You graduate university with a bachelor's degree. You may then pursue a master's degree and then a philosophical doctorate (PhD).

Work toward your bachelor's degree occurs before you graduate; hence, you are an undergraduate.

In the UK, an undergraduate degrees is typically what you do first at university. Once you graduate, you become a Graduate and can do graduate degrees like Masters.

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When you go to university, you start by doing your 3- or 4-year undergraduate degree. In most places, your undergraduate degree is a bachelor's degree. After you graduate from your undergraduate program and receive your bachelor's degree, you can then choose to complete a graduate (sometimes called postgraduate) degree. These degrees include master's degrees and doctorates.

Graduate = above 4 years aka bachelors degree, so graduate degrees mean masters and doctorates, a phD. Juris Doctor (law) being an example of one of those. One you’ll be super familiar with is Doctor of Medicine.

Even though we call our doctors who make us better when sick, anyone who earns the degree levels of doctorate earns the title Dr. So this will be common to call a few of your college professors who hold a doctorate phD level education, “Dr X” instead of Mr/Mrs.

Undergraduate = associates (2 year) or bachelors (4 year).

Note despite years listed that’s the intended length, you could take 5 years to get your bachelors if you’re slower at doing such as if you have to take remedial classes, development education, classes to make you up to par as to what is expected of someone who is a college level student (these don’t give college credit towards the degree! But help a ton if you need them)

So it’s hard to explain because each degree and level is different in their own way. For starters, you’ll need an undergraduate degree for a graduate degree which is the degree you’ll typically get when you go through four years of college, you’ll usually hear someone with an undergraduate degree say I’ve gotten my Bachelors in [Field]. Bachelors is often enough for a vast majority of jobs.

A graduate degree is a higher level of that degree to essentially train you to become the best expert in the field. You’ll have a solid foundation of lower level concepts and are even capable of teaching undergrads which usually graduate students end up doing by being Teaching Assistants. You will usually have to write a Thesis which is an original idea that contributes to your field to graduate depending on the graduate degree you get. You’ll usually hear someone say “I got my Masters in [Field]”or “I got my PhD in [Field]” in which a PhD is usually a step above a Masters degree which is reserved for the best experts in the Field you can go on to give lectures and lead projects and important research.

Graduate Degrees are also a requirement for some fields. When you hear Law School or Med School, they are Grad degrees that have their own set of special requirements. Some Fields don’t necessarily need a Grad degree but can benefit in job hunting such as a lot of STEM fields.

TIL PhD is an acronym.

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An undergraduate degree is a bachelors degree (typical 4-year college degree). A graduate degree is a masters, doctrorate (PhD), or professional degree like MD (medicine), JD (law), MBA (business) one gets after a bachelors.

An undergraduate program is one you can complete without having already graduated with another university degree. This is the one you would go into right after graduating high school.

A graduate program normally has a university degree as an entry requirement, although some also allow practical experience (Masters of Business Administration [MBA] programs often allow applications from people who have worked in business for several years). Either way you would not apply to one of these programs right out of high school.

Undergrad degrees teach you what the world has known for centuries. Graduate degrees teach you modern topics/techniques (Master's), and a Doctorate teaches you how to go beyond what is currently used/known.

i guess so

It's not actually. It's an abbreviation. Acronyms are a subset of abbreviations that form a word you can say. That means most of the time they need to have a vowel.

For example, NASA is an acronym whereas FBI is not. NASA you pronounce as if it's a single word. FBI you pronounce by saying all its letters individually, just like PhD

Undergrad is more theoretical while grad school is more applicable to real world situations.

Typically undergraduate degrees are conferred by a college and include associate's and bachelor's degrees. A graduate program is a specific college (so College of Business, College of Medicine, College of Dentistry, etc) that will award a Master's Degree or a Doctorate after completing the program. You must earn a bachelor's degree to earn a spot in a graduate program but you don't need a Master's degree to earn your PhD (academic doctorate) or professional (JD - lawyer, MD - medical doctor, DO - doctor of Doctor of Osteopathic medicine) doctorate. Professional doctorates almost always include a significant amount of time in licensure training. Once you graduate medical college you have earned the right to be called "Doctor" but without 2-6 years of additional training (called a residency) you are not licensed to act as a physician.

