Bachelor of Arts

A Bachelor of Arts (B.A. or A.B., from the Latin Artium Baccalaureus) is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for a course or program in the arts and/or sciences.

EU harmonisation

European Union members states' ministers of education have agreed on a harmonisation of the education cycles within the EU. One part of this agreement is the division into an undergraduate and a graduate level of higher education.

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Following this so-called "Bologna/Berlin declaration" (see Bologna process for more information), universities in the EU are now in the process of reorganising their courses in order to offer Bachelor and Master degrees. Many universities have already changed to the bachelor/master model, and the others soon will. Subjects of the humanities and social studies can be completed with a BA at an increasing number of universities in Germany already, for example. This means EU countries are giving up their traditional magister or diploma courses to make switching and comparing universities easier.

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The reason for this rationalisation is because the English magister ("master") and baccalaureus ("bachelor") classifications developed separately from most European countries. For example the baccalaureus is gained at the end of secondary education in some countries. For a fuller explanation of why this is so see Degrees of Oxford University.

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The BA is supposed to last three/four years, the MA one/two years, but altogether no longer than five years.

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