle patients under a medical specialty. I’d say to go that route if your profession has a specific career-field related doctorate.
Your feelings about your PhD thesis is how I feel about mine. Currently editing it after my defense.
My biggest and ongoing grad school blunder is turning my master's thesis into a PhD thesis. Too late to fix now, but advice to everyone else here: keep it boring, be done with it, spend your full potential on the PhD instead.
Edit: I notice this may confuse the USians. I don't mean a formal conversion, I mean picking too big/ambitious a project for your master's.
could you give an example of a project that you consider too ambitious for a masters?
@@amentrison2794 I mean that depeds, but in my case my first project was a quantitative analysis of word stress in some language. It was much more complex than it initially seemed, and then we found out methods weren't settles enough to just take something and apply. Mu current project is similarly methodologically somewhat novel, in discourse analysis, and I am suffering from similar problems, but to a lesser extent. Too much novelty is difficult.
Maybe you should’ve done a masters thesis on the tragedy of a sound that is saying the word USian out loud lol. I never get the logic that “wow Americans are so arrogant to call themselves Americans” while you are literally deciding that because you don’t like it your changing their name for them.
@@monhi64 A lot of USians I know call themselves USian, so settle it with your fellow USians, dear USian ;)
I am working on my masters dissertation right now and there's only one thing I can say about how it makes me feel: disappointed. I feel like I am doing nothing but collecting previous data and presenting it nicely. Yes my ideas can be found here and there throughout the paper but it's anything but original and new.
When my friend got his Master's degree, the advisor who helped him strategize his thesis-writing told him that one of the principles of writing a Master's thesis is "nobody cares what you think." So, if you have some Big Idea you want to expound in your paper, you have to bury it under tons of copperplate sourced from personages much more august than you and kind of sneak your idea in with all that corroboration from the previous eminent scholar big-wig types' works.
@@OgamiItto70 well this makes perfect sense! It should be mandatory to give students this piece of information
@@RoseDawsonworld I know it's supposed to be education, but have you ever noticed how much information you're never given?
@@OgamiItto70 I sure did! So much so that I actually regret applying for my masters. It was only worth it for a couple of subjects
Well that's your own fault...
I just want to add that different countries have different standards.
My masters degree was by research, meaning I had to produce a dissertation. My dissertation was examined by 1 or 2 external examiners (I can't remember exactly). If the work was novel enough it could be upgraded to a PhD, it wasn't (but I wasn't surprised by this).This varies by field of course too so it's a lot more complex then 'a masters is x'. Our masters are also graded but PhDs are not. Some naturally get offered the option to extend into PhD, I didn't get this but I also didn't want it having seen how long PhDs took people to complete and what it took out of them.
Research is a dangerous time consuming activity and a supervisor bent on getting everything perfect can totally ruin the experience. My masters took 5 years to finish not just because of my supervisor but also because of personal circumstances. I'm proud I did it but I do view it as an extreme waste of time. However it's a 150 odd page document that likely no one will gain much benefit from (in part due to not pushing back on certain decisions).
There can be different standards for different projects, even within the same University, because it's so difficult to standardise research work across a wide variety of topics. Usually PhD theses take more work and are of higher quality, but this isn't always the case. It can be very dependent on the specific project and the student and supervisors involved.
My Master's in the UK was by research, and it took 2 years after BSc graduation. My supervisor said that it was almost a PhD, and asked me to keep working to convert it. However, I declined, as I had worked pretty much 24/7, and found the whole experience to be quite unpleasant.
I went back and got a PhD later, which took another 6.5 years. I produced a larger volume of results for this, but in terms of originality and quality of work, it wasn't particularly any higher than my Master's.
5 years for a Master's sounds particularly extreme. In the UK, the only way that I can think of to take so long for a Master's is for those who submit their PhD, and their examiners give them a Master's degree for it! This happened to a couple of people that I know.
@@sebfox2194lol 5 years for a masters is possible and I ve seen it happen countless times. Research rules vary per country and institution and whether one is studying full time or part time
I am starting to prep for my masters thesis and looking ahead at my PhD questions I am considering and this video was really nice to see
Interesting. When I did my masters in the early 2000's, my institution had several requirements. These included an external, secret examiner from the field and you had to publish a research paper in a journal. Some of us did original research work while others did literature studies of existing work.
