Re:Ask HN: Will getting a PhD lead to a more interesting life?
by tagrun on Tuesday October 01, 2019 @08:39AM
(#21124650)
And it takes 2 years for most students to meet the MSc requirements (basically they need to complete the coursework), not 4 years, barring some special cases. Again, I'm talking about the common practice, not the handful of exceptional universities in the US you're referring to.
Some students leave the school after that point, but it doesn't invalidate their MSc, nor their MSc gets converted to M Phil or whatever. It's not a common thing, but I've seen students drop with MSc mostly because of issues with their supervisors (tenured faculty without much incentive to do research at a good pace).
Edit: I looked it up, and apparently, you're making a blanket statement based on a niche practice in a handful of US universities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Philosophy#United_St...
"Although most American universities do not award the MPhil, a few award it under certain circumstances."