Competence

I have not been on here in a long time, but I do remember the debates about St. Regis and Robert De Sorbon etc.

In the end it seem a larger portions of persons on here seem to have a bias against non-traditional degree sources especially when the word experience is mentioned.

Before I get attacked, I do not support any university that offers sub-standard degrees or misrepresent what they really are. I know St. Regis was good example of that. Sorbon seem to be on the edge but may have fixed the problem. I am not sure whats the latest verdict on them.

What I am saying again and have said before. Credentials should be based on competence. Obviously competence does encompass knowledge and ability to use that knowledge.

How many companies require their CEO to have a PhD? Most good CEO I have seen around does not even have a MBA. This goes to show that in the end its the experience and competence that really counts.

I really do not see the big deal of witch hunting for diploma mill holders. If someone apply for a job with such degree, then they should only be considered based on their ability to do the job anyway. Same thing goes for teaching in school etc..

If someone is that incompetent, it won't take very long to find out and secondly, If you employ someone thats extremely incompetent, you should fire the person that hired them too.

My real argument is that learning to earn a degree can come from many sources. The bottomline is the process to verify that learning. There are many schemes out there and most work when properly applied.

The ones that seem very good are the VAE in france and also the City & Guilds version. I tend to lean to the C&G approach meaning the person needs to write a paper to demonstrate the knowledge plus an interview to defend it.

 

Well, obviously you are carrying the banner for non-accredited degrees, and you state competence should over-ride credentials, but, how are you going to measure competence? Ask them if they are competent? Give them a test, though it is often difficult to measure qualitative qualities via a written or oral test. Or are you going to give every applicant an "on-the-job" trial period until you find one that appears competent? Your company will never accomplish anything and you will soon be bankrupt. I know, you could require your applicants to have an accredited degree, which may not prove competence but does ensure that your applicants have been exposed to an accepted curriculum, reviewed by an accrediting body, this is simply quality control. If you wish to "earn" a non-accredited degree, please feel free to, but I for one will continue my education that is accredited by recognized accrediting body. Education is a personal endeavor; follow the path that suits you.

William

 

no, no..

you completely miss my point. This has nothing to do with a company hiring process. I am talking about how degrees are acquired.

I was formally educated, so I am not trying to justify anything by advocating.

You seem to imply that a degree is an end in itself and I am saying that a degree should focus on producing competent graduates whether through books or via learning on the job.

As you mentioned about exams and test. You can get an accredited degree via this route easily once you are ready to cram. My point exactly, is despite the term accredited degree you can't be more competent than a learned person who did not sit those exams.

I do not support un-accredited schools unles they are just formed and going through the required process. Unless I feel that more of the establish schools should be push these concepts. Just like the VAE in france for example.

Do you feel a person with a City & Guilds senior award is less qualified than your accredited degree?

 

And how exactly are we to quantify whether the amount of incompetence in an employee justifies only the employee's termination or whether it rises to the level of terminating both employee and supervisor?

 

Lets be logical.

1. How many times do you hire someone just because they have a degree, no question asked?

2. Most times fresh graduates are hired, its done with a unversity recruiting program.

3. When an experience person comes with a degree from a unknown university, first of all you need to interview and that should eliminate a lot a fake claims.

Honestly, if a person knows nothing about the job, its very easy to know.. Unfortunately many times this applies to people with real degrees.

The impression I always get on this board is if you turn up with a Stanford or big school degree, you are not required to prove anything to get the job. Just don't turn up with a Robert De Sorbon degree else you will not even get an interview.

 

morleyl, I thought you said you didn't want to be attacked. Are you serious? You say you remember certain past threads. If so, then you should remember the seemingly hundreds of times that the whole "experience is as good as a degree" argument has been covered.

If you were a newbie here I could be sympathetic. But the consensus of this board is well-known on this subject. It feels to me like you're just trolling. Do I have it about right?

 

As I said I have not been on here in awhile. In any case I am not trolling as you are implying..

The simple thing I can remember is that any school that offers a degree based on non-traditional learning is attacked to death.

Whats the consensus since?

