[Air-l] Re: something totally different

Bunz, Ulla K ulla at ukans.edu
Wed Mar 6 10:56:35 PST 2002


As a matter of fact, the Latin Magister Artium (which is used in Germany, I
don't know about other countries) and which is the approximate equal to an
American master's degree is also abbreviated MA.

Who came first? The Romans, or the Americans? Tough one ;)
ulla


 -----Original Message-----
From: 	Bram Dov Abramson [] 
Subject:	[Air-l] Re: something totally different

> >>That means here in Austria we are moving
> >>from national to international systems and naming.
> >>Due to a lack of tradition we struggle with the meaning of MA and
> >>MSc programs.

>>What makes MA  and MSc naming more international than, say, Magister?

>the idea is - along with the Bologna declaration of the EU - that students 
>and faculty get mobilized thus one thinks the first step is to harmonize 
>the different educational systems and make them more easily comparable so 
>they can move from one spot to the
>other. A structural shift is definentely the decision to implement 
>Bachelor programs, here in Austria we didn't have that.

Sure.  I'm just wondering how designations used mostly by the 
English-speaking world (MA, MSc, etc) have come to act as the de facto 
"international" designations.  It seems kind of strange.





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