Some universities allow students to get enrolled in English studies without having a Bachelor degree in English.
If someone completes an MA and PhD without a Bachelor, can that person become a professor in English?
asked Jul 21, 2019 at 17:38
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2It is possible... but how likely is a different question...– Solar MikeCommented Jul 21, 2019 at 17:44
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2One presumes that an undergrad degree in comparative literature, linguistics, some languages, or various related fields would be a fine background to an English PhD application. Physics, perhaps not so much...– Jon CusterCommented Jul 21, 2019 at 17:51
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3I can't speak for other countries, but in the USA the main concern is one's background competence and being able to appropriately document that competence, rather than the actual degree. A former university faculty colleague of mine got an undergraduate degree in English and later a Ph.D. in math, and is now a full professor of mathematics. Another former colleague of mine (at the time, in a non-university setting) was at one time a full professor of mathematics at an R1 Doctoral University and currently teaches English at a different R1 Doctoral University.– Dave L RenfroCommented Jul 21, 2019 at 18:20
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@DaveLRenfro - If I recall correctly, Ed Whitten (one of the founders of string theory) had an undergraduate degree in English, with enough physics courses to get accepted into a Physics PhD program.– Jon CusterCommented Jul 22, 2019 at 18:30
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@Jon Custer: I've heard it was history (recently, in another StackExchange group), and it seems history is correct. Possibly more significant, and something that I had not known, is that he had a minor and it WASN'T math or physics related --- his minor was in linguistics!– Dave L RenfroCommented Jul 22, 2019 at 21:02
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2 Answers
Of course you can. Yes, once you complete a Ph.D. in English, you will not need a bachelor's degree and you will not need a master's degree when you search for a job.
Entry into a Ph.D. program in English may be done by those with bachelor's degrees in other, related fields. Or by those with appropriate experience outside academia.
And let's face it: Once you are awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, practically any English department will hire you as a professor, even if you have no degrees at all.
Most likely yes. You’ll probably have transition units in your coursework.
I’m currently doing a Master’s Degree in IT in Australia, and my university offers two different courses: one two year degree for people without an IT undergraduate degree, and a 1.5 year degree for those that do. The difference between them is the presence of “transition units” intended to give those who complete them the level of competency in their material expected of someone who has completed an undergraduate degree. While my university doesn’t appear to offer a Masters of English, the creative industries courses it does offer appear to follow the same pattern, based on a cursory search of their website.
It’s my understanding that the first two years of an American 5-year PhD are coursework-focused and are roughly equivalent to the two-year Masters degree over here, with the other three years being equivalent to the three year PhDs we have. I’d be surprised if there was a significant difference between them, though, as always, every university is different.
