[marvin]

A good Bachelors degree will prepare a good student for replicating science, and a good Masters degree will definitely leave a motivated and skilled student with a good advisor a master of his or her specific field.

The problem is that grade inflation means the majority of students will fall short of these goalposts. I agree with your assessment that undergrad degrees represent hurdles, regardless of whether a student is planning to stay in academia or not.

My experience with getting a Masters degree was that it was really tough work that required my full dedication for two years. But I had a world-class scientist as an advisor breathing down my neck the whole time and expecting results, and my experience doesn't seem to match that of many other MScs I know. Some departments seem to be "degree factories"; it takes an unreasonable amount of effort to follow up students in the classical "apprenticeship" tradition described by GP. It would be very strange if every department at every university managed this level of dedication, with student numbers being what they are.

[liviu-]

> a good Masters degree will definitely leave a motivated and skilled student with a good advisor a master of his or her specific field.

I'm having trouble believing this.

In UK, most Masters degrees last 1 year, and there are several degrees considered good such as Imperial's MSc in Machine Learning, Cambridge's MPhil in Machine Learning, Speech and Language Technology, Edinburgh's MSc in Cognitive Science, and others. Is it really possible to become a "master" of machine learning in one year?

Also, at least in Computer Science, most of the Bachelors degrees considered good in UK do not seem to focus at all on replicating science. In fact, for my final year undergraduate project, I was encouraged to find something novel, and at no point my supervisor hinted towards focusing on replicability.

Is it perhaps more common in US?

[marvin]

An MSc is not an MSc. It can commonly vary from 1-3 years, depending on institution. I was thinking of the two-year variety.

Of course, you can define the term "master" to mean pretty much whatever you like. But I'd say that two years of additional, focused study when you are already proficient in your field should be more than enough to have a mastery of the specific skills and knowledge that is at least on a high national level. I'm from Norway, so the US picture is unknown to me.