How many hours a day did you work to get a distinction in MSc? Did you keep on top of all your reading throughout the course? Did you learn every topic? Did write lots of essays?

Yes, I did a lot of work to get a distinction at the LSE. Like, working 9 to 23 every day for 6 months, reading all the stuff plus extra papers and write lots of practice essays to be ready for the exams in April-May. Oh, yeah, and work hard on data collection and writing a nice dissertation.

jradetzky, do you know someone by the name of sugar_student by any chance?

Can you really measure how to get a distinction? Everybody has different work rates and every course is different, and I'm sure there's not a magic formula that says 'number of hours x journal papers read = great degree'.

I think the above attitude is kinda the wrong way of looking at it. Just put the work and effort in and do your best, that's all you can do.

Agree with Coastman, it depends on lots of factors, including the marking system of the university/department.

Where I did my MSc, the structure of the course was 50% taught, 50% dissertation. Distinction was generally set at 70% for individual assessments. But with the overall course mark, we had to get 70% in the dissertation to qualify for a distinction, as it was such a large element of the course. So someone with an everage of 65% for the taught element and 75% for their thesis would get overall 70%, earning a distinction. However of this was the other way round, 65% thesis, 75% taught, you couldn't get a distiction, even though the averaged was 70%.

Just do your level best, that's all you can do!

PS - I didn't get a distinction (as you can probably gather from all the typos!) but I got through my PhD! While it's great to aim high I don't think a distinction is an automatic pre-requisite for doctoral study (unless anyone knows otherwise?) so enjoy your Masters course.

LOL @Piglet

I worked very hard for my Distinction, but still managed to do it with a PT job. Exam preparation is key - write lots of practice essays and learn them. And spend a lot of time on your assessed essays. I certainly didn't work 9am-11pm everyday and TBH I think if you find you are working those sorts of hours you should reconsider how you are working. Excuse the cliche, but think quality not quantity. I was probably putting in about 5 hours a day when I wasn't working (including time out for Judge Judy and Emmerdale and usually less on the weekends).

Thanks guys.

I only wanted an idea of other peoples experiences. I'm not going to base my entire studying on other peoples methods. It is different for everyone I know. I am going to work my hardest, and try to balance applications, ther issues etc with the course. ut the course comes first.

I agree with Kitten, Coastman and Kronk. It depends on what subject you're doing, too. I got a distinction in a marine biological subject - there weren't any exams. It was split in a similar way to Kronk's.

I put in a lot of work, particularly when I was doing my thesis - towards the end of that I might have been doing 7 or 8 hour days. But I never worked too hard... I think that can be counter productive.

On the other hand, some people DO work all hours in the day, and feel that they need to to get a good mark. Maybe that's true, or maybe that extra three or four hours a day only earns them an extra 1 percent or less. Who knows?

Just work at your own pace, take each piece of work as it comes. Work hard, but don't wear yourself out.

Thank you. I feel that its difficult because I sometimes feel like I have to impress the academics here. I have three supervisors for my research project, and they're all medical grads from oxbridge. So all the neurologists here are really amazing, and I feel like I should be a mini-them to make a good impression, and also to make sure that I get along with them well to make sure I can get a good reference from them. There are people on my course who are qualified doctors, and they work really hard and I think here reputation is important. I don't want to be seen by the academics and lecturers as one of those who don't bother so much, appear stressed out etc.


But I suppose like you say, this outlook can also be counter productive. I can't get too caught up in social politics, because that will give me uneccessary stress!

I got a distinction for my MSc and I worked very hard (mostly at night-got into the vicious cycle of going to university for taught modules in the morning, going home, sleeping till 5pm, then working till 3 or 4am and all over again. Although it helped me getting a distinction it also resulted in depressions, overweight and so on.

However, after that, I've embarked on doctoral study and I have to say that I found it way more difficult than my entire MSc.

So I think it's not possible to compare the two or to say that people with distinction in their MSc will find a PhD very easy.

ULUG is your PhD hard because of the topic and reading or lab work?

PhDs are hard because they are! Why would anyone expect the highest level academic qualification to be in anyway easy? If they were that easily attainable, then everyone would do one. The difficulty in part comes from the fact that PhDs are all about novel research. If you are the only person doing this one particular thing, who do you turn to for advice when it all goes pear-shaped? You are the expert! Even if you work in a big group doing a PhD can be very lonely experience. You have thesis advisers of course, but ultimately, it's down to the individual to do the research, write the thesis and defend it. Success requires passion, dedication and perseverance by the bucket-load.

BTW, good luck with the MSc Roopa, you sound like you are prepared to put in the work so I'm sure you'll achieve the grades you're after.

Well I was 0.5% away from a Distinction (or something) but I had a fantastic year doing the Masters!

Maybe if I had worked a bit harder, I could have got the distinction. However at the end of the day I wasn't too bothered. It's more my style to do only the minimum work required i.e do my 4000 word coursework the night before handing it in.

I ended up being offered a PhD, so I guess my supervisor thought I was definately capable (although my dissertation was marked >70%).

I don't think the above attitude helps with the PhD and although I know I slack much more than other PhD students, I am researching an area which I am really interested in and that helps.