I need to write a master's thesis for my B School, and this was the video that I needed to really understand what was expected from me.
I did a masters thesis and then decided later to go into the PhD program and do the dissertation.
Your explanation is excellent and sometimes comes up with PhD candidates.
The only regret I had was I chose not to publish my masters thesis and I ended up reproducing and mailing about 20 copies to people who wanted to read it.
From my perspective, the masters thesis was a chance to practice some of the elements of doing a dissertation and it helped me decide whether or not to continue to the PhD.
Your mileage may vary.
I found my Masters thesis the other day. I had lost it in my several moves since university 30 years ago. You did a good job describing the difference between the two. I never got a PhD. My Masters was just an extension of my Undergraduate senior project, which was a design of a computer. My Masters took that project and added a level of complexity by expanding the computer to 64 processors and adding reconfigurabilty to message passing between them.
I felt great when I was done. My professor wanted me to stay for a terminal degree but I knew coming up with new and defendable ideas would be tough for me.
My office mate and friend was a brilliant man and struggled to finish his PhD dissertation. I knew I didn't have a chance. I'm sorry I didn't try now but I fear it would not have gone well anyway.
I had a plan to get my Masters (Electrical Engineering) and then get a job and I stuck to that.
Interestingly, my Master's thesis was 190 pages. My PhD dissertation was 124 pages. Both were original contributions to knowledge. Just saying that there can be significant overlap between the two.
Sounds like you went above and beyond what was expected in the Masters' thesis.
Your masters thesis is super unusual and over the top.
Number of pages means almost nothing but okay
@@austinbarton6874 That's why I decided to make my dissertation as short as possible. Part of what motivated me to do this was hearing about 300 page preliminary exams in my department that just seemed excessive.
In almost all cases, the only person who will ever read either document is the author, so it's really up to them. I'm not a big reader, so I kept them as short as I could.
Hi Andy. Really love your content. Could you please make a video on how to convert your master's thesis to a journal article? I believe it would be really helpful for loads of masters students trying to get into PhD programs.
Tag me once you get it.
I finished my masters last year (2021) and I was in doubt if I should do a PhD or pursue a convetional job.
Thank God I found a nice job!
However, I congratulate you guys who continuous in academic life.
I can tell this video will answer a lot of questions before even watching it. Great idea for a video topic.
Master thesis: An extension of previously published research
PhD thesis: Creating new knowledge
What is the field in which Dr. Andy Stapleton earned his Ph. D.? Shouting At The Camera! This is a skill few RUclips presenters have attempted, but Dr. Stapleton has convincingly mastered the technique. In this video, Dr. Stapleton shouts at the camera in standard RP English. However, he is equally adept, after years of rigorous training, at shouting with Scottish, Irish, Australian New South Wales, and Midwestern American accents. Kudos, Dr. Stapleton. I hope you are successful in your bid to become Town Crier for Newcastle upon Tyne. I'll be rooting for you--and SHOUTING for you!
An original contribution to knowledge. That's a steep filter, and worthy of a PhD.
I am very proud of both my undergrad and masters degree dissertations, and the improvement from undergrad to masters is evident (even though I made a product for my undergrad and my masters was empirical). I hope to continue this improvement as I embark on my PhD journey (with Andy's help of course)
I submitted as a Masters by Research. It was originally a PhD programme (Civil Engineering), where within the first 3 months my main supervisor left. Then when I needed to do field work and testing the covid pandemic caused a lockdown (march 202). Whilst I worked hard I knew my thesis was not robust enough because I only had remote sensing data to use (I couldn't test against field data). I therefore just submitted as a Masters of Science by Research and gained employment soon after. I won't be working in research so having a BSc, MSc (x2) is enough.
