<p>Does anyone know how easy/hard it is to do this? Anyone done it, or looking into it? Is it encouraged/discouraged? Can you take graduate level courses as an undergrad if you’re not doing this program?</p>
<p>I’ll just quickly answer your last question: yes, you can take 200-level (grad-level) courses as an undergrad.</p>
<p>Rabo, it’s not very hard to do this–particularly if you know what you want to study and plan your courses right.</p>
<p>The advantage: it could save you a year of tuition (assuming you would otherwise enter a two-year masters program)
The disadvantage: depending on what you want to study, it may be best to get a graduate degree at another institution, to increase your range of experiences, connections, perspectives, etc.</p>
<p>What would be an example of a field where connections in grad school would be essential?</p>
<p>I’m not a Brown student, but I know a bit about grad school as I plan on applying/have worked with grad students on my own projects.</p>
<p>Concurrent BA/MA programs are great because they offer undergrads the ability to achieve a higher degree with less fuss than would otherwise be required. However, the MA is problematic for one big reason:</p>
<p>You can’t work at a research university with one unless you’re Ward Churchill. Or well, you at least are guaranteed to never ever get a tenure-track job. The PhD should be the goal of anyone looking to do research.</p>
<p>However, if you are sure you want to do research, and you see this as a way to really improve your skills before the PhD, go for it. Don’t do it just “'cause”. You’ll hate it.</p>
<p>[edit] And for the record, connections help in any PhD admissions. Having a famous prof. that likes you in the dept. call his buddy over at Harvard helps a whole lot.</p>
<p>So, if you don’t need an MA to do a PhD program, but you’re not sure if you want to get a PhD, but it’s a strong possibility, would an MA program be a good idea or not?</p>
<p>“connections” can many things, and i meant it in a pretty broad sense. it’s my personal opinion, that studying at multiple insitutions is generally more beneficial than taking multiple degrees from the same place. it broadens your perspective by increasing the circle of people that you know, work with, learn from, etc.</p>
<p>this is of course, coming from a guy who’s working on his second Brown degree =) i decided to stay at brown for many reasons–first and foremost because i love brown. but whether or not i was limiting myself by only exposing myself to one institution was something i had to consider carefully. the truth is, in some ways i probably am limiting myself. in my case, however, the benefits outweighed the costs.</p>
<p>First off, you’re right. You don’t need the MA for the PhD.</p>
<p>That said, doing the MA might be a valuable lesson in learning that you in fact hate graduate work. But I would suggest that you approach it with caution because many undergrads simply do not know good reasons to do graduate work (it’s not to teach.)</p>
<p>dcircle,</p>
<p>I agree with you. Getting a degree from another university is a great opportunity to really learn new things. As one of my profs said to me, “Why do you want to stay here and hang out with us more? You already know what we have to say, and we’re not that interesting.”</p>
<p>Especially the PhD, I think, should be attempted at another university.</p>