Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education? • Hacker News Board

Re: Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?

#21

Post by lordnacho » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 1:25 PM UTC

wirthjason wrote: post #14

One of the key issues I see is that we don’t place a high enough value on adult education. A philosophy professor of mine told me the word “andragogy”, which is the theory of adult education. It’s different from “pedagogy” which means the education of children. I always thought that learning is learning. It never occurred to me that there’s a difference between how and why children learn and that it could be differen…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_high_school

In Denmark and some neighboring countries there's this concept of a school you can go to just to learn stuff later in life, as an ongoing thing. There's a whole bunch of themes (sports, history, etc), and often you can book yourself in for whatever amount of time makes sense for you.

Re: Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?

#22

Post by MikeDelta » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 1:29 PM UTC

In Europe a Master's degree is a necessity for the (better) starter jobs in industry, but usually in the more common (traditional) fields like economics, law, engineering, or science.

Re: Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?

#23

Post by BurningFrog » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 1:29 PM UTC

fallingknife wrote: post #17

When are we going to learn that encouraging everyone to get more education is a waste of resources? All it leads to is lowered standards and devalued degrees. Your credential is only worth something because someone else doesn't have it.

One way to think of this is that the "ruling class", for lack of a better term, in the US is college educated professionals.

To them, "college is good" is an unquestionable truth, and the systems they build will always give more resources to colleges.

Re: Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?

#24

Post by chrisseaton » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 1:31 PM UTC

MikeDelta wrote: post #22

In Europe a Master's degree is a necessity for the (better) starter jobs in industry, but usually in the more common (traditional) fields like economics, law, engineering, or science.

But in these cases aren't undergraduate degrees normally three years, and a master's degree one? So that's four years total, which is what Americans do anyway.

An American undergraduate plus masters is six years, which is absolutely insane.

Let alone their PhDs, which mean you could easily end up 29 before you graduate.

I had a friend in Europe who finished their PhD with top-tier publications in two years - much less mucking around than in the US.

Re: Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?

#25

Post by nickfromseattle » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 1:33 PM UTC

MikeDelta wrote: post #22

In Europe a Master's degree is a necessity for the (better) starter jobs in industry, but usually in the more common (traditional) fields like economics, law, engineering, or science.

Almost every European I have met through work, and through my European friends have master degrees.

Mostly in softer fields like marketing and (English) language.

They have all communicated the same thing - it's a necessity for starter jobs.

Re: Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?

#26

Post by Robotbeat » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 1:34 PM UTC

tomrod wrote: post #9

I got my PhD in a field where you nonchalantly get a masters along the way (because masters degrees have an in-field glass ceiling). A terminal masters program was started by my program while I was in attendance. If you needed the education, it was billed as a professional degree and I think is put to good use. But if you had an undergraduate degree in the field and were not pursuing a PhD then it was just window dre…

Are you in physics?

Re: Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?

#27

Post by lordnacho » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 1:34 PM UTC

The base problem is the idea that a given academic degree gives you access to some career. It's messy, because clearly some do work that way. With the film degree it should have been clear that there's only so many relevant jobs going each year, and thus your chance as a graduate is going to be minimal. It would certainly be in everyone's interest to have transparency about the destinations. Master's degrees are also often the kind of thing people do if they did an unspecifically directed undergrad (eg English, History) and then want to get their door in somewhere (eg law conversion), so it's important that people understand what they're buying.

If you look at most things though, there's no connection between what you do at work and what you studied. At best studying some subject means you are interested in some broad area, and you are conscientious enough to have done all the exercises, so employers should perhaps hire you in the hope that you can learn how the online advertising industry works, or how the plastic supply chain works, etc.

Looking back at my degree, it was really a bunch of indexing interesting things in science and math for potential further investigation. And then an exercise in flaneuring: wandering about, coming upon something interesting, and then being able to focus on figuring out that thing as opportunities arise.

Re: Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?

#28

Post by xor99 » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 1:34 PM UTC

This is why I prefer PhD or research degrees to Masters as the "curriculum" is more modular (i.e. I can quickly change my focus if something wasn't working out or learn new things without needing permission).

US/Europe govt should pay people to do research degrees for 12-15 months with some screening as to ability. Run it like a library and/or makespace and remove bloated universities out of the equation. This plus some sort of machine rental or access service (e.g. pay per use) for scientific/fab equipment and open methods for peer review publication would revolutionise adult education in the sciences and engineering.

Re: Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?

#29

Post by amelius » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 1:38 PM UTC

lordnacho wrote: post #21

wirthjason wrote: post #14

One of the key issues I see is that we don’t place a high enough value on adult education. A philosophy professor of mine told me the word “andragogy”, which is the theory of adult education. It’s different from “pedagogy” which means the education of children. I always thought that learning is learning. It never occurred to me that there’s a difference between how and why children learn and that it could be differen…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_high_school In Denmark and some neighboring countries there's this concept of a school you can go to just to learn stuff later in life, as an ongoing thing. There's a whole bunch of themes (sports, history, etc), and often you can book yourself in for whatever amount of time makes sense for you.

Do you get an academic degree?

Re: Master’s degrees are the second biggest scam in higher education?

#30

Post by CydeWeys » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 1:38 PM UTC

fallingknife wrote: post #17

When are we going to learn that encouraging everyone to get more education is a waste of resources? All it leads to is lowered standards and devalued degrees. Your credential is only worth something because someone else doesn't have it.

> Your credential is only worth something because someone else doesn't have it.

This is an unbelievably cynical take on the world. Society and the economy are not zero-sum, and having better education and better skills make someone better off without taking away an equal amount of opportunity from others.