At some universities in the UK in the early 1980s, the MEng was awarded as a taught postgraduate degree after 12 months of study. Its entry requirements would typically be like those for other taught postgraduate courses, including holding an undergraduate degree and its format would be similar to the modern MEng although, as with many postgraduate master's degrees, the project would extend over a longer period. MEng courses in their modern, undergraduate form were introduced in the mid-1980s in response to growing competition from technical-degree graduates from continental Europe, where undergraduate bachelor's degree courses are often longer than the usual three years in the UK. There was a feeling among recent graduates, the engineering institutions, employers and universities, that the longer and more in-depth study offered on the continent needed to be made available to UK students as well. Since to obtain a taught master's degree in the UK typically took an additional year beyond a bachelor's degree, it was decided that this extra year would be integrated into the undergraduate program and, instead of pursuing both a bachelor's and master's degree, students would proceed directly to a master's degree.