What is the difference between an undergraduate and a postgraduate?

Answer 1

An undergraduate is a person seeking a bachelor's degree but has not yet completed enough courses to be awarded the degree. A post graduate is some one has a bachelor's degree and is taking courses to obtain a master's degree or a Ph.D degree.

Answer 2

Undergrads are people who have yet to graduate. Pre-graduate might be a more understandable term. Postgrads are people who have graduated and may be continuing their educations. Graduation can apply to many different levels: Pre-K, elementary, middle, secondary, collegiate and vocational training.
An under graduate is someone who is in college, but has not earned their bachelor's degree yet.

Answer 3

A thesis is basically a report of research into a particular topic. Doctoral and some master programs in the UK and many countries eg Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong only require the student to be examine on his thesis or dissertation to pass the programme. In North America and other countries, the students have to undertake a number of courses successfully before being allowed to do their research to produce a thesis.

The student is supervised by a lecturer or a committee of lecturers who is considered competent in the area of the research. Once the thesis is completed, the student has to defend his thesis to a panel of academic experts for approval.

In Britain and Commonwealth countries, final year undergraduates are required to undertake an independently conducted research project under the supervision of a chosen lecturer. This is done while undertaking other classroom based courses. Depending on the program or discipline taken, the research project report is called a undergraduate dissertation, undergraduate thesis or a research report. The research report is evaluated by the supervisor and another lecturer. In some programs, the student is required to present the report to a panel of lecturers.

A doctoral thesis has to show a contribution to the advancement the body of knowledge that is relevant to the thesis topic. To do so, the thesis must indicate that there is a gap in the body of knowledge and is able to contribute to the closure of this knowledge gap. This closure has to be done by reliable and valid research in either an empirical or qualitative way.

Undergraduate research projects do not need to provide a contribution to knowledge. The student need to show that he can conduct a research project independently in a reasonably reliable and valid way. He must show critical and analytical thinking. He should be able to discuss the implications of his findings. The data must preferably be original or in other words the student must collect the data directly from the source. In an experimental research, the student must conduct the experiments to obtain the data to analyze. In a survey or interview research, the student must survey or interview people to obtain the data. Otherwise the research report will be nothing more than a glorified piece of coursework writing. In some disciplines, non-original data is acceptable for the research report. For example, law students' dissertations involve the analysis of law reports written by other people. The examiners tend to examine the undergraduate research report less stringently considering that the student has to do the research independently and whilst taking other courses.

The difference between the quality of an undergraduate thesis and a post graduate thesis varies from programme to programme in a similar discipline, from discipline to discripline, and from country to country. The student should ask the supervisor precisely the requirements for a first class undergraduate research report and work according to that definition.

Answer 4

an undergraduate degree is basically a bachelor's degree & a graduate degree requires @ least 2 more yrs of school *maybe less depending on how many classes you can handle & how intelligent you are. Graduate school is working towards getting a master's degree. After that people go for a PhD, not an MD, but some may obtain any degree not even associated with any of their prior degrees although it seems like torture to me. For example, I started out working towards an AAS, which is an associate in applied science & not likely to transfer to a 4yr degree although some colleges do have programs as far as I know where you can do exactly that *been awhile since I dealt with that situation. I was working towards that degree & lacked approx 5 classes of getting it, but I hated the program & decided to use the credits that would transfer towards a bachelor's degree of science. A lot of the classed were pretty much useless & didn't transfer although I gained other knowledge it ended up costing a lot more, wasting time & more torture. I ended up getting the BS in 3yrs though because I took classes in the summer & online independent study classes & most of those were just as hard & even much more difficult since you had to motivate yourself or you'd fail & it's hard trying to explain how to do something over the internet vs in person.

Answer 5

An undergraduate student has not yet graduated, while a graduate student has already graduated and received a degree and is continuing to pursue a higher level degree.

Answer 6

Graduation! An undergraduate has not graduated college yet and a postgraduate has graduated and is working on an advanced degree.

Answer 7

An undergraduate has not received a bachelors degree and a postgraduate has.

Answer 8

wether or not they have a degree