By Erika Vodvárková and Fabian Kuzmic
As all AUC students know, with freedom comes responsibility. While we may enjoy the liberty of choice while building our personal curriculums based on passions and genuine interests, it comes with a price of uncertainty about our graduate futures. Although the recognition of a Liberal Arts and Sciences curriculum is becoming broadly accepted across the world’s top universities and beyond, the concrete ins and outs of various master’s requirements and their (in)compatibility with the AUC curriculum remain unclear. Among such queries lie for many the big question of Social Science methods courses: Which? When? How many?
Even though students majoring in Social Science are required to obtain only 12 ECTS in research methods to graduate from AUC, there seems to be concerns about what is necessary for a smooth admission into a master’s programme. Tutors, lecturers, and peers all have differing perspectives on the matter based on their experience and expertise, and the information overflow is not helped by the recent decision to merge the former two statistics courses BRMS I and BRMS II into a single course. Meanwhile, the graduation requirements in Portal remain outdated.
Despite AUC’s highly regarded honours status, the flexible Liberal Arts and Sciences curriculum poses other challenges towards master’s eligibility. Within AUC, the defining problem causing uncertainty seems to be that by the programme’s very nature, everything from anthropology to psychology and economics is lumped together under the same social science label and identical graduation requirements.
While a prospective research psychology student might need to take all available on-campus and off-campus statistics courses, an anthropology student might just need the absolute minimum required by AUC. Unfortunately, tutors rarely highlight the vastly differing levels of required credits across various disciplines, according to third-year Social Science student Maria Mazurek.
For example, students applying for a politics or international relations master’s at UvA are required to have earned 20 of their undergraduate ECTS in research methodology. Meanwhile, a student focusing on an international relations track researching the requirements for a graduate programme at Leiden University will encounter the demand to “demonstrate sufficient knowledge of social science research methods”. Where an average UvA student with a prescribed curriculum would hardly spare a thought as to the sufficiency of their curriculum for a Dutch master’s degree, an AUC student is often left doubting, with hardly anyone to turn to for answers.
Outside of AUC, master’s programmes tend to leave out specifications for applicants with more unconventional backgrounds. For instance, the admissions office for the MPhil Economics programme at Oxford University states that “applicants must demonstrate a strong quantitative preparation.” For admission to the London School of Economics and Political Science, students need to demonstrate very good results in “two-semester length courses in mathematics (both advanced calculus and linear algebra), econometrics and statistics, intermediate macro and microeconomics.”
The Herring recommendation for economics students: AUC students who want to qualify for rigorous Economics graduate programmes should take Methods for Social Sciences Research in their first semester and Mathematical Methods for Economics in their second semester. Building upon that, SSC students should take Linear Algebra from the Sciences major and Statistical Methods for Social Sciences Research (200 level). To achieve a solid, advanced level of calculus, students are encouraged to take Vector Calculus from the Sciences major or similar courses, such as Multivariate Analysis at UvA or Multivariable Calculus at VU as off-campus courses. Further, to reach a high level in statistics, the course Advanced Research Methods & Statistics (300 level) is recommended.
On the other hand, many of the world’s best master’s programmes make no demands on undergraduate research knowledge. With the exception of economics and strictly research-based programs, most universities such as Oxford, LSE, and SciencesPo open their admissions to students from all academic backgrounds without specific demands regarding methods requirements. Yet, in many instances, this can only add to the confusion for a student trying to sufficiently prepare for a variety of master’s programme options.
“This is something I have been trying to figure out for almost three years now,” writes a third-year Social Science student focusing on the cognition track. “At UvA I need 24 credits in statistics, for other programs in the Netherlands it can be as little as 12. In other countries, they just say I need a degree in psychology.” She also noted the near impossibility of meeting her UvA requirement, especially given the uncertainty around AUC’s course selection procedure: “hopefully I will be able to get into my last statistics course this June intensive.”
The procedure of collecting sufficient statistics credits is made even more challenging by the merger of the two BRMS courses into Statistical Methods for Social Science Research, leaving even more students struggling to fulfil their requirements with off-campus courses at UvA and VU. However, because those are usually programme-specific, as another third-year student shared, as an AUC student it can even be difficult to be accepted in the first place.
Demonstrating excellent grades in certain courses can make or break one’s master’s application. The good news is, there are no strict and definite prescriptions across the board. The bad news is that the devil is very much in the details and Social Science students have no choice but to shoulder the responsibility of their own research. This additional task, amid the already challenging master’s application process, can feel overwhelming. Therefore, it is crucial for AUC students to inform themselves early on which methods courses are vital for their intended path after AUC. After all, some requirements for graduate degrees go beyond AUC’s internal requirements, especially for quantitative programmes such as economics and psychology.
The Herring 