Additionally, FBI is an initialism - another subset of abbreviations made from initial letters that are pronounced separately. Whereas PhD is not since Ph is not an initial

There are three levels of college degrees. From lowest to highest... Undergraduate degrees, graduate degrees and terminal degrees.

Imagine that college is like regular school you are already familiar with undergraduate degrees are those you earn in "four years or less," Graduate degrees are an additional 2 years post undergraduate and terminal degrees are the highest level of degree that one can earn in a field (if you ignore law and medical school,) these are typically 4 years (or more) after your undergraduate degree and entitle the person to call themselves doctor.

The term doctor can be confusing as it didn't originally have anything to do with medicine as is commonly believed today.

Generally when people talk about going to/graduating from university, they're talking about an undergraduate degree. It's the one you take after secondary/high school. You may have also heard it being called a bachelor's degree. You need one to get a graduate degree.

A graduate degree is either a master's degree (above an undergraduate degree) or a doctorate (above a master's degree and the highest degree you can get). They're called graduate degrees because you already have your undergraduate degree.

So it goes high school < undergraduate < graduate.

After highschool you have a couple options:

1. Technical school (usually called ‘college’)
2. University

Technical schools (colleges) are usually 2 yrs long, and give out ‘diplomas’. They usually teach practical subjects (like in trades etc). But also teach similar things as universities.

Universities usually are 4 yrs, and give out ‘degrees’. An ‘undergraduate degree’ is what you get in the first 4 yrs.

After you get an undergraduate degree, you can go back to university and get a graduate degree (also called a ‘Masters degree’). Usually that takes 1-2 yrs.

After you get a Masters degree, you can go back to university again, and get a PHD (also called a ‘doctorate’). This can take anywhere from 3-10 yrs.

Undergraduate degree is also called a Bachelor's degree. It's your standard college degree.

After you get your undergraduate degree, you can then go to a "graduate school" to get a more specialized education. And after many years in graduate school you get a graduate degree such as a Master's degree or a doctoral degree (Ph.D).

Or if you take 60 hours worth of classes in random majors trying to find one you like!

TIL I don't actually know my native language that well.

You need a graduate degree to understand

Not many are explaining the actual difference beyond what order you get them, though they did a good job of explaining order and whatnot.

Undergraduate degrees (most often 4 year programs that you see in TV and that most people "going to college" get) are a broad overview of a field. Someone who finishes is by no means an expert, but is ready to be trained on-the-job in their field. A biology major may have taken a class on animals which makes them ready to work in a zoo, where they will use their knowledge to help learn more job-specific information.

There are other degrees like associate's degrees, and those are usually a very in-depth job training (not the best way of describing). Or it's half of a bachelor's degree in a different field, most would not recommend this.

Graduate school typically narrows the focus of your studies, and typically makes you do a thesis (a large project or piece of work that takes one or more years to complete). After graduate school you become an expert in your field. Someone from the zoo would call you because you are an expert in animal digestive systems and our undergraduate, capable as they are, doesn't know what to do.

There are professional degrees as well, teachers get a 'professional' masters as do some other professions (social work, pastors, mental health professionals) the difference being that instead of a big project, they essentially do an internship.

There are also law and medical school, which are graduate programs where you learn to do law and medicine.

This might help you understand what the levels of education and understanding look like

PhD stands for doctorate of philosophy. It’s an abbreviation, not an acronym.

Masters degrees are not usually pre-requisites for doctorates. They are often two entirely different programs and application processes. Everyone I know with PhD’s both in science, tech and humanities went directly from undergraduate degree to doctoral programs.

ETA: I’m responding from a US perspective as apparently this isn’t the case globally.

Cool. I didn't know that.

If you are in the US and thinking about going to college instead of trade school or working, I highly, highly recommend community college and getting an associates degree first, even though you cannot use it for a lot of jobs.

I attended a University directly after high school pursuing a 4 year bachelors degree and I failed out after getting about half way through a degree.

