What is a bachelor of Engineering (Honours) and Master of Engineering Context: I am high school student in Australia and currently applying for university 2021. I am interested in engineering and I came across this &quot;bachelor OF Engineering (Honours) and Master of Engineering&quot; program provided by University of Queensland.
I always thought that you need a bachelor's degree to get a master’s degree? It seems to me that this program integrates Master's coursework with bachelor's? Does that mean that if I successfully completed this program in 5 years, I will graduate with a bachelor and a master degree?
UQ program link - https://future-students.uq.edu.au/study/programs/bachelor-engineering-honours-and-master-engineering-2350
Yes, if you graduate this course you will get both a bachelor's of engineering (honours) and a masters of engineering, however this will take longer (as in 5 years rather than the normal 4 years for an engineering degree).
If you look at the AQF (Australian Qualification Framework) level you'll see that its level 9, which is a masters degree. Level 7 is bachelor degree, level 8 is bachelor (honours degree) and level 10 is PhD.
Normally (in the Australian framework) you get a bachelor degree in 3 years then you can do an honours degree on top of that which is an extra year. Rather than doing a honours degree you could instead do a masters degree which was often 1.5 to 2 years long. Some universities only offer masters degrees and for some universities a masters degree is essentially some upper year course from the bachelor degree plus an honours degree (though this also depends on the field). After either an honours (which is sometimes mixed with the bachelor degree) or a masters you can apply for a PhD, however places in Europe don't always recognise an honours degree as it would be recognised in Australia.
This degree in particular started about 10 years ago the University of Queensland started a combined masters/bachelors course for engineering (I know some people from the first cohort). This is essentially the bachelor of engineering course plus the requirements for a masters, including a research thesis which you don't need for the bachelor of engineering (honours).