Love your videos and content! I would like to humbly request if you could make more videos on Master's and Master's thesis advice and tips, as there ain't many content like these and this quality on RUclips 🙇
I just finished my masters and I’m constantly asking myself if really want to do a PhD! Your videos made me not to do so 😂
Imagine the hardest part of your masters that you were glad to move past after a few months. The PhD is this, for years, finishing with an expert making sure you know it.
@@sparkequinox Sounds about accurate. I'd add to this the need that, after years of failing, you still need to wake up every morning and try again. Pursuing a PhD is truly mostly a lesson in humility and a railroad to burnout if you're not careful.
doing a masters right now and doing a research project with a PhD student was the final nail in the coffin of my doctoral aspirations
Doing a PhD was the biggest mistake of my life. Wish I never bothered. A waste of time and the end result is not worth it at all in my opinion.
@@Scott-xl3sc in what field? Just curious.
My phase 3 literature review, has helped me to more understand; and comprehend my topic. Knowing that this is a terminal degree, it may be the topping on the cake of my educational career. Education is a staircase, and the student can get off on whatever step he/she may like. That's the reason for a transcript. Transcripts record where the student paused. Nothing is lost.
This was a very interesting video to listen to, especially because it shows the differences in thesis' between countries and cultures to me. The university I went to in Czech Republic wouldn't allow a "simple compilation of previous works" as a valid Master's thesis. Previous articles are of course a part of the thesis, but the Master's (and partialy even Bachelor's) requires something new that hasn't been done yet, based on an original hypothesis or idea. Of course, it can still be quite shallow and in many ways derivative, but if you were to just combine three different works together, you wouln't pass the exams, unless you really figured out something new. A compilation cannot be your goal here, it might be only a way of achieving it, if you are very lucky - let's be honest, reading a couple of papers and summarizing/combining them, is something very easy.
That's actually why I didn't want to get my doctorate after the engineering degree. The master's thesis I wrote took quite a toll on me and it wasn't even a good one. I cannot imagine what would be required from me to get a PhD. The other reason is teaching. I love to teach, but unless I get at least a decade of experience in the field, I don't think I am competent to teach and evaluate other students.
Same here, Poland univ (at least when it comes to history) won't allow it even at bachelor lvl. However history remains quite different from this type of studies - maybe in this we may find an answer.
Probably not much more would be required of you to get a PhD. Just a bit more time, and more of the same kind of work. I studied in the UK, and there wasn't a lot of difference between my Master's and PhD theses, except I spent longer gathering results for my PhD.
@@sebfox2194 Exactly. The period for the doctorate just allows more data gathering and volume to be put into the research work. It is not necessarily novel, as many are not precisely offering new knowledge but the idea might be.
I think as a Dentist who is preparing for his Master's in Dental Surgery (MDS). I think just give a few more seconds to the point that based on the course the thesis part can vastly differ. Because although technically we are only doing a master's course but the thesis and dissertations go through the same process as you mentioned like that for a PhD. Like external examiners, selection of topics and its approval by the University. The toughest part is you have a 3 day exam in which the external examiners evaluate your patient work, lab work, your course knowledge, and on top of all that your thesis defense.
If I'm going to be honest I believe I am kind of ashamed of my masters...
It was in Organizational Leadership (social science) and it was (1) a capstone, (2) the university picked the project, (3) it was a group project where my advisor was the project leader (4) there wasn't even a final report, only a presentation. The upside of it was that I carried most of the group on my back and I had the opportunity to do qualitative research and dig deeper into the findings. But I definitely was expecting MUCH more from it!!
I am applying for a PhD this year and I hope I get my hands dirtier this time!! #FingersCrossed
I am going to start my masters project next month and already know it is going to be exactly like you said. I am already depressed before starting it.
@@Feministt Do you want to talk more about this through email or something?? I literally don't know how or even if I can help you but maybe my experience can help you somehow. I don't know.
