HERRIOT-WATT MBA info from actual graduate

I ran across this website from a graduate of Herriot-Watt named Tim. If you are considering HW, it is worth reading. Enjoyed it

http://www.timdotson.com/HWMBA.htm

PS: Sorry to have heard that the diploma they send isn't the most appealing. " What has happened to school diplomas these days?" "All of that work and they all have to look like they came right off of a laser printer?"

 

It seems that British diplomas generally look like crap. This is certainly true of my U. London degree (an image of which I posted here a few months ago). My ULC doctorate looks better, and my diplomasandmore.com Master's diploma is the best of all.

 

Okay, so, following-up on the diplomasandmore.com bait that oxpecker tossed out and which I'm now officially taking, hook, line and sinker...

Would not a perfectly useful purpose for one of those web sites, which claim they can duplicate any diploma from any institution to say anything on it you specify on beautiful parchment paper and with the gold seal and the whole enchilada, be to have one of them create a beautiful new version of an otherwise crappy-looking UK diploma -- but, by way of a swipe at maintaining at least some modicum of ethics, making sure that not a word on it is different in any manner from that which appeared on said original and crappy-looking UK diploma?

Other than giving the very kind of illigitimate business type which we hate some sort of useful purpose that we are, nevertheless, loathe to grant them, where would be the harm?

Or, if not having one of them do it, if one were willing to pay for such a thing, where would be the harm of going to a printer and having a nice, shiny, new, diploma on expensive parchment paper and in a beautiful frame (but, again, which duplicates the words on the original, crappy-looking UK diploma to the smallest detail, so that no one can claim that the new diploma purports something that isn't, in fact, true about either the degree or its owner) created so that one could successfully end-run this crappy-looking-UK-diploma problem without actually doing anything unethical? Or, in fact, would it be unethical?

If a duplicate of virtually any diploma is created expressly and exclusively for the purpose of remediating the esthetics problem of a crappy-looking UK diploma, but making sure that the new diploma did not say a thing on it which was not also on the original UK diploma, have ethics been breached?

Opinions, anyone?

 

Yes. Next question?

 

I am researching this issue for my PhD, so it is dear to my heart. The replication of a bona fide testamur for novelty purposes is a clever ploy to circumnavigate laws in various jurisdictions. However, to replicate a testamur, and write on it that it is not the same as the university it came from does not compute with me. Why? And, more to the point, would an employer and/ or a justice of the peace notarising the document understand this difference? The answer is no.

Cheers,

George

 

(GodIlovethisplace!)

Gus, for the love-'o-mike, please stop beating around the bush all the time! Just say what you mean, for godsake! Geez!

But, seriously, why? Please expand. How is it an ethical breach?

And George, you lost me a little, there, buddy. Can you re-state in another way and/or expand a bit? I'm confused (which seems to be happening more and more with every passing year... but I digress).

 

If you pay twenty dollars for a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill, does that mean the counterfeit is legitimately worth twenty dollars? Should everyone be obligated to ascribe that same value to the counterfeit bill? In other words, does the counterfeit bill have the same value as the original?

 

Although I don't think it would be unethical (it would still represent a real value, the education, as opposed to the money example, which [for this discussion] is the value itself). Still, I think it would be a rather dumb thing to do. Anyone who knows what the real diploma looks like is going to be less than impressed, and will (more than) likely think the person doing this is an out and out fraud. Even if the person who bought a prettied up diploma has a chance to explain, there is still nothing but bad that can come out of it (although admittedly, less bad than if the person doesn't get the chance to explain).
Why do something that has quite a lot of downside risk with little to no upside gain?

Tony

 

Why is Australia at the bottom of the earth??? Let's confuse things even more!

It's all very confusing, I agree, but your question Des was difficult to answer. You suggest that there may not be an ethical breach if a shabby looking testamur was replicated, and a statement on the copy was made something akin to, 'This is a copy of an original testamur, but made to look nicer as the original looked poxy'.

I don't think this has been ever done, and I cannot see any reason to do it, apart from vanity's sake. In addition, I don't think the conferring institution would be too impressed with the idea anyway.

Cheers,

George

 

Of course not. But a diploma is not currency. Currency is in class by itself -- an entirely different paradigm, really, when you stop and think about it. We're not talking about currency, here.

But, interestingly, this brings to mind a not-unrelated analog that appears to inherently support a viewpoint opposing yours: One may write a check on a paper sack, if one were moved to such a thing, and the bank must accept it (after performing certain due diligence, of course). Most people don't know that, I realize. But it's true.

So now where does that leave us?

By the way, there's an artist whose name escapes me (but I'll bet someone here will post a link to him now that I'm bringing him up) who makes the point about the true worth of things by making counterfeit money as art and then asking people to give him the face value of it in cash -- in essence, to "cash" it -- and to the chagrin of the IRS, who has arrested him a time or two. His point, in part, in this case, would be that that counterfeit twenty you're talking about is worth twenty real dollars as long as any two parties wishing to make the exchange agree to it. But, alas, I wax philosophic -- and I don't want this thread to go off topic -- so please just take this as the interesting but decidedly off-topic parenthetical aside that it was intended to be.

