Need advice from seasoned members of panel

I am a senior executive with a bachelors degree. I am looking for a program that will take experiential education/portfolio assessment, or similar. It has to be accredited and be able to be utilized to apply for jobs. I will consider overseas institutions as long as they are accepted and recognized in the US by employers. I am too old to take full courses even online and I have only 13 months to find a new job due to cutbacks. I am looking for something that has Maybe masters/doctoral combined in the sociological/business management/criminal justice/ or counseling. Help!! I have read many of your postings and I know that this is the right place to look and not lose $$$.

 

I am somewhat curious as to why the broad field for your Masters? You seem open to everything from business to counseling.

I do not know of any accredited portfolio assessment Masters degrees. One exception might be MIGS/CEU. I believe they allow a fair amount for prior learning. I am sure you will still have to do some course work. http://www.degree.com Be careful to read some of the opinions here on the MIGS/CEU program before jumping in. They are properly accredited in their country of origin (Mexico). They are also affordable.

Rather than pack a time bomb into your resume with an unaccredited/diploma mill degree, I would go with an accredited (foreign or domestic) program. When you are looking for your new job you can say that you are enrolled in a Masters program with a projected completion date of ??

Forget the too old stuff. You are never too old!!! You can do it if you are motivated and the time required will go by one way or another. Then you can have a degree you are not ashamed to talk about or that could come back to haunt you later.

Good luck!

North

 

Here is the MIGS/CEU site with the guidelines for assessment of prior learning/portfolio.
http://www.degree.com/assessment-criteria.htm

They have business Masters of Science in mangement etc.

North

 

That's going to be difficult to find at the graduate level.

Jeez, you must be a real geezer. I'm in my fifties and have encountered no problems taking classes.

Even if you were able to find some place that allowed you to simply write a dissertation without doing any coursework, you would find it awfully hard to get everything done in a year.

A British-style "research doctorate" might be an option. Perhaps somebody else might have some suggestions, but it doesn't really sound doable to me.

It might be more realistic to think about a masters in 13 months. If you already have a strong business background and can devote a lot of time to study and/or review, you might consider the Heriot-Watt MBA. It is divided into "modules" that you study on your own (they send the written study materials) with no conventional classes. Credit is assessed by one big end-of-term examination per module. I suppose that you could take several of them at once to complete the program quickly. You will have to examine the program yourself to see if you can get everything completed in your compressed time-frame.

 

You are never too old but bear in mind that accredited graduate study does not accept significant transfer credit. Portfolio credit transfer for graduate study is nearly nonexistent.

For an accepted masters degree you may want to look into the Edinburgh Business School's Heriot-Watt MBA program. The program is exam based. You study the materials and take the exam. On average Heriot-Watt states that the program will take 2.5 - 3.5 years of study for people working full-time. However, they also state that, "Technically, you can take as little time as six months or a year." Thus, if you are extremely focused on the degree and your studies you could earn this degree in the time frame you want. The program consists of 7 compulsory courses and 2 electives. HW will waive up to two of their courses based on prior acceptable academic work but not on work experience. An example HW gives for undergraduate work is that if you have a bachelor's in say Economics you could waive their Economics course. A CPA qualification would allow you to exempt the Accounting course. Look into http://www.hwmba.edu

John

 

Okay, here's the situation as I see it:

- Very, very few schools worth their weight in birdseed will offer portfolio assessment for credit at the graduate level. On the other hand...

- Many British, Australian, and South African schools will allow exemptions at the graduate level -- e.g., a CPA might get exempted from an MBA accounting module, meaning she would do five modules for her master's instead of six. Accounting credit would not show up on her transcript; rather, the requirements for her master's would actually be reduced.

- Even taking this into account, it's extremely difficult to do a master's in 13 months or less. The good news is that the whole "student in a legitimate master's program" status is worth something.

- The fastest MBA is probably Heriot-Watt's, which can theoretically be done in 7 months -- but that's if you're already so experienced that you could pass a battery of graduate-level exams with little or no study, and I'm not sure I've ever met anyone who would fall into that category.

- The second-fastest master's would probably be a purely course-based master's from a good Australian school but, as the name implies, you'll have to take courses -- not as many as you'd have to take for a U.S. master's (especially if you get some exemptions), but courses nevertheless. The new Bears' Guide literally lists hundreds of master's programs along these lines, if memory serves, so all I can recommend is picking up a copy and browsing through it.

- If you're really not at all picky about the field of your master's, pick the field you have the most experience in. It'll make the process faster and easier.

Good luck!


Peace,

------------------
Tom Head
www.tomhead.net

 

MDG writes, I think that I will try Heriot because I can pace it pretty good to be
done in a little over a year if I hustle. Next question...will it work towards a PhD?

When I was trying to decide whether to get involved with the Heriot-Watt MBA (1991), I wrote to about 50 major universities, asking if the Heriot-Watt MBA would meet their degree requirement for entry into a Ph.D. program.

About a third replied that no MBA met that requirement; that if one wanted a doctorate in a business field, one should do a Master's in economics, or finance, or organizational behavior (etc.).

The other two-thirds said yes. At the time, we put out a brochure reproducing a bunch of those replies -- from Chicago, Cornell, Stanford, and others.

Regarding 'hustle' -- We didn't learn exam statistics, unless students chose to tell us. But we had more than 4,000 Americans and 2,000 Canadians sign up through our office (in seven years), and there were dozens who reported taking and passing four or five exams at a single sitting -- and two cases (that we knew of) where someone took all nine exams during the same week and passed them all (both of them with fulltime jobs -- one in accounting, one an executive with a credit card company). So it is possible, but surely nothing to plan on.

John Bear, who did marketing
for Heriot-Watt's MBA between
1991 and 1998

 

The last question I have: Is there a school out there that has both the Masters and PhD Degree's that could possibly be taken in concert with each other? Also, I will take the Heriot modules/exams because I have 20yrs experience in accounting, business, marketing, and organizational development.

 

Good luck. Sounds like a good decision. If I had to choose between Heriot Watt and MIGS/CEU I would choose Heriot Watt. Before you know it you will have a very credible MBA!

I think my fellow Canuck Lewchuck is a Edinburgh School of Business (Heriot Watt) student. He can probably give you lots of insight.

North

 

However, now may not be the best time to ask as I am t-8 until the next exam and cursing those Scottish bastards who created this thing!!!

 

Lewchuk reports "cursing those Scottish bastards who created this thing!!!"

We had one client who referred to this as Calvin's Last Revenge.

 

Not in concert but once you have your M.B.A. you could look into other doctoral programs -- not necessarily a Ph.D.

Depending on what you want to use the doctorate for there are a large number of programs available in a wide variety of programs. Check out this rather nice list of links for graduate doctorate information:
http://www.gospelcom.net/bakersguide/moredoctoral.html

This is Baker's Guide to Christian Distance Education. Don't let the name think that this site only refers to Christian based religious programs.

John

 

I have an MBA (National University), have a tiny bit of experience with the H-W program (back when John was still involved with marketing it), a just a bit with MIGS/CEU.

I'd take an H-W MBA over a MIGS/CEU M.S., too.

Rich Douglas