Not getting my hands dirty/dirtier makes me so ashamed of my masters. In my program you didn't have to write a thesis, and could take two more courses instead. I knew I was going to be doing a PhD, so I chose to take courses in bionanotechnology and a course on regulation of new drugs and biologics. Part of me is happy with the decision because both courses have already proven to be significant for future career objectives, with many of the projects I'm interested in having nano-components, and being on the fence about leaving academia for industry having regulatory background will be quite useful, but having a degree without doing novel work feels cheap. I was doing research at another institution and contributed to several major publications, but even then, I often felt like I was more a pair of hands than a contributor to the actual information. Going into PhD it's making me want to work extra hard because I want to feel I've earned my education. Best of luck with your PhD applications!
wow that phd thesis is lovely, i bet its really nice to have like a classy looking fully bound text book… written by you. the hard back with the black cover and the gold text very nice
Could you make a video on getting a PhD later in life? Is it ok to get a PhD in your 40s, 50s, or 60s? Is it ever too late to get a PhD? Or is there a point where it no longer makes sense (since you may be too old to work or have to retire soon)
It is absolutely fine to do your PhD later in life. In my department (CS) three people recently graduated who were already retired.
I submitted my doctoral thesis aged 52, when I was already a full-time lecturer. I then published it as a book. It helped the last phase of my career, but I retired voluntarily at 60.
My main motivation though was personal satisfaction (and now aged 73, I still use the title Dr because I earned it).
@@1000pollak where do you use the title if you are retired? I can't think of anybody I know with a PhD (including myself) who uses their title outside of an academic setting.
@@AnthonyLauder On all forms where it says "Title: Mr, Ms, Mrs, Dr," etc. I haven't felt like Mr since I graduated
@@1000pollak OK, I don't remember filling out many forms that ask for a title, but fair enough. I must admit, I have never used my title out of academia, because using it otherwise would feel a bit cringy, and I think most people would confuse it with a medical doctor. But, if you feel the need, I can understand.
It's an excellent video. It made me realise a lot of things on my Master thesis, thank you !
My Masters' was kind of an 'along the way project' while doing my PhD. The way it was explained to me (by my supervisor), the Master's was a convenient exit point for grad students who wanted to give up on the PhD (at least they didn't waste their time and earned a degree) or for PIs who did not want to see that student through to the end 😟. Already published a paper when I was an undergrad, so on day 1 my supervisor started by just giving me a project to get done. Got that done within a year while learning R and Python and then published it as my Masters' thesis and as a paper. Then the real fun started and I had way more autonomy over the PhD research.
How did you learn R and Python during your Master's program? Was it self-taught?
@@komalpatel7564 Self-taught, but I had 2+ years of experience with Matlab during undergrad, so coding wasn't new to me. Matlab I learnt on the job during an internship in an engineering lab (but I was a psych major). After that I worked in a psych lab, putting that Matlab skill to use, which led to a publication, which led to me going to grad school.
You are a great communicator, thanks.
I think this is a good video to show to ~16 year olds to give an idea of what would be coming depending on what academic path they go down. I know I was clueless heading into university.
It is mandatory knowledge for anyone attending an university..
No 16 year old is going to get a master first or a pHD. First they go for the bachelor or an associate. A college student going for their undergrad is who would benefit from these videos
Congratulations, Dr. Stapleton
The type of thesis (masters vs phd) doesn’t matter. It’s the quality of the research that really counts. A colleague of mine coauthored a paper with a 2nd year undergraduate student, and the student was the paper’s first author because the student came up with the idea and did most of the work. Most professor are conservative, and have a fixed mindset that publishing can only occur while doing a phd, and it is this mindset that gets past onto students. My advice to students is don’t let the insecurities / fixed mindset of your professor hold you back! Also, become more discerning who you choose as a project supervisor
True. Unfortunately, this mindset that an undergrad or a master's student is not required to have an original research outcome has negatively affected academia in many ways. Most Masters and undergrads are just considered cheap labor for PhDs and Postdocs despite many of them working very hard and being active in the lab. However, undergrads and masters should not underestimate themselves and they should always push for more despite the limitations. Ambition is the key.
You are so right sir, I just rounded up my masters with two original research work. thanks to my supervisor
I'm not an academic, I just watched this in case I wanted to write a PhD character some time and in that respect you have served me well, Sir with that last section, Thankyou.
Are you a writer?
@@theRealdesaro Sometimes.
@@brianedwards7142 cool!