After almost 10 years I went back to community college, started from the bottom, and got an associates degree with better quality of classes, better teachers, and for much, much less money. My community college had a direct transfer to my old University and I transferred in as a Junior. I graduated two years later with a Bachelor's degree.

I am now on a direct path PhD program with a couple years left because I want to be on the cutting edge and do work that pushes the boundaries of our knowledge.

Different degrees open different levels of work, so think about what you want to do and how that role fits into what a company, lab, or the government is looking for.

Basic work now usually requires a Bachelor's and you'll usually be doing work that is well defined with not a lot of flexibility. Masters work is more specialized and often define the Bachelor's work flow. PhD work, along witth some masters, push the edge of what we know and do, and use Bachelor's to fulfill tasks they define to push the boundaries.

Different pay and responsibilities come with these roles, and there are certifications and experience that also impact roles depending on industry. Try to get experience in the field you want to go into and try to figure out what role you want to have. Sometimes a Bachelor's and a certificate is all you need.

Tl;dr, really consider community college first if you are in the US. Save money and get a better experience.

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Eli5: whats the diff between undergrad and graduate degree?

1. Undergraduate (Bachelor's) -> graduate (Master's). You do undergraduate BEFORE you graduate, hence the term. Graduate degrees come after.
2. You start with Undergraduate
3. You have to complete undergraduate to begin graduate, in most degree programs

That too! Thanks random internet citizen for mentioning that!

I have a masters in bation though and it hasn't helped me understand this stuff at all.

“Piled Higher and Deeper”

Most countries have 3 year bachelor degrees btw, it's only really USA and a couple others that have 4 years.

I am not sure that applies generally. I would say it is more that undergrad is generalized, while grad school is usually more focused.

As a chemical engineer, undergraduate was pretty much all general stuff that could be used in real world applications. Graduate students studied one area that could be very practical, could be "5-10 years" from being commercially viable, or something mostly theoretical.

My psychologist wife, however, didn't learn much practical as an undergrad and had to go to grad school in order to get a license in her chosen field - school psychology. So for her, it was kind a combo of both more focused and real world/practical.

It can often function a bit like an AA vs a Bachelor's degree - where after so many credits you can 'apply' for the AA.

In a doctorate program you usually have 2-3 years of coursework followed by a dissertation, which can take one to forever years. At least in my program at the University of Florida you could apply for the masters if you've completed the coursework. Often times, graduate programs that end with a masters degree are geared towards a specific vocation or profession, such as a MBA for business. In political science, the masters/grad programs were geared toward students wanting to enter something like public policy instead of academia/research.

It can be complicated, I know many people who finished their bachelors, enrolled in a PhD program and dropped out, just taking a masters for their work.

One requires that you already have the other

So if you get an associates you still haven't graduated

Undergraduate, in order of level of education:

Associates (typically 2 years, some people get them and then transfer to a bachelors program. Other times the associates is all you need to start working. Some people start at the bachelor level)

Bachelors (usually 4 years, some people start here)

Graduate, in order of level of education:

Masters (You cannot start here. You would need at least a bachelors to apply for a masters program. Usually 2 years of more specialized education, often builds on what you learned in undergraduate)

Doctorate (You cannot start here. You typically need a masters to apply for a doctoral program, but sometimes people do joint masters/doctoral programs. Docotoral programs are usually research based, but not necessarily. I think they typically take 5 years)

Undergraduate is anything before you graduate college (Bachelors, Associates). Graduate is anything after you graduate college (Masters, PhD, etc).

Wait is this true? That is not my understanding. May I ask what kind of degree they had? The only instance where I can think that this is true is if you get into a joint masters/doctoral program. I wonder if that is what they did.

Yes, the phrase is "mastering out." It used to carry heavy negative connotations, but the view within academia and industry towards master's degrees has changed a lot over the past two decades.

Where I am, most colleges don't offer degrees, they offer diplomas or certificates, to get a degree you need to go to a university, not a college. But from what I can tell, in the states they call college "college" and they call university "college" as well, which doesn't really make sense but okay.

