Master without Bachelor

[NewatTESU]

Hi, I was ready some forums where people mentioned about doing masters degree without having bachelor.

Is it possible? Has one completed like this one?

[rachel83az]

There are a small number of schools that do this. The easiest to find ones would probably be from a school in the UK. Although there are apparently a handful of US schools that do this (I'm not sure which), I think that the American view tends to be that this is an invalid way to go about things and that your Master's degree is, by extension, somehow not legal.

While doing a Master's without an undergrad degree isn't actually wrong, even in the US, not having an undergrad degree has the potential to hurt your job prospects. Because it's "not how degrees work" in the US (in general), an interviewer who asks about your education might make the assumption that your Master's is fake or from a diploma mill.

[innen_oda]

100% what Rachel said. In the UK and the Antipodes, a nice 'trick' if you have heaps of work experience but no tertiary qualifications is to spend 4 months doing a grad cert (invariably named something like 'Digital Innovation'), and then you can forever tick the box that indicates you have a post graduate qualification - even if your sole qualification is that 4-course grad cert. Naturally, this is best for 'tick the box' situations where you're otherwise perfectly- or over-qualified for a position, as trying to compete on the same level as Masters applicants or even Bachelor applicants requires some seriously competitive work experience.

I wouldn't try this in the US, or even Canada. Canadians are a little more familiar with how things work in other Commonwealth countries, but the prevailing sentiment is similar to the US, in that post-grad without undergrad is seen as a red flag, rather than a useful shortcut.

Given how easy it is to get a Bachelor in the US in remarkably short time (we're talking 6 months), for Americans I don't see the value in this shortcut. It'll likely cause more trouble and stress than it resolves.

[openair]

There are those rare non-degree entry options, especially for students in the UK where the universities have a lot more autonomy in admissions. It would not be easy to take advantage of this option though. The lack of an undergraduate degree would be a significant obstacle in the majority of cases, even in Britain. This non-standard entry option might work for someone who has a very specific Master's program in mind, and it just so happens that the concrete school program has a history of admitting such students. There's also a bigger chance of entering this type of a Master's program when you already have a two-year national diploma and plenty of verifiable experience in a technical field. Several years ago, I've also heard about the non-degree entrance possibility with a specific U.S. MIT Master's degree; https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/14/skip-col...ogram.html. There's still a lot of risk involved with such an arrangement. What happens when you drop out of the Master's program? You'll be left with literally nothing except for the Micromaster certificate, which qualified you for a single Master's degree program. It would not qualify you for any other program.

[rachel83az]

If you want a Master's degree, I would highly recommend getting your IT/CS degree per your previous threads and then applying to Georgia Tech.

https://omscs.gatech.edu/ Georgia Tech's OMSCS is 30 hours and offers a handful of specializations. https://omscs.gatech.edu/program-info/specializations Tuition is listed as being $180/hour. Plus $300 in fees per semester. https://www.bursar.gatech.edu/tuition-fees If it takes you 4 semesters, I think the whole degree winds up being $6600.

They also have an online Cybersecurity degree for $9900. https://www.edx.org/masters/online-maste...orgia-tech

[ss20ts]

There are those rare non-degree entry options, especially for students in the UK where the universities have a lot more autonomy in admissions. It would not be easy to take advantage of this option though. The lack of an undergraduate degree would be a significant obstacle in the majority of cases, even in Britain. This non-standard entry option might work for someone who has a very specific Master's program in mind, and it just so happens that the concrete school program has a history of admitting such students. There's also a bigger chance of entering this type of a Master's program when you already have a two-year national diploma and plenty of verifiable experience in a technical field. Several years ago, I've also heard about the non-degree entrance possibility with a specific  U.S. MIT Master's degree; https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/14/skip-col...ogram.html. There's still a lot of risk involved with such an arrangement. What happens when you drop out of the Master's program? You'll be left with literally nothing except for the Micromaster certificate, which qualified you for a single Master's degree program. It would not qualify you for any other program.

I researched the Supply Chain Management MicroMasters from MIT and it's no joke. You need a bachelor's degree to even be accepted into the program. After you complete the 5 courses which are intense then you have to complete a comprehensive exam which is 2 exams.

[portia8]

My father is doing a Business Masters with ENEB through their group on with no under grad degree or certificate of any kind. However, he was able to prove his work experience, owning and running a company for 20+ years, was an acceptable substitution for this. But definitely not impossible.

[rachel83az]

My father is doing a Business Masters with ENEB through their group on with no under grad degree or certificate of any kind. However, he was able to prove his work experience, owning and running a company for 20+ years, was an acceptable substitution for this. But definitely not impossible.

Is your father doing it for his own personal satisfaction or because he hopes to improve job prospects? OP wants to improve job prospects in the field of IT and I just don't think that's possible without a valid degree of some kind.

NewatTESU, I would do Pierpont to have an Associate degree while working towards Bachelor's degree. The fastest Bachelor's degree would probably be either WGU or TESU (depending on what certifications you already have). Then go to Georgia Tech. For not much longer than it would take to "just" get a Master's degree, you could have a full chain of valid degrees to show that your education is 100% legitimate.

[ss20ts]

Is your father doing it for his own personal satisfaction or because he hopes to improve job prospects? OP wants to improve job prospects in the field of IT and I just don't think that's possible without a valid degree of some kind.

NewatTESU, I would do Pierpont to have an Associate degree while working towards Bachelor's degree. The fastest Bachelor's degree would probably be either WGU or TESU (depending on what certifications you already have). Then go to Georgia Tech. For not much longer than it would take to "just" get a Master's degree, you could have a full chain of valid degrees to show that your education is 100% legitimate.

NewatTESU has applied to UMPI and TESU I believe.

Many IT companies want degrees and the stepping degrees. I can't imagine many hiring managers will take someone seriously who has somehow skipped a bachelor's degree but completed a master's degree. That will probably sound like a lie or scam to many people because that's not how the education system operates in the US.

Not even sure why one would want to skip a bachelor's to do a master's. A master's is more work. There are no electives. The amount of work in a master's degree is anywhere from 1.5 to 3 times as much work per course than a bachelor's degree. It depends on the school how much more work is involved.

There are some doctorates where you can earn your master's while working on your doctorate and a few programs where a master's isn't required to earn the doctorate. These are not common practices however. Programs that allow this have strict admissions policies.

[rachel83az]

NewatTESU has applied to UMPI and TESU I believe.

Yup. But, if you want a Master's in CS/IT then you (usually) need an undergrad in CS or IT in the first place. There are few CS Master's that would let you in if you have a degree in liberal studies or English or something non-technical. Since UMPI isn't going to have a CS degree for, potentially, another 6-12 months, the fastest way to get a degree that leads to a relevant Master's would be through WGU or TESU. A UMPI BLS in MIS might be faster but wouldn't necessarily allow access to a CS or IT Master's.