Australian Dopers - preferably ones who work in the education sector, I’m just wondering if a Graduate Diploma is a degree?
This is in relation to the Australian Qualifications Framework. I am familiar with the framework and where a Grad Cert/Grad Dip, etc. fits into the educational structure. This is also not a question of the relative worth of a Grad Dip against a master’s degree, etc. - this is why I put this in GQ but Mods please move if you think it fits better in IMHO.
I am simply interested in a factual answer, if there is one, to the question, Is a Graduate Diploma a degree in the same sense that you would call a bachelor’s, a master’s or a doctorate a degree? To put this in context, I’m pretty sure no one would ever think of calling a Certificate III, for example, a “degree” as such - it tends to be assumed that an Associate’s degree is the beginning of the actual degrees (as opposed to certificates and diplomas). So, since Grad Certs and Diplomas are in between a bachelor’s and a master’s, are they still degrees in the same way? (And length of study seems to make no difference since there are many master’s degrees that can be done in only a year, the same as a Grad Dip).
In other words, let’s say someone holds two bachelor’s degrees, a master’s degree and a Grad Dip. If you are saying how many degrees this person has, is it true to describe them as holding “four degrees” or is it absolutely necessary to say they have “three degrees and a Grad Dip” because a Graduate Diploma is not technically a degree as such?
I hold two bachelor’s degrees and one graduate diploma from Australian universities. I would not call a graduate diploma a degree, although it’s common as a professional qualification in Australia.
I would say that you cannot get a Grad Dip unless you have a degree, so it’s not a degree, it’s an extension to a degree. i.e. A Grad Dip is better than a degree.
Definitely not. If you consider a person with a Grad Dip and someone with a Bachelor’s in the *exact *same subject, the Bachelor’s will always be better. The Bachelor’s will be more in depth, have more practical scope, be broader and so forth.
The general idea of a Grad Dip is to provide professional training in the field as an *accessory *to an existing Degree. So, for example a chemist may do a Grad Dip in IT in order to be able to better run or design databases and networks. An accountant may do a Grad Dip in management in order to run an office. However if the exact same people had completed Degrees in IT or Management, they would have learned everything they learned in the Grad Dip, and a lot more besides.
All the Grad Dip’s I am familiar with are basically re-hashing of certain areas of a Bachelor’s Degree. For example, an IT Grad Dip will be essentially all the database design subjects from the IT degree, compressed into 12 months. A Grad Dip in remote sensing will be the Remote Sensing subjects from the Geology and/or Ecology Bachelor’s.
A dual Degree is always better than a Degree and Grad Dip from the same institution.