Well it means different things in different places, but it's all about your type of degree. For example, on my course, everyone who graduated with more than just a "pass" i.e. above 40% average grade, got an honours degree, because it was a difficult enough and adequate length course. If you got 35-40% you just got a pass and no honours and if you got less than 35% you get no degree.

Congratulations, Hiero! I know you must have put in some hard yards because you don't get honours just by showing up, so I'm so pleased for you [img]smile.gif[/img] . Best of luck with the rest of your studies and then your teaching in Japan [img]smile.gif[/img]


It is kind of scary. I'm glad in a way that I'm doing a combined coursework-research PhD so that I have other stuff to do rather than just research so it isn't just 3 years stretching ahead of me to do a mammoth project. But then at the same time it's bad because I have 4.5 years to do this thing and so I really have LESS time to do the research given all the coursework and prac. Ah well, I'm pushing ahead with it anyway [img]smile.gif[/img]

But good, as Vaskez said, because in Australia you don't have to pay anything for a PhD, which includes all the courses, whereas if I'd done a masters or professional doctorate I would have had to pay like $20,000 over the two or three years for the coursework. And there are scholarships for PhDs! I'm thinking of starting an investment portfolio LOL :D

Heh, well here you DO have to pay to do the PhD, unless you get funding from the research council (like me :D ) and then the university pays your fees for you AND you get the studentship :D which is sweet.

Congrats, Dude!! [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img] There's nothing nicer than having little italicized latin words next to your degree on your diploma. [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

Yeah. At our uni honours constitutes an entire additional year of study. Bachelor degrees entail three years of study, and if the student's grades are good enough, they may be offered to study an additional, more intensive fourth-year of 'honours' papers, which includes writing a 20,000 word research dissertation. The student's 'class' of honours depends on their grade average for their fourth honours year. 80%+ is first class, 65%-79% is second class, and 50%-64% is 'provisional'. Anything below 50% is a fail.

Aelia : You don't have to pay to do a PhD? Sweet! I may well have to emigrate then [img]smile.gif[/img] I only have to live in OZ for 2 years off and on in order to obtain citizenship as per our ANZAC buddy-status, and I'm seriously considering moving to Melbourne once I start getting that 'settle down' feeling [img]smile.gif[/img] Nice work on getting into the PhD. I could imagine you as a fully-fledged lecturer/professor, well, moreso than I could with Vaskez anyway [img]tongue.gif[/img] you'd do very well [img]smile.gif[/img] (I could just imagine Vaskez marking his student's papers: "what the hell is this crap you're giving me? You kids are so damn STUPID! Why do I even BOTHER???" ;) )

Yes, I can see him doing sarcastic jokes in the middle of a lesson, putting a leg in front of students at random times, only to laugh as he watches them fall, and calling them little whippersnappers. :D