Also want to add on to this that there are other doctoral programs that do not end in PhD. For example you could get a PhD in Psychology where you do a ton of research. Or a PsyD where it is less research and moreso you learning more real world clinical skills

When I was in grad school for chemistry, it was a doctoral program. That said, doctoral candidates were awarded master's degrees at about half way to one's PhD.

Many of the PhD candidates that washed out were granted master's to reflect their study beyond a BS.

Yep - I have. PhD without a masters. But it started as a masters and “rolled into” a PhD. For research-based graduate degrees (masters and PhD), the difference is the depth of the research and the conclusions that can be inferred. PhD is usually about 4 years full-time depending on the project, while a masters is about half of that.

To add to the differences in study:

Undergraduate, for the most part, teachers you how to study and recognize good sources, take information from those sources, and then apply it. Most of undergrad is learning higher level ideas and working with them.

Graduate school's main difference is you are critiquing experts rather than just understanding what they say. It's often a lot more reading, think around 100 pages per class per week. You're expected to skim material and be able to act as an expert, criticizing the work and applying it to what you are learning to do.

Yes but they’re inverse examples. It’s not unusual to go for an AA and parlay that in to a BS later. It’s unusual in nearly all fields I’m aware of to take a Master’s and then go for a PhD. In most cases a masters isn’t offered in the same discipline as the PhD (the big exception I can think of is public health). For example, my graduate program in Microbiology was a doctoral program - the way to earn a masters from that was either to decide to leave the program after the coursework was completed or to fail the qualifying exam. The masters wasn’t a program for which you could apply.

Here's the ELI5 explanation (not 100% accurate but pretty close)

Elementary school: years 1-5

Middle school: years 6-8

High school: years 9-12

Bachelor's degree: years 13-16

Master's degree (graduate degree because you've graduated from college): years 17-18

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) (also graduate degree): years 17-20

Once you're in college schedules get flexible so those times are approximate. There is also post-doctorate study. Because graduate work is entirely subject-specific it's possible for people to get multiple master's or PhD degrees. Medical practice requires on-the-job training after you get your M.D. degree, roughly years 21-22. Psychiatry also requires additional training after your M.D.

Something to look forward to!

A graduate degree is a degree in which you must have previous experience or a previous degree in order to take. Most Masters or PhD courses are graduate degrees.

An undergraduate degree is usually the first degree people will get in college. It is a degree that requires no prior college experience. Basically an undergraduate is the degree type most people do after high school. Undergraduate degree include Bachelors in Arts BA, Bachelor of Science BSc etc.

While many people do an undergraduate degree people will usually only do graduate degrees if they are interested in research or their job requires it. Many teachers are required to have a masters in education for example.

(I am speaking in general there will probably be some exception to what I say especially depending on where you are from)

Correct. I meant more from the perspective that you sort of earn a hidden masters in the course of a doctorate program.

I’m aware of some programs that are specifically 2 year associate degrees. It seems like those are more or less part of the higher education past, but if you have an associates it doesn’t mean you didn’t graduate, it’s just a different degree

In the US, a university is a collection of colleges and graduate programs. It might have a general arts & sciences college (where one would major in things like literature, political science, psychology, chemistry, art history, etc.), some other specialize undergrad colleges/schools in programs like engineering, architecture, nursing, as well as graduate masters and PhD programs, law school, medical school, business school, and such. Smaller institutions that don't offer all the specialized schools and/or professional schools may call themselves colleges but issue bachelors degrees and perhaps Masters and PhD is arts & sciences type subjects.

Going to college in the US means a 4-year bachelors degree program, typically from roughly 18-22 years old. High school is the highest level of universal education, grades 9-12 (ages 14-18).

In any of the sciences and (more limitedly since this isn’t my specific area) humanities I don’t know of a single program that requires a masters to apply for the doctorate. The masters is usually the result of someone leaving the doctoral program after coursework is complete but before having completed a large enough body of research to be considered ABD (all but dissertation). It could be different perhaps in other fields. There are definitely masters specific programs - MBA and public health both come to mind but at least for public health I don’t know of a program that would require the MPH for admission to a PhD program.

