A master's degree is a university degree that's awarded after several years of graduate study. After you get a bachelor's degree, you may want to also earn a master's degree.
When you get a master's degree, you focus on one subject — the goal of a master's degree is mastery, or expertise, in that area. The term has been around since the fourteenth century, when a master's degree was required to teach in a university. This has changed over the years, and now a PhD, an even more advanced degree, is usually needed to be a professor. The Latin root of master, magister, means "teacher."