I didn't even do a real thesis for my Masters in Computer Science. I built a number of tools and other programs based on the courses and my interests and wrote some documentation about them.
Hi Andy! I am new comer here. Thank God i found your video 😊 it helps me to write proposal for PhD. Wish me luck
Our thesis director at American Military University made us work hard. My M.A. thesis was 158 pages long (80,000+ words) and he required it to be as original as possible. So, as I am now in my PhD program I am wondering what I am going to write on as I have been published in journals for the past 12-years and I feel like I may have already written one or two of my best ideas a journal contributions. Most researchers publish, at least from what I hear, their PhD thesis in paper form since each of the chapters is about 26/7 pages long in a dissertation. I am also wondering how I can top 158 pages for detail and depth of coverage. At the end, I believe that I will feel better about my accomplishment given that I have so many pre-loaded obstacles.
I'm sure you'll be able to make something you'd be proud of.
In finished my master's degree about a year ago, and am looking forward to make the PhD soon (I want to work a little on the industry before continuing my academic journey.) I feel very proud of it, although it was not completely original as PhD thesis, I still got to explore something completely new, I published a journal from it. The jury in my disertatiom congratulated me about the work, and my advisor told me it was frontier research.
This video is an interesting perspective and a bit different from my master's experience. I did a one year masters of research and because the course is designed with PhD progression in mind there was a heavy emphasis on producing publishable results, plus there was an external examiner who read my dissertation and watched my presentation to confirm the marks my two partnered institutions have me. Thank you for the comparison though, anything I can watch to prepare me for the upcoming PhD is appreciated!
I think this is fascinating to hear. The general idea is more or less the same across many fields, but the means to get there differs radically. I hear about a 229-page Ph.D. dissertation and I drool just a bit. Of course, the information is orders of magnitude more dense, so that is understandable.
That's true about the Master's degree feeling... I just haven't ended the meticulous details that my reviewers are doing to my masters thesis because I feel nothing for it, no proud, excitement, etc. I feel that nothing in my life will be different if I end up or not. I abandoned it almost a year and days counting...
my husband did the same. He did end up completing it just to get it off his chest and it’s something he’s proud of doing now.
Yea, same. Had no drive to finish my masters thesis. I looked at it more like a chore. Took 2 uni years instead of 1 year to make it
The Masters was difficult, but it was done over a shorter time period, which made it easier to deal with mentally. For my PhD, I was put in a situation, that at the time, I perceived to be a combination of unprecedented, perpetual, and insurmountable amounts of stress.
I stopped the Master's (software engineering). I took way too long doing the Master's thesis, part laziness, part procrastination, part not enjoying it. Especially towards the end I was not even that happy with it and just wanted it to be over and to not have entirely wasted the time invested.
I briefly considered continuing onto the PhD but nah. Master's is good enough for me, I wanted to apply my knowledge real life, and not do another couple years of academia and honestly, I was just not sure I could actually do it.
Anyone can do it, but that doesn't mean they should. I view mine as a pretty massive waste of time. If you get a good job in engineering, you will learn much more, much faster.
Your PhD dissertation is a literal book!!!!
I am a computer science MSc student in Hungary and here an original contribution to the field is required for a master's thesis. Obviously the contribution is minor compared to a PhD, but it still has to contain original research results.
Agree.
... otherwise it is basically a report.
Im heading into my second year masters thesis… I truly enjoy the work, I had so much fun with my first one.
I’m considering a PhD because being paid to teach and quench my addiction for knowledge
In the UK for Masters it is called a dissertation and only a thesis for PhD.
Same for Portugal
I did a Master's thesis in the UK. Whether it's a dissertation or a thesis depends on whether you're doing an MA/MSc/MEng or an MRes/MPhil.
Thank you very much Andy. I about to start my Master's Thesis and thought to check out if there is any good guidance on youtube. Glad I found yours.
TBH, I want to do the best out of my Master's Thesis, probably try to do realistically on whats possible but the outcome to be very usefull, application oriented and valuable. So that I can use this experience to probably publish a research paper and learn from it. Also I have plans of doing my PhD in the near future.
