In order to successfully obtain a Masters qualification, you will need to obtain a number of credits by passing individual modules. Most taught Masters will have a number of core modules which you must take and pass in order to obtain the qualification. The assessment of research Masters is almost always entirely by a single dissertation module or project.
Area studies fields vary by institution, but courses are commonly broken down by specific countries or regions on their given continents. For example, North American studies may be divided into sub-categories such as American studies in Britain, Canadian studies, and Appalachian studies.
Education in the United Kingdom is a devolved matter with each of the countries of the United Kingdom having separate systems under different governments: the UK Government is responsible for England, and the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive are responsible for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, respectively.
Top Master Programs in Area studies in United Kingdom 2019
The Executive Master in EU Studies is a multi-disciplinary two-year (60 ECTS) curriculum, which offers flexible study paths and methods for professionals, postgraduates and officials who are pursuing their careers at the same time. [+]
The one-year "Trilingual Studies" programme (French, English, German) of the Master in Advanced European and International Studies takes place in Nice-Canterbury-Berlin. Learn about economy, federalism, international relations, European integration, participate in professional skills workshops, handle three languages and acquire the competences to become a Policy Officer in international organisations. [+]
The Department offers the widest coverage in Europe of research and teaching related to the languages and cultures of the principal countries of South East Asia. Its primary commitment is to the four languages Burmese, Indonesian/Malay, Thai and Vietnamese, and their literature, cinemas, and associated cultures. REF 2014 submissions by members of the Department included significant and paradigm-shifting monographs, edited collections, journal articles and book chapters in cinema and gender, literary criticism, cultural history and postcolonial studies. It is a flourishing and friendly Department with close links to recent alumni. [+]
SOAS has an international reputation for excellence in the field of South Asian studies earned by the world-leading research undertaken. REF 2014 submissions by members of the Department included significant and paradigm-shifting monographs, edited collections, journal articles and book chapters on literature, cinema cultural history, and postcolonial studies. [+]
All students register in year 1 of the programme as MPhil students. The upgrade from MPhil to PhD takes place at the end of the first academic session for full-time students (or at the end of the second academic session for part-time students). All new MPhil/PhD students are provided with a supervisory committee of three members, comprising a main or primary supervisor, and a second and third supervisor. The split in time commitment across the supervisory committee is 60:25:15. In the first year, students are expected to meet their main supervisor on a bi-weekly basis for a period of at least one hour. [+]
The Department is able to supervise MPhil and PhD degrees by research and thesis in a wide range of cultural and linguistic subjects. Intending research students should not feel constrained to limit their choice of topics to those indicated against the names of current staff members (postgraduate students have recently been working on a range of topics that include Japanese cinema, Kabuki texts, modern Japanese linguistics and literature, Meiji historical texts, Korean linguistics, and literature, Korean colonial and eighteenth-century history). Research undertaken at MPhil and PhD level is based on literary, documentary, and archive material available at SOAS and also gathered during fieldwork in Japan and Korea. [+]
Supervision is provided for research leading to MPhil and PhD degrees within the broad general area of African studies. Research topics such as the study of a language (from a descriptive, comparative, philological or textual point of view), or of literature (whether author-based, thematic or comparative), or of any of the performing arts, which falls within our own core expertise, are supervised entirely in the Department. However, there is great potential for extending the range of topics by means of joint supervision with colleagues from other departments and centers. [+]