Correct. I wish they would confer both degrees and get rid of the stigma around “mastering out”.

Often a Masters will come before a doctorate, though degrees like Juris Doctorate (lawyer) will combine both and only require a Bachelors/undergrad to enter the program.

Never heard that term, which is amusing given that is what I did.

Interesting! Did you apply for a masters at a Uni and then enter their doctoral program? Or did you do this at different institutions or was it a joint program? What area of study, if you don’t mind my asking.

I feel like associate's degrees are almost exclusively in smaller colleges. Universities tend to only offer bachelor's and up, but an associate's degree is still a degree

In the U.S., at least, associate's degrees tend to have a specific vocation as the goal of attaining the degree. In recent decades some schools (generally for-profits) have earned associate's degrees a bad reputation here, though I'm sure the usefulness of different associate's degrees varies from field to field. There are some jobs where an associate's is required for licensing or certification, and others it just looks good on a resume. Do a lot of research and talk to people in the field before pursuing an associate's is the advice I would give (and frankly applies to bachelor's and master's, too).

Bull Shitter, Master of the Same, Piled Higher and Deeper.

In Italy you don't have the choice, so it mostly depends.

Tho I saw that your PhDs is 4 years long, whereas ours is 2 years usually. So you do 2 years master degree and 2 year PhD, so it doesn't really change that much compared to yours

In science and tech it happens a lot more frequently, but also I'd imagine depending on the country you'll seldom see PhDs without Masters, especially in the humanities.

I'm from Canada, and there are almost no humanities PhD programs that will even entertain your application without a Master's. I haven't looked into hard sciences; I know some years ago if you started your MSc they'd often let you just advance straight through to a PhD without actually completing your Masters, but I'm not sure how common that is anymore. Usually you had to have at least been accepted to an MSc program first to be able to do that though. And some of them are dual programs, so you're admitted to your PhD contingents upon doing a Master's first

At my grad school, I think every single PhD student has an MA/MSc, because it is a requirement for the program. The only exception I think is people who have worked for a very long time, they may make an exception there but I'm not sure.

So slightly more focus on why they're different and how.

A bachelor's degree to a certain extent is generic. Generally you're going to take a lot of classes not directly related to your degree like English, math, history, art, foreign languages etc. My undergraduate degree was a bachelor of science in Economics and I took classes on theater, pottery, environmental science, criminalistics etc. that were all required for my degree (or rather they required I take X number of classes in different areas like physical science and art). Some requirements are specific, so I was required to take statistics which is related but I also had to take any 2 additional math classes and took calculus 1 and 2 which were not required for my degree. Then I also had to take X number of economic classes. Sometimes people do 2 bachelor's degrees but if you're luck there will be a lot of overlap between the 2 requirements and you'll only need to take the specific classes related to the 2nd bachelor. The goal was to establish a broad base education.

Then once you have a bachelors you can go and get a Master's in a specific field and you'll generally only need to take specific classes related to that field. My masters is a Masters of Accountancy, for 2 years I only took classes that were directly related to accounting; audit, taxes, forensic accounting, and accounting ethics. The goal was gain a higher level of understanding in a specific subject.

If I ever went back and did my PhD then the focus would be on research, modeling, tools, etc and a lot of those classes are more about how to perform and document research over all than related to the PhD field you're in. Then you perform your research and write a doctoral thesis dissertation where you'll try to expand on the knowledge of the field as a whole and you may have to defend your research against a board of other doctors in that field.

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So you're going to start with an undergraduate degree then if you want a 2nd degree you can decide if you want a 2nd undergraduate or a masters. Once you have a masters you can decide if you want a 2nd masters or a PhD. It's just a matter of how deep you want to focus.

Hi, I have a PhD. Let me try an answer.

The tldr is that undergraduate focuses on learning, and graduate/PhD focus on discovering.