My intention is to deep dive on my topic and study current state of art and its best practices.
I kinda have to disagree on some parts. Doing my masters in chemistry right now and my project has a seed paper on which I try and develop new molecules to use in a different manner. Once I‘m done synthesizing those molecules will be evaluated and at the end of the day there will be a paper published with this data (It will be in my mentors name though). However, this is not an extension of another project it rather is its own piece of scientific work that will hopefully bring this field a teeny tiny bit forward.
I guess my point is not every masters thesis is just a project to combine two known pieces. And not every PhD is something ground breakingly new. My mentor is doing the same stuff as I am just with more derivatives and with another target. I just took over one of his projects and either him or I will further establish my findings (I‘ll hopefully do my PhD in this field right after).
And in chemistry at least I have never heard of a Dissertation to be downgraded to a masters degree. We all have our masters degrees before starting the PhD. Also our PhD requires us to have at least one first author publication (usually it’s three publications total) and the Dissertation is always published, you don’t get the title until it is. Furthermore, the dissertation is defended in a Kolloquium with between three professors (for everything but summa cum laude) or four professors (for summa cum laude, only then one prof is from another university).
I‘m from Germany though so maybe different countries have different rules on what goes in a dissertation.
This is exactly how it is in the Netherlands, atleast in the field of Biology. There might be a big difference between social science and beta science though.
Things must have changed a lot since I have gained my doctorate in the same field and country as you. There was no requirement of having a firtst author publication of your results, my results are published with me as co auther but not first author. At least when I was defending my thesis, 4 professors were the norm, with at least two of them being from adjacent fields.
I am not even a master's student as I barely got my BA about 40 years ago. Then, when I became a website designer with my own business, my husband asked me to design another website for the alumni of his high school. On this site, we have posted 80+ yearbooks with all the pages and covers scanned along with 3,000+ articles on the school, the community, the school district and the people it took to make this school a reality. It is a group effort that took my daughter and I and my husband to make happen. My husband and I loved history, so this site was not a surprise to me. The surprise comes when I realize I have another 50 or 60 years worth of newspapers to read and post on the site.
This website is the one place that has the largest collection of the yearbooks available. It is more complete than the school's library. I do have 5 or 6 of the early volumes that I haven't found yet, but will post them when they are found.
Oh, by the way, thanks for answering my questions about these two documents you discussed.
I did my MS and PhD in Computer Science quite some time ago (2005 and 2008). I was at the time in the theory part of Computer Science (combinatorial optimization) so it looks a lot more like math than what you could expect CS to be.
My MS thesis was essentially "I looked at this particular problem. We applied these standard tools. That wasn't easy because technical stuff. These are the results we got. To go further on that problem we would need to address challenge X and Y".
My PhD was actually in the very same field than my MS. To the point where the extension of my MS are actually a chapter in my PhD. In my PhD I looked at other problems that looked similar to the problem of my MS. I was able to show that the different problems actually grouped in 2 different category and depending in which category they were, you could be able to derive similar types of results. So all the problems we found in category 1, they responded well to techniques A, B and C and not D, E, and F. But the problems in category 2 responded to techniques D, E, and F, and not to techniques A, B, and C.
14 years later, I still don't know why this appears to be true, but we haven't found counter examples yet.
My MS Thesis has basically the same format
01:54 perfectly accurate description of what a masters thesis correction looks like...
How can you compare a honours thesis with a masters thesis? Andrew, the way you put it is like my honours thesis is more or less similar to a masters thesis (except it’s hardly going to pass the novelty check for a publication).
The other thing I want to mention is how can you compare the difference of a master of research and master of philosophy? I’m going to do the latter despite having a honours degree and I’m not quite sure whether I’m going to be delivering the same type of thesis that I wrote in my honours or whether I have to demonstrate the research caliber as a PhD student.
Exactly! And as I saw many pages without any illustration there, of course nobody is going to read it! The thing is to put pictures and plots and tables to give it a bit of structure and easiness for the reader. If you're going to do PhD/doctorate only for yourself, that's ok. But would you have patience to re-read and understand what you did there easily?
