So in the United States, every bachelors degree is 4 years. Masters are also 18 months. PhD has no set time though is not completable in less than 3.
In the US, most PhDs contain coursework to the equivalent of a master's degree. Having a masters degree beforehand allows you to bypass qualifying classes.
For us, at the end of the 3 years of a regular Bachelors degree, you can apply to do an Honours year - and the entry requirements, honestly, are hilariously lax. Though in terms of how much work you have to do in the Honours year, purely on the basis of word count it is more work than any other individual year at undergrad or postgrad (in practice most people don't break up the postgrad thesis evenly year-by-year, but you get my point). When I did it you had to do five subjects, each with a substantial essay as the main/only form of assessment, plus a thesis researched across the entire year. In "my day" (2009) it was 12,000 but they've upped it to 15,000 now, which is for the best.
But writing 12-15,000 words does not at all prepare you for the 80-100,000 words of a PhD thesis. I was fine, because I love writing and had easily written that much in the past, but so many students get found out. This is why I think we need to revert to Masters being the common pathway (without entirely removing the possibility of going Hons --> PhD), since the experience of writing a 30-50,000 word thesis is invaluable. For those capable of extended writing but yet to gain the skills it will save them all the pain and delays they currently incur on the PhD, while others will discover this lark isn't for them in a course that's less stressful/high stakes as the PhD.
It won't change in a hurry here though because the system is structured to encourage PhD enrolments regardless of either 1). the suitability of the candidate or 2). their job prospects.
Sorry, I can really get going on this. I have Lots of Opinions about Australian higher ed.
