The case of the half master’s degree

As I moved to Denmark, while still having hundreds of doubts about how to work as an architect here, I was told that I could send all of my school and college documents to the Ministry of Education and Research and that they would analyze and qualify them, in order to provide me with a diploma comparison to the Danish system. I did so, and waited anxiously for a reply. 

While I waited, I noticed how it’s so normal for people who join architecture schools to get their bachelor degree and engage into a master’s degree straight away. After all, a bachelor takes around 3 years and the master around 2, so in around 5 years one has a fantastic title to start a career with. 

That was not the case when I studied back in Brazil, though. I joined college in 1997 and the bachelor took 5 years back then (I have no idea how long it usually takes nowadays, but at the college where I graduated, it’s still the same). Back then, it wasn’t normal to get the bachelor’s degree and move on to a master’s. And this is why. 

It’s a different country with different dynamics, and as students we didn’t really have support from the government as there is in Europe. We have to provide for ourselves, sometimes ‘forced’ to live with our parents during or after college, until we’re able to make it on our own. One rarely has the time or money to engage in more studies, and so we get straight to work. 

In a way, getting straight to work after graduating in Brazil gives you a more ‘to your face’ experience as an architect. There’s not really an upgrading system to get used to things little by little, and so within a couple of months, maybe a year, we see ourselves with enough knowledge to go on and work as such, without really feeling like we needed a master’s in the first place.

Nowadays taking a master’s is more common in Brazil. People want to specialize, and the schools saw a way into that and even created more courses, sometimes at night, so we can work and study at the same time. The world is also more accessible in some ways, and it’s easier and more doable to go and study abroad for a couple of years as well, so students have also been keeping that in mind. But it wasn’t so back in my days, and, thus, I have never taken a master’s degree and the Brazilian market never really cared for it. 

Almost 20 years passed, and when I arrived here I felt like I was the only one that wouldn’t be hired, simply because of the lack of a master’s degree. Some people told me it would be perfectly fine finding a job as an architect without the master’s, and some told me they wouldn’t hire someone without one. I couldn’t but wonder, how is it that a piece of paper says more than experience. I actually still don’t know the answer to that one, but I needed to move on and face the market anyways.

So between freaking out about my future and trying to keep sane, I waited for the results from the Ministry of Education and Research. To my surprise, a quite optimistic letter was sent back, with the following somewhat awkward statement:

“The qualification is comparable in level to a Danish Bachelor’s Degree plus 1 year of a Danish Master’s Degree in Architecture (in Danish: en dansk bacheloruddannelse plus 1 ?r af en dansk kandidatuddannelse i arkitektur).”

I don’t really know how to put it in my CV in a way that won’t scare the employers by giving them the false idea that I didn’t want to finish my master’s degree and that I decided to quit it in the middle. But it sure put half a smile on my face, knowing that I at least had some relationship with a master’s degree somehow. :)