 

Ummm.... because God hates Vegemite, maybe? I dunno. Okay, I give up. Why? (Just screwin' around, please ignore)

Ah! Okay, now my modem's startin' to train-up on yours... a handshake is imminent.

I see what one of the points of confusion was. In fact, I never suggested anything about adding a notice on the face of the new diploma which warned that it's a replication (although that's an interesting ethical factor worthy of further discussion in a moment). My original suggestion/question or whatever you want to call it is, I suppose, even more potentially sinister or, at the least, ethically ambiguous. I'm asking if an ethical breach occurs if all one does is faithfully duplicate the words from the original, ugly UK diploma onto a, prettied-up replica expressly for the purpose of it being aesthetically worthy of hanging on one's wall without those who see it thinking one downloaded an image of it from the Internet (which is what it sounds like UK diplomas look like).

Exactly! Er... well... but not as crassly as the way you said it makes it sound. Pure vanity... I dunno. Well, okay... to the degree that however much vanity it takes to want the diploma to look respectable and not XEROXed as it hangs in a frame on the wall behind me while I'm tryin' to close a big deal and look credible... okay, then, fine... vanity, it is. But so what? It would be for a worthy purpose that misleads no one because, after all, I would really own the degree evidenced by the replica (actually, I'm starting to think "facsimile" might be a better word, but let's keep going).

Why not? Were I in that boat, I'd be on the phone to the institution so fast to discuss how I can go about improving the appearance of my diploma from them in a way that they would find agreeable, that neither they (nor you, I suspect) would know what day of the week it was. I'd tell 'em exactly what I wanted to do and why. In fact, I'd even offer to have the damned thing overnighted to them once it was all printed-up so they could affix their official seal and appropriate signatures to it -- and offer to pay whatever fees would be involved, of course.

If the aesthetic of a UK diploma is a problem, then it's a problem. Period. No point in pussy-footin' around about it. A problem is a problem; and problems always have resolutions. Always. Money talks, bull__t walks. Simple as that.

I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that I could have virtually any UK university agreeing to it in one form or another in no more than a letter or two, an email or two, and/or a phone call or two.

Betcha. The phrase "you can't" and I are not friends. I'm a mountain mover, from way back. This can be done... and ethically.

 

Please allow me to throw the proverbial spanner into the works by saying that while I fully recognize that Oxpeckers U of L diploma appears substanially different than most diplomas I've seen, I actually like the way it looks. To me it had the appearance of being older in its origin and also more personal, as if someone had actually say down at a desk and written it out. I'd be happy to hang one on my wall.
Jack

 

Horse hockey! No one would even know. And if someone did, they'd keep mum about it and contact the university at first chance to find out if he/she had caught himself/herself a fraud. Upon making said call, he/she would learn that the person in question had, in fact, earned the degree evidenced by the prettied-up diploma. So, where's the problem?

Why are we treating a diploma as if it had had hands laid on it by the Pope? It was but a piece of paper among thousands of others like it in a nondescript stack thereof before it got run through a press, had cobalt ink applied to it in the shapes of the letters thereon, then a calligrapher ascribed your name to it, then a cheap gold foil seal and a ribbon or two got hand embossed onto it, and then, finally, two or three people slapped their signatures on it. And when it was done, all it said to anyone who saw it was something that no potential employer or college would accept anyway -- preferring, instead, a certified transcript... which is where the real meat of the matter is.

The diploma is the showpiece part of it, for godsake. If the UK university doesn't get the aesthetic value of that, then why can't I do what they apparently didn't see fit to do, but which misleads no one because every word on it -- notwithstanding the fact that I put them there -- is true.

If, along the way, I added words to the new diploma that flat-out were never on the original, XEROXed-looking certificate -- especially if doing so made a material difference in its meaning, one way or the other -- then that would be a horse of a different color. Now you'd have bona fide fraud of one kind or another, wouldn't you? But we're not talking about that, are we?

We're not talking about a drivers license, here -- or any other government-issued document that really shouldn't be replicated or duplicated, no matter what the reason. We're not talking about enhancing the meaning (via the content) of the document. We're just talking about the functional equivalent of applying a coat of paint. What's the feakin' problem, here?

Are you suggesting that Heriot-Watt (or any other UK institution, for that matter), upon learning that their cheap-looking diploma (for which I worked my ass off and paid them dearly) hanging on the wall behind me makes those whom I'm trying to impress and with whom I'm trying to do business think I'm piker, would not want to work with me to be able to somehow remedy that situation -- with or without their help -- especially if I were willing to foot the bill? I don't think so. Or if that were the case, I'm not sure I'd be wanting knuckelheads who think like that forming my business sensibilities as a student of theirs.