 

Non-traditional learning is what the forum seems to be founded on. I don't think anyone attacks non-traditional learning at all here. Many of the regular forum members, senior members, new members, and older members have a non-traditional education.

No one is attacking the two schools you mention because they provide non-traditional education. There are many other things that can be discussed about these schools....and they have been discussed in detail.

What you appear to be writing about is the non-RA, or non-NA, schools being attacked. We've had pleny of discussion on that. However, if you go over to one of the other forums on State Approved schools you will find that some regulars have mentioned that they indeed like some of the non-accrediteds in some fashion.

 

M - Most times fresh graduates are hired, its done with a unversity recruiting program.

J - This is an interesting statement. University recruiting might account for some hires but do you have information that shows this is true in more than 50% of the cases. Please remember, there are thousands and thousands of university grads every year, most coming out of little schools far, far away from any Fortune 500 headquarters.

M - The impression I always get on this board is if you turn up with a Stanford or big school degree, you are not required to prove anything to get the job. Just don't turn up with a Robert De Sorbon degree else you will not even get an interview.

J - As you've almost stated. There is competition not only for the actual job but also for interview slots. I can't interview everyone who applies. Decisions need to be made as to how you're going to screen the list of applicants. With all other things being equal, if I have to choose between a Stanford grad and a Robt De Sorbon grad for a last interview slot then I'm going with Stanford. I may not hire that person but they're going to get the shot. Bias? Maybe it's just probability.
Jack

 

Hi:

I will try to address the responses in one go.

What am I trying to say or address?

What I have observed is that people on here do seem to always have a bias against methods or schools that focus on outside the class learning. This means learning on the job, seminars etc. not necessarily distance learning.

I am saying that if education in general focuses on competences then you may have a balanced approach. For example in the UK, the Engineering Council only gives out Chartered status based on competence even when you have a MEng, you still have to prove yourself.

After my own research, I would be skeptical of unaccredited schools except when just starting out.

Hiring:

In respect to hiring, there are many factors. As I mentioned about CEOs not needing PhDs, I have seen cases where a Chief Marketing Officer for a Fortune 100 company was hired and he only had a BSc and it was not in marketing. This to me prove that experience and track record was the main factors.

In respect to Stanford or MIT degree versus others, I would say it depends what you want. For teaching bigger schools may go, but for industry its about getting the job done.

Many smaller universities produced much better graduates than the big name. This is what you can call the branding benefit. Is that fair?

Options:

In the end, there are many options that can allow one to avoid diploma mills. Unfortunately, not everyone knows the pitfall of these scams.

The many good low cost options are City & Guilds, University of South Africa and many UK universities that offer experience base entry to Masters level degrees.

 

Yet you still seem to know what those on this board allegedly espouse.

I'm not implying it. There's nothing inferential about it. I'm saying it... right out... directly. And, anyway, I don't believe you.

No it's not. You're trolling again.

That trolls are repugnant and should not be tolerated. You're making me feel very intolerant at the moment.

Sorry to fiddle with your sentence, there, but I had to dissect it to figure out precisely what you're saying. And now that I have, I can see that you're simply incorrect. Moreover, I believe you're just coming here and writing -- and re-writing -- it for the sole purpose of giving those in other fora who've been thrown out of here something to chat about. You're trying to make a point here that they make elsewhere; and that's inaccurate no matter where it's said.

Ohgod, this tired, old, close-is-good-enough argument.

Well, there's at least one thing about which we can agree.

This argument -- though I realize you're blind to this -- has nothing whatsoever to do with what degrees are all about. It's like arguing the price of gas during a drought.

That, too, is simply wrong. And you're just displaying your ignorance of what education, generally, is all about. You just don't get it... and it shows.

Have you ever taken a logic course? Your generalizations are baseless, far too broad, and rife with fallacy. It's flawed logic, borne out of faulty, sub-par quality reasoning.

You mean like accreditation?

Again, we agree. So what's your point?

If it's GAAP, I couldn't care less what are its admissions requirements. Why do you?

 

Morleyl said :

That may be but when it's time to award that degree it better be from a legitimate
university. And there is no bias against on the job learning here. That's the purpose of portfolios,PLA's and standardized exams. They are used to validate that experience you speak of.



