---
title: "Master of Science"
chunk: 2/4
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Science"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:20:20.343874+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

== South America ==
In Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela, the Master of Science or Magister is a postgraduate degree lasting two to four years. The admission to a master's program (Spanish: Licenciatura; Portuguese: Mestrado) requires the full completion of a four to five year long undergraduate degree, bachelor's degree, engineer's degree or a licentiate of the same length. Defense of a research thesis is required. All master's degrees qualify for a doctorate program. Depending on the country, one ECTS credit point can equal on average between 22 and 30 actual study hours. In most of these cases, the number of required attendance hours to the university classes will be at least half of that (one ECTS will mean around 11 to 15 mandatory hours of on-site classes).

== Southeastern Europe ==
In Slavic countries in the European southeast (particularly former Yugoslavian republics), the education system was largely based on the German university system (largely due to the presence and influence of the Austria-Hungary Empire in the region). Prior to the implementation of the Bologna Process, academic university studies comprised a 4–5 year-long graduate diplom program, which could have been followed by a 2–4 year long magistar program and then later with 2–5 year long doctor of science program.
After the Bologna Process implementation, again based on the German implementation, Diplom titles and programs were replaced by entirely professional bachelor's and master's programs. The studies are structured such that a master program lasts long enough for the student to accumulate a total of 300 ECTS credits, so its duration would depend on a number of credits acquired during the bachelor studies. Pre-Bologna magistar programs were abandoned – after earning an MSc degree and satisfying other academic requirements a student could proceed to earn a doctor of science degree directly, or skip MSc if the diplom program lasted more than 3 years as it was possible to do so for some time.

== Guyana ==
In Guyana, all universities, including University of Guyana, Texila American University, American International School of Medicine have Master of Science courses as postgraduate degrees. Students who have completed undergraduate Bachelor of Science degree are eligible to study in this discipline.

== India ==
In India, universities offer MSc programs usually in sciences discipline. Generally, post-graduate scientific courses lead to MSc degree while post-graduate engineering courses lead to ME or MTech degree. For example, a master's in automotive engineering would normally be an ME or MTech, while a master's in physics would be an MSc. A few top universities also offer combined undergraduate-postgraduate programs leading to a master's degree which is known as integrated masters.
A Master of Science in Engineering (MSEngg) degree is also offered in India. It is usually structured as an engineering research degree, lesser than PhD and considered to be parallel to MPhil degree in humanities and science. Some institutes such as IITs offer an MS degree for postgraduate engineering courses. This degree is considered a research-oriented degree whereas MTech or ME degree is usually not a research degree in India. MSc degree is also awarded by various IISERs which are one of the top institutes in India.

== Iran ==
In Iran, similar to Canada, Master of Science (MSc) or in Iranian form Kārshenāsi-e arshad degrees may be entirely course-based, entirely research-based, or most commonly a mixture. Master's programs typically take two to three years to complete and the completion of a scientific thesis is often required.

== Ireland ==
Like all EU member states, Ireland follows the Bologna Process. In Ireland, Master of Science (MSc) may be course-based with a research component or entirely research based. The program is most commonly a one-year program and a thesis is required for both course-based and research based degrees.

== Israel ==
In Israel, Master of Science (MSc) may be entirely course-based or include research. The program is most commonly a two-year program and a thesis is required only for research based degrees.

== Italy ==
Like all EU member states, Italy follows the Bologna Process. The degree Master of Science is awarded in the Italian form, Laurea Magistrale. Before the current organization of academic studies there was the Laurea. According to the subject the laurea could require four, five or six years of study. The laurea was subsequently split into a "laurea triennale" (three years) and a "laurea magistrale" (two more years).

== Nepal ==
In Nepal, universities offer the Master of Science degree usually in science and engineering areas. Tribhuvan University offers MSc degree for all the science and engineering courses. Pokhara University and Purbanchal University offer ME for engineering and MSc for science. Kathmandu University offers MS by Research and ME degrees for science and engineering. Students can do postgraduate degree in any fields of science like chemistry, biology, physics etc.

== Netherlands ==
Like all EU member states, the Netherlands follows the Bologna Process. In the past graduates of applied universities (HBO) were excluded from using titles such as MSc, as HBO institutions are formally not universities but polytechnic institutions of higher education. However, since 2014 academic titles are granted to any university graduate.
However, older academic titles used in the Netherlands are:

ingenieur (abbreviated as ir.) (for graduates who followed a technical or agricultural program)
meester (abbreviated as mr.) (for graduates who followed an LLM law program)
doctorandus (abbreviated as drs.) (in all other cases).
The bearers of these titles can use either the older title, of MSc, LL.M or MA but not both for the same field of study.

== New Zealand ==
New Zealand universities commonly have coursework or research-based Master of Science courses for graduate students. They typically run for 2 years full-time, with varying amounts of research involved.