What are honours ?

[inc0gnito]

So I've heard a few university students talking about honours and doing them, but I had a few questions.

-In plain English, what are they ?
-Are students recommended to do them ?
-How would they help you in the long run ?


Thanks.

[JinXi]

In science and commerce honours is an extra year that you take after your 3 years bachelors degree. In that year, you do research and at the end of it you get and extra (honours) word added to your bachelors degree.

For engineering, if you maintain a weighted average mark of above 75, you be awarded a (first class honours) at the end of you bachelors degree. No extra year is needed for it.

Honours for sci/comm would be good if you want to go into research, while an honours in eng is more of an indication of your marks. Not sure bout other faculties.

[DisaFear]

Taking this a bit further, what is the difference between Masters and Honours?

[sluu001]

Just adding another point from the above post. Honours in commerce - fimance or economics major is almost mandatory for consideration for the more desirable jobs (ie investment banking, reserve bank economist). It is the reason why honours requires a minimum gpa/wam to apply for entry. Places like melbourne uni and monah - demand for places are so high that the average wam for entry into either the finance or economics honours program is around 85.

[Bhootnike]

Taking this a bit further, what is the difference between Masters and Honours?

I guess Masters adds a whole new level of qualification to whatever course you do, like Master of English vs Bachelor of English
Whereas honours either is given for the high marks / research year ?

[TrueTears]

Taking this a bit further, what is the difference between Masters and Honours?

Yes Masters is a whole new qualification, although nowadays alot of unis are recognising honours as almost an equivalent of masters, however in most fields, masters is still considered a "higher" qualification over honours. Especially in American unis, they tend to look at Masters more than honours.

[marr]

Places like melbourne uni and monah - demand for places are so high that the average wam for entry into either the finance or economics honours program is around 85.

Do you have a source for that or is it just word of mouth?

[DisaFear]

Random thoughts bubbling in my mind

*Any benefit to doing both Honours and Masters? Can it even be done
*Can both of them lead to PhD?

[pi]

Yes to both.

[Russ]

Random thoughts bubbling in my mind

*Any benefit to doing both Honours and Masters? Can it even be done
*Can both of them lead to PhD?

Yes, you can do hons and masters. Not much point unless the masters is in a different field or it's a standalone sort of masters (MBA etc.). I certainly wouldn't have done honours working in an immunology lab and then done a masters doing the same thing, I'd go straight through to a PhD.

Honours or masters via research/thesis qualify for a PhD

[Bhootnike]

My brother did 1 research year in his medicine course, as it was integrated in his course outline - he got into med 2008, so before melbourne model. so he did do a thesis .
Does that specific research give you 'honours' or just recognition of have completed a research year in the field of...

[TrueTears]

Random thoughts bubbling in my mind

*Any benefit to doing both Honours and Masters? Can it even be done
*Can both of them lead to PhD?

Yes, although in some courses doing an honours then masters is a waste of time.

Most of the time, they both can lead to PhDs, however some unis value Masters over Honours and you will have a higher chance of being accepted into their doctoral programs if you have a masters degree - this varies from unis to unis and courses to courses.

[sluu001]

Well if word of mouth consists of several of my eco/finance tutors telling me their marks before honours years then yes. Admittedly a small number (around 5), but the correlation points to an average in the mid 80s.

[paulsterio]

I certainly wouldn't have done honours working in an immunology lab and then done a masters doing the same thing, I'd go straight through to a PhD.

Did you find that doing Honours was worthwhile (i.e. enjoyable use of a year)?

Purely because I have the opportunity to pursue an Honours year any time after 2nd year but I'm not sure whether it's worth the added time and HECS, because it would end up costing me quite a fair bit of money, in terms of one working year lost as well as $9,000 or something slapped onto my HECS.

There's a certain GPA requirement to get in, but I just have a feeling my GPA will drop over the years, so I'll probably apply as soon as I can, whilst my GPA is high enough

[pi]

I don't think MBBS has an "Honours" year as such?