MA - Geography

Royale with Cheese

Does anybody know how difficult it is to get into this course? I just finished my BA. Got a (high) 2.2 overall but a 2.1 in Geography. Do they just take your overall degree result into consideration when picking candidates, or do they do the logical thing and pay more attention to your geography mark? Would the fact that I'm a graduate of the UCD geography department do me any good? Did an erasmus year with the geography department too, if that's of any use.

Rosita

It's only in the last few days I have read people here talking about overall degree marks. As far as I have been told your degree marks are given in separate subjects and as such there is no such thing as an overall degree mark, despite the likes of the HDip Ed using an average as a convenient manufactured calculation.

To answer your question I would say that only your Geography mark would matter in this case. I have looked at a good lot of post-grad courses in different colleges over the past few years and the stated requirement for, for example, a History post-grad would be a 2.1 in History. It makes sense too in that your knowledge and ability in Geography (in your case) is all that should matter. What difference how you did in an unrelated subject? I would say being a UCD graduate would do you no harm in a toss-up but I doubt they would ever state that publicly.

Going back to the overall mark thing, I am awaiting the final results of a BA degree in UCD (evening degree) which hopefully they will see fit to give me at some stage in the not too distant future, but I would not even dream of judging my degree as an average mark. I have two different targets in mind, and would probably have taken a different subject instead of one of them if the overall degree mark was a matter of great significance to me. In fact I think in the case of the teaching diploma it is a little unfair in the sense that someone could do say, English and Greek/Roman Civilisation, one of which is a teaching subject on the curriculum, the other which is not, yet the mark in the one you'd never be teaching could drag you down. A bit farcical really, though choosing candidates for teaching seems to be largely a number-crunching exercise rather than invested with any great thought.

funktastic

I'm pretty sure it's an 2.1 in your degree overall. I applied for the MA in Geography two years ago and a History one. I accepted the History one and was offered the Geography one. I'd say you'll get in anyway with a 2.2, it's only if the course if over-subscribed that they will look for 2.1's. (The college always want more postgrads-looks better for statistics and the extra revenue from fees).

There are people that have studied Greek and Roman in their degree and go on to do a special methods in classics in their Postgraduate Diploma in Education. I think there were six people doing Classics as a special methods this year.

Rosita

Needless to say when I scan around a few websites now to confirm what I have been reading for the past few years i.e. that if you want to do an economics post-grad for example, it is your economics marks that would concern them, and not some unrelated subject there is no mention of it anywhere.

But the idea that you could get 70% in English and 40% in German and not be qualified to do an English masters on the basis of having only a 2.2 overall degree is just about bonkers enough to be true.

inverted_world

It's just your geography result that matters if you are applying for a geography MA. The only thing they look at your overall result for is whether you have an honours degree or not, and you do. Once your Geog. results are high enough to get a place on an MA, you're grand.

Royale with Cheese

Alright, I was in UCD earlier so I dropped into the geography department to ask one of my lecturers about it. She said you either need a 2.2 overall or just a 2.1 in Geography. It doesn't sound like a particularly difficult course to get into.

What I'm really interested in doing is the Masters in Regional and Urban Planning but I don't think I got the grades for that. Doing the MA in Geography should boost my chances of being accepted for the MRUP. Has anybody here got into the MRUP like this? Apparently there are a handful of people every year who go from the MA in Geography into the MRUP.

funktastic

Yeah from what I've heard from people I know that have done it the MRUP is very competitive to get into. I'd say you'd be in with a good chance with a good masters grade though. I'm pretty sure you have to do an interview as well.

Jonny Arson

Royale with Cheese wrote:

What I'm really interested in doing is the Masters in Regional and Urban Planning but I don't think I got the grades for that. Doing the MA in Geography should boost my chances of being accepted for the MRUP. Has anybody here got into the MRUP like this? Apparently there are a handful of people every year who go from the MA in Geography into the MRUP.

I'd imagine that would be a good route for getting into that course. If you got a solid MA degree I'd say you would have no bother being accepted for MRUP, but as funktastic said, places for it are competitive and it seems to be a very challenging course.

Just of note, with the Planning and Environmental Policy degree course starting it's inaugural 3rd (final year) this September I expect places for the MRUP course in 2008/2009 to be even more competitive then as a result of the anticipated influx of applications for the course from students with the new PEP degree. I don't know if there will be more places provided for the MRUP course in 08/09 due to this influx but I thought I'd just let you know that could become an issue next year for the MRUP course if no extra places are made.

Royale with Cheese

Right, I just read this on the ucd website above where your results are published...

Important Information for all final year Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Social Science students. Please note that your results are processed in accordance with the traditional Marks and Standards for your programme. These are listed for your information on the Assessment and Logistics website
Honours are awarded separately in each subject for your programme only. The aggregate figure shown on the SISWeb results page is for your information, but serves no other purpose in relation to your award.

Still a bit confused here, that states there is no overall degree mark awarded but if you're applying to postgrads they will ask you for an overall mark... e.g. how I was asked for a 2.2 overall to get into the Geography MA.

Rosita

Royale with Cheese wrote:

Right, I just read this on the ucd website above where your results are published...

Important Information for all final year Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Social Science students. Please note that your results are processed in accordance with the traditional Marks and Standards for your programme. These are listed for your information on the Assessment and Logistics website
Honours are awarded separately in each subject for your programme only. The aggregate figure shown on the SISWeb results page is for your information, but serves no other purpose in relation to your award.

Still a bit confused here, that states there is no overall degree mark awarded but if you're applying to postgrads they will ask you for an overall mark... e.g. how I was asked for a 2.2 overall to get into the Geography MA.

This has been my understanding of the BA degree i.e. that there is no such thing as an overall degree mark, but marks are given separately in the different subjects. I spoke to somebody in the college about two years ago on this and that's what I was told and I have never received an "overall" mark in my time there, which is why I found it confusing to see people here talk about their "overall degree result" which if my understanding was correct does not exist.

It appears to some extent that some Master's courses use the overall average as a means of judging a qualification, perhaps to bring them in line with single-subject degrees for comparison purposes, but as I understand it, the BA degree is awarded by giving separate marks in different subjects with no overall and any "average" used for other purposes is an artifical creation.