News

The University of Otago has moved to standardise its Honours degree system, moving to the “3+1 model” currently used by other universities nationwide. The move comes after a University working party recommended the change, which is intended to substantially improve the administrative aspect of Honours degrees at Otago.
The new system involves students taking three years of an ordinary degree, followed by an Honours postgraduate year, as opposed to the four-year “cohesive” Honours degree currently offered by many departments. The final year will be worth 120 points, and will include a research project worth at least 30 points.
 

The University is set to implement this change in 2013. It had hoped to do so in 2012 but the timeline was too tight, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic and International) Professor Vernon Squire told Critic.
 

Otago is the last of New Zealand's eight universities to introduce an Honours postgraduate year. This revelation baffled Critic, as AUT is an accredited New Zealand university, and being more backwards than them is frankly inconceivable. Indeed, being behind AUT in an egg and spoon race would be embarrassing enough; those idiots call themselves the Auckland University of Technology University, for fuck’s sake.

 
As noted, under the current system some departments offer a four-year Honours degree system, where selected students are picked out early on in their study and complete an extra year of study for an Honours degree, while other departments already use the 3+1 system. Squire says that the 3+1 model will allow for “late-bloomers” to undertake an Honours degree, which seems very sensible considering the strain that first year puts on a lot of students’ studies, not to mention livers.

 
The change will also assist the retention of Bachelor’s students who would otherwise have moved to another university in order to complete a one-year Honours degree. Another benefit is attracting Bachelor’s students from other universities who wish to undertake a one-year Honours degree at Otago, Squire says.

 
Squire also anticipates that the change will allow students to go an exchange much more easily during their bachelor’s degree, something which it is currently difficult for many Honours students to do. Students may also undertake part time study for the first three years of their study prior to the one-year Honours degree, and minoring in subjects will be made possible.

 
The University Senate has also asked for the point value of the papers in the Honours year to be standardised across divisions to allow students to take papers across multiple departments more easily.
 

Students in law, PE, and surveying are unaffected by the changes as students already take four years to complete an ordinary degree in each of the disciplines. Honours students in these subjects will still be able to complete their degrees in four years.