Finding your niche

Today's Masters students are taking their degrees to advance their careers, update their professional knowledge or make big life changes. Hilary Wilce looks at some of the most popular programmes

Undergraduate degrees are now two a penny. Those looking for a competitive edge are increasingly turning to postgraduate programmes. Universities have responded with an explosion of courses, and applications are burgeoning.

Undergraduate degrees are now two a penny. Those looking for a competitive edge are increasingly turning to postgraduate programmes. Universities have responded with an explosion of courses, and applications are burgeoning.

Sussex, for example, has seen a continuing strong demand from the UK and the rest of the EU, and an even stronger demand from other countries overseas. "Over the past five years we've seen a 52 per cent increase in intake, on the back of a 63 per cent increase in applications," says Alasdair Smith, vice-chancellor of the University of Sussex. "We've had a 42 per cent growth in home postgraduate students and an 81 per cent growth in students from overseas."

"With 40 per cent of people now going to university, having a masters is one way to stand out from the crowd," says John Craven, vice-chancellor of Portsmouth University, who notes that part-time courses, and those in the areas of business and technology, are currently particularly popular.

Demand for places now comes from a huge variety of sources. Overseas applications, particularly from the Far East are growing so fast that institutions are having to monitor intakes. "There's no doubt that if you take people from further away, you are taking a bigger risk than if you are only taking people who have gone through our university system," Craven points out. "Also, no one wants to be on a course that's only got Chinese students on it, not even the Chinese students themselves. They come here for a different experience."

Meanwhile, a buoyant job market and a rise in student debt has caused a slowdown in applications from UK students. But even so, they are still rising - and coming from all quarters. While masters degrees used to be mainly the province of academically inclined young graduates (or those who couldn't think of anything else to do with their degree) today's graduates want to advance their careers, update their professional knowledge, develop a specialist niche, or make major life changes.

"They might well be people in mid-career, aged 35 to 45, wanting to upskill and differentiate themselves in the market place" says Howard Green, chair of the United Kingdom Council for Postgraduate Education. "Because of that, institutions have done a lot of work on alternative forms of delivery, so that people are now able to work and study at the same time."

Middlesex University is a pioneer of work-based learning. "Back in the early 1990s the then Department of Education and Employment sponsored a number of universities to research and develop this and we were one of them," says Jenny Naish, head of business development at the university's National Centre for Work-Based Learning Partnerships. "Currently we have 1,100 students on our programmes, in London and globally, and about 65 per cent of these are taking postgraduate courses. Their average age is mid- to late-30s and there's an even split between male and female students."

The university works with commercial partners to accredit work-related learning, and provide students with a distance learning structure and work-based assignments. "They might come into the university if they want to, but basically we take the university to them." The majority of programmes are in the areas of management, leadership and organisational development, and are usually taken by students specifically to enhance their CVs, although they also value the academic recognition that they get for the learning they have done on the job. They are usually either wholly or partially sponsored by their employer, and on average complete their degrees in two years.

Such courses might seem a world away from the old idea of cloistered post-graduate study, but standards of programmes for graduates, however they are delivered, are monitored by the Quality Assurance Agency, while a recent international agreement, the Bologna Accord, has been put in place to bring the structure and standard of postgraduate education across Europe under a common umbrella.

However, inside this broad framework, boundaries are blurring. Old distinctions between taught courses and research programmes are breaking down. Much of the work now done on taught masters programmes is research-based, and similar to the kind of work done by students working towards a doctorate. Boundaries between traditional academic disciplines are also getting less distinct, and courses which bring together different areas are increasingly popular. At the University of Sussex, MSc programmes in biology and computers, information technology and e-commerce, and computer science and business are doing well.

"Here, we actively encourage this," says Paul Heywood, dean of the graduate school at Nottingham University. "One of our big focuses as a university is on interdisciplinary studies. Not only between things like physics and chemistry, but across faculties as well. We've done a lot of work in this area. The university has launched and pump-primed six inter-disciplinary doctoral training centres in areas like nanotechnology, slavery studies and health economics."