Idk, I seem to think, through experience, that a PhD is basically a masters, except you don’t just have one study, you’ve got study 2 and 3 and this is where the thickness comes from.
In my university at least, the standard of a masters (in medical sciences anyway) should still be producing original work.
Nine times out of ten, a professor will go to a conference, see a project using a new technique or measure and then come back home and say, right, here’s a new masters/PhD project: heart rate variability (or machine learning, or some other new model) in this population.
Students might then take on ownership and the minor details of the project, but ultimately it was pre-determined.
This wasn’t my experience through just the one university, but my knowledge of what happens at many universities.
Additionally, my masters had to be internally and externally reviewed all the same as a PhD.
This realisation lead me to decide, although prestigious, you learn nothing new in a PhD (except the project specific tasks and outcomes) so why even bother unless I wanted to be a prof. Which I don’t.
It is an enormous feat to complete a PhD (as it is twice as long as masters) but to me that accounts for more time spent on a project. Instead I moved into working in clinical trials rather than getting a PhD and feel like I’ve learnt and contributed more than what I could have if I applied myself to a PhD. Indeed, a PhD is essential if you wish to be a prof. That is it.
Andy had hair before he started his thesis.
Very interesting video!! Thank you (still trying to finish my undergrad rn 🙃)
I'll be doing my masters soon but I'm constantly thinking "Everything's already been written. What can I bring in that's useful and interesting?". This question only applies to some areas of study and mine is political science, which is not as flexible as say chemistry.
My master's advisor told me afterwards that my thesis (original work) would have been a great dissertation, had it had a more thorough summary of related work. Thanks.
Of course, internally, I thought I needed to do something more interesting for my Ph.D. Ensue seven years of work (some of it while working full time).
I just realized that what I made for my undergraduate thesis was a masteral thesis level. Our professor always pushed and required us to develop novel ideas to the field of computer science with little time and gave us the beating to create these novel ideas and developments. But unfortunately, the panels that reviewed our paper did not understand anything about the novelty and the sleepless nights of mastering a subject and creating something new that we thought is crucial to fulfill the requirement was wasted. Yes we developed new ideas but with a lot of imperfections that we did not know because of the time constraints and even professors of our field don't know how to solve. And those papers will most likely be unpublished and not be useful because the lack of knowledge and supervision
I hope that teacher cuts his/her hands with paper on their next grading.
Do you still have them and are you at liberty to say what they were about?
I appreciate you if for no other reason then you didnt drag out the explanation at all, which seems to be too common now. A like for you!
While finishing my master in biotechnology, I feel like a PhD would completely burn me out. Also having a PhD gives me a feeling of impostor syndrome somehow, with such high expectations that people have
Does it make sense?
From my own experience (in psychology), I’d say it’s pretty much impostor syndrome throughout the 3+ years. You constantly get the feeling that everyone around you seems to be reading much more than you do, and more importantly, that they’re also *memorising* much more of it than you do. So you expect it to be only a matter of time until you get “called out” for not knowing something everyone else seems to know somehow. So far, that has never actually happened to me, though - and I’m almost done (about to hand in). Some other colleagues have told me that my supervisors may just have been nit-picky during some of my presentations. That can of course make you second-guess yourself on every theoretical idea you’re proposing.
But in either case: You’re always gonna be living with the constant *expectation* to be uncovered as ignorant or less enthusiastic about a subject than your nerd colleague. And that makes it a situation of persisting tension, because you feel like you have to practise constant vigilance.
A student gets accepted on a doctoral programme on merit, I honestly never felt or understood 'impostor syndrome'.
Good to know. I will defend my master thesis next month, and in October I will start my PhD.
As im coming from engineering I always find it amusing that there has to be some "novel" knowledge.
Ive seen PhD Thesis of Profs that were in the likes of "new optical method to measure and determine vortexes in tubulent fluid flow".
Certainly no breakthroughs in chemistry or physics, but absolutely creative and smart applications of scientific knowledge. Afterall of what use are a novel effect or better understanding of it, if it cant be exploited for the better of humanity? I really love engineering for that.
Excellant review !