Best of luck

 

Well, I must be out of touch then. Maybe thats why I haven't really followed up on here.

The same positions are held as I last saw on here months ago.

Maybe if I am not making my point, you could ask me to be clear, but from the answer I am getting it seem attack is the way to prove superior reasoning.


It still seem you are not receptive to degrees that are solely PLA.

Honestly, if you really look at your answers, you have trolled more than myself.

All I am saying is that degrees in general should focus more on competence than just passing a finals exam. Is that clear?

 

Morleyl said:

What is your definition of PLA and how would such degrees be awarded?

 

Yes. And you're wrong. Is that clear? You seem unwilling to accept that as an answer. You keep assuming, arrogantly, that I couldn't possibly be understanding what you're saying, for if I did, I'd agree with you. But repeating -- or wishing -- won't suddenly make you right. Is that clear?

You seem to be under the misimpression that college is (or at least should be) some kind of trade or vocational school. While there's certainly a place for that; and while I wouldn't have as much of a problem with places like that concerning themselves more with competency than with the larger task of education, the job of colleges and universities is to educate. That's very different from what you propose. And I realize that you can't see that. Though I shouldn't be surprised: You can't even see when you're not being attacked.

 

Hi Tony:

Thanks for the reply, at least there are some people with sense still on here.

Based on Gregg's reply he seem to be making a lot of assumptions about what I have said.

You seem to think I do not understand what is education. To him education is school. To me education is education meaning it can be acquired anywhere.

You also seem to think that work experience is vocational or maybe you think the word competence has only yo do with vocational stuff. Then you are dead wrong. You can learn a lot of core skills on the job apart from regular specialization.

Actually more than you think, I believe in a real traditional education. My point is if you mix the sources at some point you may get an even better outcome.

Vocational is education anyway. Are you saying someone with vocational skills cannot do research and deserve a PhD?


Hiring:

In respect to hiring process, people may lie about there background which to me is across the board not just the ones with bogus degrees. Thats why companies need to have good hiring process.

To me if someone has a un-accredited degree, instead of focusing on whether they are dishonest, I just focus on the experience and the recognized sources. Most times its the experience and accomplishments that makes the difference..

 

Hi Tony:

Sorry, only the first few lines were directed to you. The rest about vocational education etc is related to Gregg..

Seems you are doing the right things in your work.

What do you think of the model used in the City & Guilds senior award for degree based programmes? Bear in mind that this award involves many checks and balances but is not course based..

One of things I find interesting is the issue of Achievement based awards. Means, the persons overall accomplishment is used to decide if they deserve a degree as oppose to a course by course comparison.

I honestly think that a person with good background and no degree may not have a problem getting a job. They would do themselves harm by using sub-standard degrees.

Several UK universities have the MProf and DProf based on work related studies..

 

This is insulting. Was that your intention?

It's clear that you have an opinion on these matters that is at least somewhat divergent from those who have responded. This is pretty much where this ended the last time you raised this issue. morleyl has one opinion, most others have another opinion. You started this thread in order to determine, what exactly? Whether anyone has changed their mind? It seems that the answer is "no." Also, you've offered no new reasons why anyone might change their opinion. You keep saying that people misunderstand your points (this is not their fault, you know?) but then when people ask questions of you or try to clarify points you've made, then you ignore them. I addressed two specific points you made and you never replied. As far as I'm concerned, I've found two major flaws in your arguement yet you pretend that these flaws never existed. Don't you realize that this errodes your credibility in other areas?

It seems that your goal is to gain a wider degree of acceptance for the idea of degrees granted solely through Prior Learning Assessment. You believe that accomplishments in the workplace are the equivalent to accomplishments in the classroom and that once a person has reached a certain level of "life accomplishment" then they should be granted a degree. While I do not necessarily agree with this I would want to point out (something you already know) that there are universities that allow for a substantial amount of PLA in their degree programs. The crux of the issue seems to be, how is this to be assessed?
Answer that question morleyl. How is this prior learning to be assessed? If a successful businessman wants a degree, how should I assess their knowledge of Literature (a part of virtually every BA program). How should I assess anything?
Jack