Post-graduate study

[scottyboy]

Hello there. I'm looking into fleeing Poland and returning to study in the near future, and I believe there are at least a few people on here with advanced degrees and possibly even relevant jobs. Now, I'm aware of the folly of asking for career advice on a music forum, but I'm just after some links and maybe some informal opinions or anecdotes...

I'm wondering if anyone knows of any resources for researching independent (i.e. not prospectuses) feedback on individual courses and their attendant job prospects; I'm not finding Google much help. And any good resources generally.

If anyone has done a post-grad Master's and feels like sharing their story, that'd also be welcome. I'd be especially curious about anyone who went from an arts/humanities background into social sciences (particularly international relations, or development studies and globalisation), law (in my case I'd obviously not be doing an LLM, but less advanced stuff as part of a multi-discipline course, or maaayyyybbee an MA Law) or regional studies, and how that worked out. Cheers, Scotty.

[Mr Owl PhD]

I guess I might be a relevant person, as I run an MSc programme and also converted to the subject I now do via a taught PG course and then a PhD. I'm not aware of any public records of feedback on PG programmes, which is perhaps surprising. You might try the Student Room forum for information or to ask questions, although it tends to be a bit more UG oriented.

One point that may seem obvious, although not everyone does it, is to get in touch with the people who run a programme you're interested in. As well as being a good way of clarifying any issues, it should give you sense of what sort of people they are, how organised and helpful they're likely to be etc. A surprisingly big factor in my choice of where to do my PhD was based on phone calls I made to the department secretaries. In one place they had no idea who I was but in the other the secretary knew all about me - I was really impressed by that! A programme coordinator might also be willing to put you in touch with current or previous students to ask for opinions. I'd certainly be willing to do that.

I don't reckon you'll find it too tricky to go from e.g. arts/ humanities to social sciences provided you're doing more qualitative stuff. If you've got to learn statistics then it might be a bit harder, but I guess from the subjects you mention that might not be so much of an issue.

[Mr Owl PhD]

Also, I'd recommend trying to get as much information about the course as you can. Go beyond the prospectus stuff and ask if you can see a programme guide and some course guides and reading lists. Try to get held of some of the main readings and see what you think of them. Is it the sort of stuff you want to be reading?

[Adam Easy Wishes]

I'm currently doing a Masters in Oil & Gas Law p/t distance learning. It is relevant to the work that I do, and I would only have gotten onto the course thanks to my working experience.

I don't know how this could possibly help you make a decision, but feel free to ask questions and if I can be of any help, I'll try.

[scottyboy]

Thanks guys, I guess hoping for a single website (other than maybe the student room) was a bit fanciful and I'll have to do deeper research on careers in the fields in looking at, to see what courses and institutions are regarded as desirable.

I'm currently doing a Masters in Oil & Gas Law p/t distance learning. It is relevant to the work that I do, and I would only have gotten onto the course thanks to my working experience.

I don't know how this could possibly help you make a decision, but feel free to ask questions and if I can be of any help, I'll try.

Definitely need a course which doesn't require relevant work experience At most I'm hoping experience living in a third-world country might be not-insignificant for development or regional studies. If I do attempt law, it wouldn't be a specialised Master of Laws, but rather something which would give me a basic idea of international and/or regional law (say China or ASEAN) as part of wider studies on international or regional studies, globalisation and/or development. Depending on what I end up studying, I'm hoping for any kind of foreign service or NGO work, or regional research and/or consultancy for an institute, business or whoever might need it. In addition to (probably more so than) politics, it seems like having some idea of legal and/or economic in issues in these areas would be helpful; I'm fascinated by some aspects of developmental and regional economics; but as Mr Owl hinted at, my head explodes when confronted with too many numbers, which doesn't bode well for serious study of the subject... In short, realistically I'd be looking to gain an awareness of regional legal issues rather than be able to do legal work directly. Does that sound like a sensible, or even sane, way of looking at things?