A bachelor's degree is usually an undergraduate academic degree awarded for a course or major that generally lasts for three, four, or in some cases and countries, five or six years. It may also be the name of a postgraduate degree, such as a Bachelor of Civil Law, the Bachelor of Music, or the Bachelor of Philosophy.

Honors degrees and academic distinctions anchor: Hons

Under the new British system, and those influenced by it, such as the Canadian, Irish, Jordanian, Indian, Malaysian, Maltese, Sri Lankan, Singaporean, Hong Kong and Australian systems, undergraduate degrees are differentiated either as pass degrees or as honours degrees, the latter sometimes denoted by the appearance of "(Hons)" after the degree abbreviation.Fact: date=January 2008 An honours degree generally requires a higher academic standard than a pass degree, and in Maltese, Singaporean, Australian, New Zealand, Scottish, Sri Lankan, Malaysian and some Canadian universities an extra year of study. Previously in the UK Polytechnics, an honours degree took one more year of study than an ordinary degree. This applies in Scotland with ordinary MA and MA(Hons) degrees (which are the equivalent of English first (BA) degrees). In England now, most first degrees are assumed to be honours as Third Class honours are actually a relatively low standard.

Southern Africa

In the Namibian, Pakistann and Zimbabwean systems, an honours degree must include a project course that the students must complete individually, with different projects carried out by each student.

Canada

Depending on the province, a bachelor's degree takes either three or four years to complete. Traditionally, a three-year degree is also called a pass degree or general degree, and a four-year degree is also called an honours degree. In provinces that grant three-year bachelor's degrees, a student may choose to complete an additional year of studies to obtain a four-year honours degree.

Some Canadian universities no longer offer three-year pass degrees, and have started to grant four-year honours degrees exclusively. In general, obtaining a bachelor's honours degree requires completion of a number of full year credits, completion of one or more majors or a specialist program, and maintaining a grade point average above a certain minimum.

An honours bachelor's degree is generally a prerequisite for admission into graduate studies in Canada.

England, Wales and Northern Ireland

The degrees awarded carry a designation related to the broad subject area such as BA, BSc, BEng etc. The majority of Bachelor's degrees are now honours degrees. Prior to the mid 20th century some candidates (but not, for example, at Oxford or Cambridge) would take an Ordinary degree, and then be selected to go on for a final year for the Honours degree. A first degree course is usually three years, but it might be reduced to two either by direct second year entry (for people who have done foundation degrees or changed subject or similar) or by doing compressed courses (which are being piloted by several newer universities). For funding reasons (funding for undergraduate programs is automatic, funding for postgraduate programs is not) it is becoming increasingly common to skip the Bachelor's stage entirely and go straight to Masters level on a four year (five year if with industrial experience) course (which often shares the first two years with the equivalent Bachelor's course).