Somehow, somewhere along the line, here, the diploma -- whatever it looks like -- seems to have taken on, in the minds of some, virtually holy significance. It's a piece of parchment, nothing more. It was given to you to impress your friends, relatives and clients. It's not the certified proof of your degree that anyone who's anyone actually relies upon as proof of what you did. That's why everyone asks for transcripts.

If the university, knowing what a diploma's purpose is, issues you one that wouldn't even impress the XEROX guy, then something's very, very wrong... and someone at the university needs to have his or her world shaken up. Diplomas are meant to impress. Nothing more, nothing less. Schools that don't get that, need to... by force, if necessary. They're not God. They don't always get the final say. Telephones, faxes, computer emails, and posted letters exist so that the person with the problem can tell the person who can fix it what they need and how they want to proceed. Reasonable people move forward. Unreasonable people sometimes have to have a judge order them to become reasonable.

I don't just don't see the problem. Someone please help me see the problem.

 

I take you on that bet my friend - and I would replace the standard doughnuts with a truck full of Crispy Cream doughnuts (the only thing I missed from America). Universities, no matter be they from the UK or another country, are VERY VERY particular about their testamurs. You wouldn't have a hope in hell in changing the design of a testamur via such simple correspondence and a 'whim'.

Cheers,

George

 

Really? I can’t think of a closer parallel to diplomas than currency. (see here).

Yes, but why must the bank accept it?

It leaves us with the understanding that the integrity of the entity issuing the document is paramount.

That would be J.S.G. Boggs; however, he’s not a counterfeiter. First, he only draws one side of the bill. Second, he values them for more than the denomination he illustrates. The Secret Service doesn’t have a case because he doesn’t insist the bills are genuine and instead “barters” his art for the goods he desires.

 

I would guess that, as in other scenarious (service businesses come immediately to mind - loose parallel I know), most of the people who find the diploma questionable will not, in fact, check up on it. Their knowledge that something is amiss will be enough to color their opinion. A heuristic approach to decision making? Yep, no big surprise here, most decisions are made this way, usually without our even being aware of it.
My response had nothing to do with any mystical appreciation of the "showpiece" of education that is "meant to impress friends, relatives, and clients." This has to do with the real-world reaction of same. Would this prettied up "facisimile" impress these people more than the real thing? Not if they knew you and knew your educational background - they wouldn't care. If anything, I think they would react in the same way some of the posters on this site have. Put simply, they would think it was vain. Who cares about a mere paper after all. What about prospective clients? Would it impress them? Yeah, it might. Still, I wouldn't take the chance for the reason I have outlined above. Moderate to large risk vs. little to no reward. Do you really believe that more hinges on the aesthetics of a diploma than whether or not the school in question issued it? What if you were a CPA, duly licensed in your state of residence, and, unimpressed by your state-issued certificate, decided to design your own to hang on the wall?

Sorry Gregg, I don't think this would be a smart thing to do.

Tony

 

A diploma is defined as a document certifying the successful completion of a course of study. As such, any document (regardless of the extent to which it esthetically surpasses the original) from an entity other than the institution at which the individual completed the course of study is something other than a diploma.

Personally I don’t care if an individual chooses to display facsimiles of his or her diplomas. I have seen embossed copies, laser engraved copies, and copies under polyurethane resin proudly displayed. However, I do have a problem with diplomas that are not copies but “novelty items” issued by an entity that does not bother to verify the authenticity of the original document. In other words, I have a problem with what is essentially a counterfeit document, even if there is a legitimate document corroborating and attesting to the fact that the course of study was indeed completed.

Everyone? Aside from academic institutions I was applying to for admission or transfer, no one has ever (EVER) asked to see my transcripts. But then again, no one has ever asked to see my diplomas either.

 

Actually, I know a lawyer who had his diploma reproduced in BRONZE. It looks really pretty neat, but I can't help wondering what it cost him and why he'd bother!

 

Since I already have a diplomasandmore.com diploma in a frame on my office wall, I obviously wouldn't have any problems with having a nice looking University of London diploma made and framed. (My real U. London diploma is on a shelf somewhere gathering dust.)

This would be very easy to do, since diplomasandmore.com asks you to provide your name, the university name, the degree name, the major, and the date of issue.

But it wouldn't be acceptable to claim that the framed diploma was the actual diploma.

Incidentally, when diplomasandmore.com sent me my diploma, they also sent me a transcript listing a full set of courses that I never took. I can't see any legitimate value to this fake transcript.

 

This is the second problem I have with this scenario: sending money to and supporting an entity that counterfeits degrees.

This is the first problem. Unless there is a big sign to the contrary or everyone who sees it receives a verbal disclaimer, isn’t framing a (counterfeit) diploma and hanging it on the wall tantamount to claiming it?

I guess we’re back to my second problem.