Bachelor of Philosophy
The B.Phil.'s earliest form is as a University of Oxford graduate degree, first awarded in 1682. Originally, Oxford named its pre-doctoral graduate degrees the Bachelor of Philosophy (B.Phil.) (a two-year degree, partly taught and partly by research) and the Bachelor of Letters (B.Litt.) (a two-year research degree). After complaints, especially from overseas students, that this naming convention often meant that graduate degrees were not being recognised as such, the University renamed them Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.) and Master of Letters (M.Litt.). However, the Philosophy Faculty (then a Sub-Faculty) argued that its B.Phil. degree had become so well known and respected in the philosophical world that it would be confusing to change the name. In philosophy, therefore, the degree continues to be called the B.Phil. Those who pass the degree are given the choice of taking a B.Phil. or an M.Phil.; few if any choose the latter. (Note that Oxford also offers a number of other graduate degrees labeled as baccalaureate degrees: the law faculty's BCL; and the music faculty's B.Mus)
Licentiate (degree)
Until the early 1970s, the degree in Sweden was equivalent to the U.S. Ph.D. requiring four to seven years of study after the Bachelor´s (or Master´s) degree, and a publicly defended thesis. It was gradually substituted with the "Doctor's exam" in 1969 and was re-instituted as an intermediate level in research training in the 1980s, now requiring only two years of study after Masters graduation. The licentiate is particularly popular with students already involved in the working life, for the reason that completing a full doctor's dissertation while working would be too difficult. The Licentiate's degree is called a "filosofie licentiat" in Swedish and "filosofian lisensiaatti" in Finnish (Licentiate of Philosophy), "teologie licentiat" and "teologian lisensiaatti" (Licentiate of Theology) etc., depending on the faculty. Furthermore, the requisite degree for a physician's licence is "licentiat/lisensiaatti"; there is no master's degree. (The degree "lääketieteen tohtori", "medicine doktor", "Doctor of Medicine" is a traditional professor's degree, or a research doctorate, with Licentiate as a prerequisite.)