Courses are also becoming increasingly specialised. These days it is possible to do a masters degree in refugee studies, geomatics, broadband delivery or enthobotany, to name but a few. And even general courses are splitting themselves into a thousand different strands. These days an MBA programme might focus specifically on education, global media, life sciences or public services.

"I think one of the major stimuluses for people wanting to take courses now is that much more exciting things are available," says David Rose, head of the School ofPsychology at the University of East London. "In the past you did a degree in biochemistry, then a masters in biochemistry, but now you can do some really exciting combination that means at the end of it you will know all about, say, some particular drugs, or a part of the industry. Also, employers often run their own professional development programmes; people are always learning, which maybe keeps them more in the mindset of lifelong learning."

In his department, applications for postgraduate places far outstrip demand, with some courses, such as clinical psychology, especially hard to get on to. People use them to make career changes, or because they can go no further in their career without a higher qualification. "There's a definite upskilling trend. Several years ago educational psychologists could get a job on the basis of a masters degree, now the government is introducing a three-year doctorate as the basic qualification of the profession."

In turn, older students are influencing how courses are run and managed. They want what they are paying for, and will make a fuss if they don't get it. "Which helps us as a system to become more professional," says Rose. They are also forcing institutions to look at a range of other issues, from the availability of car parking to opening up resource centres at weekends.

As with undergraduate degrees, graduate programmes vary hugely. A small handful of prestigious universities sit firmly at the top of the postgraduate tree - the London School of Economic's sought-after postgraduate programmes in accounting and economics are known around the world as hot tickets to a well-paid career in finance or business. At the other end of the scale, many courses are unlikely to bring a student much beyond the personal fulfilment of knowing how to write a radio play, or more about the history of textiles.

Katy Mair, who has just finished a masters of research degree in editing lives and letters at Queen Mary College, London, warns that pursuing a postgraduate course costs time and money, and it needs care to make sure you end up on exactly the right course. "It's completely different from studying as an undergraduate. You really do need to do your research, find out exactly what the course covers, who teaches on it, and who takes it. Otherwise you could end up feeling you've wasted a year."

An average masters degree costs about £3,500 (double, or more, for students from outside the EU), and since funding councils are now directing awards to PhD students, students without sponsors, or generous parents, usually have to pay their own way. And things will get tougher still after 2009, when undergraduates will be coming out with higher levels of debt.

"It will be very interesting to see if this will make people look much more critically at the costs and benefits of postgraduate study," says Howard Green. "It may be that they start to think differently." Anecdotal evidence from countries such Australia where this kind of change has already come shows that this does happen.

DEGREES OF DIFFERENCE: FROM GENDER TO FINANCE

A postgraduate course can be a master of arts, MA, a master of science, MSc, a master of music MMus, a master of laws, LLM, or a master of business administration, MBA. Courses generally last one year, full-time, or two, part-time. Postgraduate diplomas, PG Dips, or certificates, PG Certs, are more vocational and usually don't require a student to write a dissertation. A research masters, MRes, means working on a thesis under guidance.

Whatever you want to study, someone, somewhere is likely to have devised a programme for you. For example:

* MA in American studies with Canadian literature, University of Nottingham. Students study American fiction, poetry, film and music, as well as ideas and politics, and spend a third of their time studying Canadian writing.

* MA in gender and development, University of Sussex. Students study economic, social, political and theoretical approaches to gender issues in the context of development, and look at issues such as rural development and reproductive health.

* MA in marketing with electronic commerce, University of Portsmouth. Online study fits in with students' careers. A course for those interested in new products, communicating with customers, handling customer relations, and e-commerce.

* MSc in occupational and organisational psychology, University of East London. Training for people wanting to become chartered occupational psychologists, with emphasis on practical skills and investigating occupational issues.

* MSc in accounting and finance, London School of Economics. A course for high-flyers looking to a career in financial institutions, management consultancy, industry or government bodies. Options include derivatives, risk analysis and valuation analysis.