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<p>Uh, are you seriously arguing that I do not understand what the MIT master’s degree without specification actually entails? Are you sure you want to challenge me on that point? Let me ask you - have you studied at MIT? </p>
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<p>What you neglected is that once admitted to one department, you are free to switch to another, as long as the new department accepts you. Many will. You are then also concurrently free to switch advisors. </p>
<p>Heck, you don’t even technically need to have an advisor from your own department. All you technically need is a ‘reader’ from your department - whose purpose is basically to serve as a signee- while your true advisor can be from any other department. Your thesis will then require signatures from two people - your reader and your true advisor - but that’s hardly a difficult requirement to surmount, as most departments have some faculty who willingly serve as readers. {Heck, I suspect that many ‘readers’ ironically probably never actually read your thesis.} </p>
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<p>On the contrary, the master’s without specification offers substantial flexibility over and above the usual degree, as, like I said, you can take a combination of graduate courses from any department that you want, and then even write a thesis that may have nothing to do with that coursework whatsoever. Let me give you an example below.</p>
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<p>One could theoretically obtain a master’s degree without specification from the architecture department:</p>
<p>1) Without having taken even a single architecture course
2) Without having an advisor from the architecture department (but rather just a reader from the department)
3) Without writing a master’s thesis that has anything to do with architecture whatsoever (as long as you can find an Architecture reader and a true advisor from any other department who will approve). </p>
<p>I would argue that that represents a substantial difference between the specified programs within the Arch department.</p>