Master's Thesis vs. Non-thesis

kihyle
Thu, 22 Jun 2006 12:05:03 +0000

i don’t see why would anyone require you to do a thesis – PhD programs accept fresh graduates with BS/BA right out of college – coursework master’s is treated like a 5-year undergrad experience with a bonus in that you were able to complete everything in 4 years and that 5th year you’d be taking advanced courses – if doctoral programs accept senior-year undergrads who haven’t done any thesis, they should not bulk at accepting someone who graduated in 5 years with coursework master’s – all of this provided that during summer and perhaps the academic year you’ve done some in-field work/research (this is important for both undergrads and anyone already out of college)

in my experience, you do not have to have a huge amount of research done – i’ve finally picked my career path and started out on research the summer between 3rd and 4th year of college, which is quite late considering that majority of people start one or two summers before their last summer in college – prior to applying to doctoral programs, i had no publications and experience working in 2 places related to my field of study (plus a few minor undergrad jobs) and doing research in 1 place – my entire work/research experience included only two summers and one academic year – that is hardly what i would call a huge amount of research experience – yet, combined with ok GPA, good essay, good letters of rec, and coursework masters degree, it got me into a number of top 10 programs in my field