The Germans may lust after advanced degrees, but we Americans might not want to call the kettle black -- it's well-established that we struggle to acquire Ph.D. degrees even though, on average, this choice produces a decline in income and employment compared to a "professional" degree:
German Fascination With Degrees Claims Latest Victim: Education Minister
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Re: German Fascination With Degrees Claims Latest Victim: Education Minister
#12If someone chooses to spend several years of her life only in order to get a few letters in front of her name, that's her problem. Meanwhile, the rest of us can get out there and do something productive. Degree obsession is a choice.
Re: German Fascination With Degrees Claims Latest Victim: Education Minister
#13Ummmm Education Minister who (allegedly) cheated at university forced to step down. Don't really see that as a "Fascination With Degrees" Might have been a interesting topic, but it's a hopeless segue.
Yes, the title is quite misleading. While there are a few people who pursue a PhD purely for its status, this was probably not the case for Annette Schavan.
I don't know if my experiment is valid but looking at the collected business cards (~1200) from the past years. 90% of the business cards with Ing, Prof titles and alike are mainly from Germany. Looking at the German wikipedia page about Academic degrees http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akademischer_Grad compared to the other languages. I don't know if they run for its status but at least they showed those titles on their business cards.
It might be interresting for Ken Robinson to make some seminar in Germany about his point regarding academicism.
Re: German Fascination With Degrees Claims Latest Victim: Education Minister
#14"“I just think that many Germans have a police gene in their genetic makeup,”" Lol, discussion Godwin'ed by the OP itself - the NYT, no less.
Well, I'm living in Germany and I'm inclined to side with the NYT on this.
Re: German Fascination With Degrees Claims Latest Victim: Education Minister
#15Ummmm Education Minister who (allegedly) cheated at university forced to step down. Don't really see that as a "Fascination With Degrees" Might have been a interesting topic, but it's a hopeless segue.
Yeah, this wasn’t really about her title. I’m not even aware of her ever using it in public, the media certainly didn’t.
That said, the German system is broken and needs to be fixed. I think that part of the discussion is probably the most useful one - but I don’t see it going anywhere.
Re: German Fascination With Degrees Claims Latest Victim: Education Minister
#161. Once Germany was a leading intellectual, scientific, and engineering powerhouse. Academic titles still have some cultural significance. It might be a kind of a relict.
2. It's worse in Austria.
Re: German Fascination With Degrees Claims Latest Victim: Education Minister
#17“title arousal.” If the Germans had a fascination with degrees, they wouldn't have Mercedes engineers without a university degree http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16159943
Thats a different thing. The Apprenticeship programs in germany are very popular in the whole range of sectors. You basically train on the job in a company for 3 years earning a minimum wage and have to go to school for about 1/3rd of that time. At the end your company might offer you a full time job.
However this kind of education is very practical, not too much theory, so the guys at mercedes for example are more like mechanics that assemble the cars. Its still a very good and highly regarded education, but the real engineers at mercedes have studied Engineering and have university degree.
Same goes for IT, you can do basic apprenticeships for programming or system administration, but its far less theoretical than studying computer science at the university. Still many people do it, because for being a programmer its mostly enough basic knowledge and you learn the rest on the job and with experience anyway. But these people will probably not tacke the hardest problems of computer science.
Re: German Fascination With Degrees Claims Latest Victim: Education Minister
#18> Many Germans believe the scandals are rooted in their abiding respect, and even lust, for academic accolades, including the use of Prof. before Dr. and occasionally Dr. DR. for those with two doctoral degrees. > Prof. Dr. Wanka got her doctorate in 1980, the same year as Dr. Schavan. While the title-compounding effect did strike me as comical, this did force me to reflect a bit on our own worship of pedigree. Anyon…
Reminds me of the MIT Dean of Admissions scandal (she faked a degree on her resume): http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2007/4/26/mit-admissions-d...
Re: German Fascination With Degrees Claims Latest Victim: Education Minister
#191. Once Germany was a leading intellectual, scientific, and engineering powerhouse. Academic titles still have some cultural significance. It might be a kind of a relict. 2. It's worse in Austria.
they even adress you as Herr Magister, not only Dr. :D
Re: German Fascination With Degrees Claims Latest Victim: Education Minister
#20The German hierarchy in academia is unbelievable. Few years back I moved from a federal lab in California to a state lab in Germany. I felt abashed at the extravagant praise of the head professor there. Also, the Prof. Dr. thing on business cards used to make me laugh, until I could grasp the whole system, and how detrimental it was for students (high pressure, never ending hierarchy, blind worship, ...).
This hugely depends on the field of research and the individual research groups. Medicine is traditionally very hierarchical - mathematics or computer science not so. Could you elaborate on the detrimental effects?
sure, I refer to computer science btw.
Detrimental effects that I could witness: - Prof. are secured in their large offices, hard to get in touch with. This leads to useless work or idle students, waiting for feedback, or picking up the wrong problem, solution or conference. - Full dependency on the Prof (e.g. for funding, to get a position, ...) - Students don't voice their concern much, as they need Prof. support.
Don't get me wrong, overall, the system works, and the same observations could be made elsewhere as well (e.g. France, US, ...). Although I'd say the magnitude differs.
With colleagues, we used to make this joke that a 'deadline' in the US would always be slowly pushed back until the project can be stamped as a success (best for everyone, motivates teams, etc...) whereas in Germany the deadline is so deadly that the team hits the wall and leaves blood strains on it, until the next deadline comes up :)