Generally, certificates are obtained from small community colleges. These documents show that the person receiving it has mastered some particular topic, such as cosmetology, computer graphics or air conditioning repair. Students with a certificate have taken a very narrow range of courses designed to teach the skills they will need to do a particular job, mostly avoiding general education courses. Certificates can usually be obtained in only a few semesters, or sometimes even one.
An associate degree is a two-year degree. It comes as either and Associate of Arts degree or an Associates of Science degree. It is awarded by community colleges or other small colleges. While people can stop with just an associates degree, the general education courses taken for this degree are usually intended to be transferred to a four-year college program in a particular concentration. People often take this degree at a community college to the defray the cost of the first two-years of a bachelor's degree.
A bachelor's degree is a four-year degree award by a college or university. The first two years of the degree are general education courses, while the later two years are made up of courses for the student's major or minor, such as history or anthropology. Students will often transfer the credits for the first two years of general coursework from a less expensive college. In addition to choosing a major, the student will usually have to chose a minor. For example, a student might major in philosophy with a minor in political science.
A master's degree is an advanced degree that a student can pursue after receiving a bachelor's degree. This is a two-year degree, as the coursework is usually focused entirely on the subject the student is interested in. For example, a student pursuing a master's degree in history will take a range of advanced-level history courses. In addition to the coursework, students pursuing a master's degree will often have to write a thesis which they will have to defend before a thesis committee. Some programs require a project instead of a thesis.