Refer to this diagram that others have linked: https://www.reddit.com/r/PhD/comments/u65rnp/a_phd_explained_in_a_few_diagrams/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Long version below:

In undergraduate degree, your primary job is learning. For the first 2 years, think of it as more difficult highschool -- a general, broad education. In the last 2 years of undergraduate, you'd pick a major and focus heavily on its selected courses -- imagine taking 4 hours of biology classes everyday. Similar to your previous educations, your performance is evaluated on whether you score well on a test -- things that the teacher knows an answer ahead of time. You're acquiring the accumulated knowledge of humanity.

Graduate degree has two levels. You either do a masters (2yrs typically), or you continue after masters to do a PhD(3+ more years on top). I'll explain PhD first.

In a PhD program, your primary job is discovering. Unlike all previous education, in a PhD program nobody knows the answer ahead of times. Your "exam" is more like a class project on steroids: years of research in testing a hypothesis (that nobody has thought of before) by running experiments, and writing up your findings in a scientific paper. Your paper is evaluated by a group of scientists expert in the field (called peer reviews). Once you're done enough original research, preferably with paper publications, you write up a thesis summarizing your original works and graduate.

You know the term "scientist" right? During and after a PhD is when you get to call yourself a scientist, as you'd experienced what it's like pushing the boundaries of human knowledge.

**FYI. No degree is an automatic pathway to a job! **

Degrees open possibilities for jobs that require them, but there are millions of equally qualified candidates with just a degree on their resume. You will need to develop additional skills and experiences to be competitive in the job market.

Need to get your undergraduate degree before you get a graduate degree. Usually takes anywhere from 3-5 years

This one depends on the country, masters degrees are usually prerequisites to doctoral degrees where I live.

I went to another university other than my bachelor’s to help out with a summer study of someone my undergrad advisor was helping. The prof advising that study asked me if I wanted to take on a research project in their grad program. So serendipity. Toxicology.

>It’s unusual in nearly all fields I’m aware of to take a Master’s and then go for a PhD.

You keep quoting your own anecdotal evidence. Your experience is incorrect. Master's degrees are required for PhD in many fields and universities around the world.

Source: I was required to get a Master's before my PhD in Canada and this is the norm at Canadian schools.

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I’ve edited my response to state that this is a US view. Your response is also anecdotal to your country of study.

This is definitely the case for chemistry. There are master’s programs and some schools offer enroute masters, but most PhD programs only require undergrad and then after qualifiers/comprehensives you officially become a phd “candidate”.

I'm not claiming that my anecdote is correct for everyone like you are.

I used my anecdote to prove your generalization was false.

In the USA:

Undergraduate degrees

Associate's Degree (AA/AS): 2 years (usually a community college degree, can SOMETIMES be substituted for the first 2 years of your bachelor's degree)

Bachelor's Degree (BA/BS): 4 years (undergraduate degree, usually BROAD (lots of different subjects, history, English, science etc.) but with a major emphasis)

Graduate degrees

Master's Degree (MA/MS/MBA/MEd): 2 years (usually) (highly specialized in a single subject, not broad). If a master's degree is said the be "terminal" it is usually the highest level of study you can complete in that subject. For many years, the MFA (master of fine arts) was a terminal degree, but now places offer a Doctor of Fine Arts.

Doctoral Degree (PhD): 4 years (or longer depending on the subject/requirements, extremely specialized usually focusing on a single aspect of a single subject)

MD/DDS (and other medical degrees) are different and take a long time to explain.

Other pertinent information

AA = Associates of the Arts, AS = Associates of Science(s). Same with BA/BS and MA/MS. The difference here (greatly simplified) is that an ART is a theoretical thing, like philosophy and a SCIENCE is a practical thing, like education. At some schools/programs you can get a BA/MA in education OR an BS/MS in education depending on what you are focusing on. PhD stands for "Doctor of Philosophy" and applies to most subjects as a recognition of the highest level of study you can complete in that subject. Other non-medical doctoral degrees you'll see is the DD (doctor of divinity) and EdD (doctor of education). There are plenty of others, but those are probably the most common (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_doctoral_degrees_in_the_US).

Not all counties work the same. For example, a law degree in the US is a 2 year graduate degree, but a 4 year undergraduate degree in other countries.

Source: Me. I've worked in education for 25+ years.

Also: Canada