The UK’s educational institutions are renowned around the world for innovative teaching techniques and high academic standards. There's a huge range of postgraduate opportunities, and you can choose between studying a taught course or carrying out an original piece of research. Postgraduate study can be academic or related to a particular career or industry.
Teaching formats vary from large group lectures to one-to-one tutorials. You’ll be challenged to think critically and independently, and explore topics for analysis and debate. You can develop excellent team-working skills, and if your course includes a practical element you’ll gain valuable hands-on experience. Whatever you choose to study, your time in the UK will do wonders for your English language skills and your career prospects.
Applying for postgraduate study
For most postgraduate courses, you can apply directly to the institution or through your education consultant. For some courses and research places, you can apply through the UKPASS system. Once you arrive in the UK, you’ll be given plenty of support by your university. For example, many institutions arrange for you to be collected from the airport and have a dedicated international students’ office.
To take a postgraduate degree in the UK, you usually need to have achieved an undergraduate degree or equivalent qualification from the UK, or the same level of qualification from your home country in a relevant subject area.
There are three main levels of postgraduate study:
Certificates and Diplomas
Master’s degrees (including an MBA – Master’s in Business Administration)
Doctorates.
Postgraduate Courses in the UK
Certificates and Diplomas
Postgraduate certificates and diplomas are offered in a huge variety of subjects, from education to management to network engineering. These are often accepted as professional qualifications. They usually take a year to complete, studying full-time.At some institutions, you may be asked to register for a postgraduate diploma as the first stage of a master’s programme.
Taught masters
The structure of a taught master’s varies from course to course and institution to institution. Some courses are made up of core modules and optional choices, while others provide a less flexible ‘set menu’ of learning.Teaching is usually through seminars and tutorials, while assessment can range from examinations, interviews and assessed projects, to group work, coursework and a dissertation, with the weighting of different elements varying between courses.
Research masters
If you study a research master’s, you won’t normally attend lectures but will instead devote the whole year to research. Some courses allow you to take a taught element as part of the course, but your final mark will mainly be determined by the quality of your dissertation.
Doctorates
A research degree at PhD level is the ultimate opportunity to pursue your specialist interest. You will be expected to identify and develop your topic under the supervision of one or possibly two tutors. To be successful, you will need to demonstrate strong commitment and intellectual independence. There are a number of routes to gaining a doctorate. The PhD by research is the most common, but professional doctorates and New Route PhDs are becoming increasingly popular.
PhD by research
Although you would usually be expected to have a master’s degree before progressing to a PhD, it may be possible for you to start a PhD if you have a first-class undergraduate degree or a significant amount of relevant work experience. In this case, you would enrol as an MPhil student, and then demonstrate that you are capable of transferring to a PhD programme.In practical arts subjects it is now possible to undertake a practice based research PhD, which allows you to substitute the long dissertation for a practical assessment. Some subjects that allow you to do this include architecture, choreography, composition and computer music. You will work on a creative project that forms an original investigation and be required to write an analytical thesis contextualising your work.
Some postgraduate courses specify that you must have completed one or two years’ professional experience between your undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. Your institution will also usually expect you to have English language skills of about 6.5 on the IELTS (International English Language Testing System) scale.
If you need a Tier 4 (General) visa to study in the UK, your institution must be licensed as a ‘Highly Trusted Sponsor’ by the UK Border Agency. You can check whether your institution holds this status on the Tier 4 register of sponsors on the UK Border Agency website. Under the Tier 4 (General) student visa rules, for most higher education courses, you will be able to stay in the UK for a maximum of five years.
New Route PhD
A New Route PhD provides a more formal structure than a standard research PhD and includes taught modules, and an advanced research project. This gives you an opportunity to broaden and deepen your subject knowledge. You will also often have the opportunity for interdisciplinary study.
Professional doctorate
These are doctorates for students who are interested in a professional rather than an academic career, and usually require a master’s degree. They often incorporate both coursework and research. The award has a specific subject in its title, for example Doctor of Education (EdD), Doctor of Clinical Psychology(ClinPsyD) or Doctor of Business.
