In recent years, several departments have moved away from having a thesis as a requirement for their master's degrees. Some have substituted non-thesis research projects, others have replaced the thesis with coursework. Many departments are also fast-tracking promising students from their undergraduate degrees straight to a PhD program, bypassing the master's altogether.

Are master's degrees less important than they once were?




Grant Clark, PhD student, Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering

Master's programs are of equal, if not greater, importance today. They give people the opportunity to learn how to formulate hypotheses, plan and execute experiments, interpret results, and generally to operate in a research environment. Master's students acquire technical skills in, and gain some focused knowledge about, a particular area of inquiry  this without having to devote many years of their life to academia. The goal of a doctoral program is different, although it is (presumably) founded on the same skills and knowledge. The intent is to educate, not to technically train, the student. When finished, one should have not only a broad and deep knowledge of a particular area of learning, but one's mind should be trained to think in a logical, rational, and hopefully  flexible and creative manner (hence the "original contributions to knowledge" requirement). A doctorate is much more ambitious  that's why it takes longer.



Martha Crago, Associate Vice-Principal (Graduate Studies)

Masters' degrees come in various forms in various disciplines. It is important for people to explore the various forms that a master's experience can take, from applied to non-thesis to thesis degrees. There is no need to throw out a master's thesis degree if it is functional, but there is no reason to keep it if it is not. It might be helpful for units to define their goals for this level of education and then figure out what format the master's level experience might take that would best suit those goals.



Maggie Kilgour, Associate Professor of English, Director of Graduate Studies for the department

The MA still has a purpose. Most of our master's students go on to PhDs, but for some, this is the culmination of their studies and it brings them a great deal of intellectual satisfaction. The master's thesis used to be seen as a kind of middle stage  you trained to write a very large piece of work by writing a medium-sized piece of work. If students have clearly defined interests and an adequate familiarity with their field, they should be permitted to write a master's thesis. But because undergraduate degrees have changed recently, (witness the more liberal arts approach to McGill's BA programs as of next year) students entering an MA program may have more gaps in the knowledge of their discipline than before, and may not be ready to specialize in a specific area. I think then that a non-thesis master's is normally more appropriate as the next stage of study  it exposes students to more areas of and approaches to literature, while allowing for some more specialized work in a research paper. Such training can also be useful for those who aren't on a path to a PhD. Some of our MA graduates establish rewarding careers that draw on their skills: as CEGEP teachers, trade manual editors, publicists or company newsletter editors.



Ronald Rice, Professor of Civil Engineering and Urban Planning

If we define the objective of the master's degree as providing for the development of increasing depth or breadth of knowledge in a selected area (sometimes leading to professional accreditation), then the degree has to be an important one in today's society. In my view the degree must include a research or design project, although its weight should be flexible (15-65% of the requirements for the degree). In the past our expectations for research production were often excessive, and confused with those of the PhD.