The pre masters student

Mick Davies on how international students can best prepare for University study in the UK

Some time ago I did some longitudinal research with my writing partner from Queen Mary, University of London into the expectations and experiences of overseas students on Masters courses in the UK. The statistics on these students are quite disturbing as you probably know: the large majority of students from overseas do not perform as well as they expected, and a substantial number fail to gain more than a pass in their degree.

Why is this? Well understandably really, we found the work load is what overwhelms them. It doesn't matter how good your English is (or how good your IELTS score tells you it is!) or how amazingly smart you are, the shorter time allowed for completing your masters degree at a UK institution is just not long enough to give students time to really feel they have done enough by the end.UK finalists we spoke to said similar things, but often these English students confessed they had not worked as hard as they should, (in fact for many of them the response was just typical English modesty – they worked very hard indeed really). But the overseas students we questioned felt they had not had sufficient skills and training to deal with the course as they would have liked.

In particular we learnt in our study that the burden of a massive dissertation, thesis or project begun second half of the course, with the huge quantity of reading and the variety of research methods required proved too much for over 40% of the students we surveyed. Added to this there are the secondary issues of firstly trying to engage with courses which are largely written as extensions of first degrees at the universities where the masters take place, then secondly the problems encountered in making a massive leap from one learning environment - the cozy world of the undergraduate degree – to another, the largely solitary and bookish world of a research or taught masters programme. All this in a new country where there is no mum to do your washing, nor a kindly and sympathetic relative to help you out when you run short of money.

One answer is to consider a pre masters course at a good and reputable centre. When the company I work for got into the business of offering pre masters courses as an adjunct to the thriving Foundation Year, we quickly found that we needed to provide a very different kind of preparation, and the course that has evolved through trial and error is as different as it could possibly be from the traditional old second language course that many students expect it to be. A good Pre Masters Diploma is one that worries less about getting you in, and instead concerns itself with what happens when you get there. We have arrived at a stage where nearly two thirds of our course is concerned with teaching research methods: vital skills like critical thinking jostle for space on the timetable with subjects like dissertation or proposal development. Then there are the lengthy sessions on presentation skills and the challenging and varied team projects. All are designed to foster an active and robust approach to academic tasks, and I really believe we do that well here.

People hesitate to join a masters course for many reasons, the most common objections are the amount of extra time and that a pre university course is often not a condition of entry to a masters degree.

My writing partner and I compared the questionnaires we conducted at the point where students were applying for university with those conducted at the end of their Masters programmes. We were keen to learn what the main concerns for students were at the beginning of their application process. The almost invariable response to our query was not even a word but the dreaded acronym – IELTS (International English Language Testing System). The largest concern for our sample group was getting into university and very few had considered what would happen afterwards. By comparison, the same students we talked to two years later, as soon to finish masters students, were a little more divided in their responses to questions about their concerns, largely between reading skills and time management. As with so many things with human beings, hindsight told them that they should have worked much harder at training and readying themselves for the course.

So, if any of you are considering a masters degree in the UK, please make sure you devote as much time as you can to looking at the course content. I tell all my pre masters students to try to look beyond the entry requirements and into the course itself. Try to imagine yourself on the course, or even better halfway through it. Can you see yourself there? If you have any doubts, make sure you come to the UK early and do a pre masters course. At the very least you will feel at home with the weather, the strange eating habits and the public transport. A huge advantage of being here is that you will have time to shop around, visit places and talk to lots of people before you commit yourself to a specific degree.

Choose a good pre masters course you will start your graduate degree feeling fully guided fully prepared, entirely knowledgeable about the teaching styles, your tutors requirements and expectations, and most of all, you will walk into your first seminar confident that you have earned your place in that university.

Mick Davies is the Senior University Pathways Manager for EF Brittin College, and has been developing pre university courses and sending overseas students to universities around the world for the last 10 years