Hi,

I'm due to be heading down to Southampton Uni in September to do an MA, and was wondering (dumb as it may sound) if the structure of the academic year is the same for Master's students as it is for undergrads, more specifically, does graduation still take place during a long summer holiday (that is, with term ending in June)? I only ask because I seem to remember hearing somewhere that Master's students work through the summer until September, though I could have been mistaken/heard wrongly. I just need to know whether or not to budget for an extra three months' rent to see me through the summer months in Soton.

Many thanks!

You'll need the money for the summer rent.

Taught Masters courses in the UK are 12-month things, if studied full-time. You spend the first 8/9 months or so attending lectures and doing the taught bit. Then you spend the rest of the year - basically the summer months - researching and writing your dissertation.

Oh and don't expect to get your degree result until December or thereabouts, which probably means that the graduation will happen the following summer. At least that's what happened to me.

Hey Indy! Yeah, the MSc courses at this uni are like that too. I did a part-taught and part-research MSc, so the first two semesters we had lectures, and the third semester (summer) we completed our dissertations, which we had been collecting data for all year. However quite a few people on our course actually went home (i.e. back to their parents' house) to write up- if you're on target and have finished your data collection or whatever you're doing, then it's not uncommon to go home and write up over the summer. So it depends...you might have to hang around all summer- I actually wanted to because I wanted to be near my supervisor and the library etc- but you might not have to! Best, KB

Okay cool, I'll make sure to keep something aside for the summer rent then! Like you, KB, I'll probably want to stick around during the summer to have access to the library etc. Cheers for the help guys!

I also did a taught masters and wrote my dissertation during the summer. I got my results in late September and graduated in January. Obviously timings may be different but if Southampton do winter graduations then you be able to graduate Dec/Jan rather than waiting until the following summer.