Today's Financial Times - DL MBA Article

On a side note, look back on this posting in about a month, though your blood might boil now, it will be funny in a while - mine was.

I actually am learning how to respond on this board, which is helping me with the e--mails I send in the office (or family for that matter).

 

Am I the only one who thinks this whole thread is pretty funny?

WannaJD, you made the same idiotic statement twice in the same post, got pissed and lashed out when you were corrected by someone who's in a position to know better, and had the balls to do it after having just joined the board this month. What's even more amusing is that after you were corrected you didn't even bother to check the facts of what you were claiming before repeating it. Someone who's "spent years on forums" ought to know better...

Personally, I not only like to laugh at the stupidity of other people, but I'm even able to laugh at my own when it occurs. Admitting that you screwed up in the first place is a good first step, apology or not.

I'm also getting a laugh that people who have been here a while are taking so seriously a post from an anonymous person who only very recently showed up on the forum. Maybe I wouldn't find it so funny if the subject actually affected me in any way, or maybe my sense of humor is just out of whack from lack of sleep lately, I don't know.

 

No. I have been laughing throughout the whole thread.

Christian

 

Not only are WannJD and Kristie7 new to DL, they do not understand how academic institutions function in Europe. They do not accept that they were wrong when corrected. They prefer to live in ignorance. In another thread, Kristie7 was wandering why one university in the U.K has not applied for AACSB accreditation. It was difficult for her to accept the fact that schools in Europe do not require an American accreditation. I am also laughing.

 

As a quick note, although the Cardean program seems to be of high quality, it is no RA but DETC accredited. I wonder if Financial Times takes into consideration type of accreditation.

 

Now who is calling names?

I think your time is better spent admonishing someone else.

I really don't care. I posted an article. I never claimed to be an expert on UK education.

Period.

End of story. I didn't deserve the lengthy lambasting.

I apologized anyway.

So your going on and on is like hearing...

"Waaaah. We are right you are not! WAAAAAH!"

Who cares? Is anyone going to address the inappropriate, anti-social nature of the second post in this thread? Nope.

You are too busy being right about the facts, and you refuse to address the social, polite issues that are norms in the real world that somehow get ignored in forums.

I appreciate your passion, though. Forums wouldn't be the same without it

 

Speaking for myself, I don't care how academic institutions function in Europe. That wasn't the central point of the post.

Who cares about accreditation? Not I. I happen to have attended accredited schools, thank goodness, otherwise I might be forever dashed against the craggy rocks of human failure.

I feel like I've stepped into yet another world here. I thought distance learning was a place for me to find freedom from academic pomp and circumstance.

Good grief.

 

Assertion by “Wannajd”: “I see Heriot-Watt got high marks. Of course, the Financial Times owns Heriot-Watt.”

Snide implication: Heriot-Watt only got high marks, “of course”, because “the Financial Times “owns Heriot-Watt.”

Repeated assertion by WannaJD: “I suppose this isn't the first time or the last DL MBA's will be in a fluff article. I found it interesting that the Financial Times owns Heriot-Watt.”

I responded with the facts, namely that the Financial Times did not “own” Heriot-Watt University and that his/her repeated assertions and innuendoes were groundless.

Response from Wannabj: “You sound like many of the pompous asshole professors I've met in real life who couldn't hold down a job to save their lives and so pounce on people who have the common sense to try to be helpful, and informative.”

If Wannabj was trying “to be helpful, and informative” he/she was going about it an odd way by purveying unhelpful, inaccurate and misleading misinformation. For suggesting this I received the unhelpful and informative advice:

“Before you trounce, read the freakin' paper. It explicitly stated that FT owns Heriot-Watt. Take it up with them, not me. Until then, kiss off.”

Oh, Dear. It appears the WannabeJD was the one who had not read ‘the freakin’ paper’ but unfortunately for WannaJD the FT does not “explicitly” state “that FT owns Heriot-Watt” and he advised me to ‘kiss off’ (I am not sure what the adjective ‘feakin’ means but I assume it is a Californian colloquialism, but I think I can guess at “kiss off”.

WannaJD accuses me of being: ‘typically involved in ridiculous debates over nothing.’ I did not realise this was a debate, i.e., something controversial. I was correcting his/her erroneous statement. There can be no opinions expressed on these matters in the absence of a correction: The FT does not own Heriot-Watt and neither did the FT claim it did. That error cannot be left on the Board unchallenged in case it becomes a ‘fact’ later on. Given the position of Heriot-Watt’s MBA DL programme (the world’s second largest aparently) such ‘facts’ are pernicious.

For pointing this out Wanabj advises me to: ‘Sit on it and spin, old man.’ Now I have no idea what this means. It does not sound like the language of anyone I know from one of the Universities of California.

To cap all this, Wannajd (comforted by “Kirstie7”, whom I corrected sometime ago for her rash assumption that Glasgow University was a degree mill - and apparently still nursing a grievance about it) defends him/her self that he/she has better things to “than argue over trivial semantics, especially since my initial intention was benign and innocent.”

It is not a “trivial semantic” to object to a misreport of a clear statement from a newspaper, object to a refusal to correct the error, and to object to a continual refusal to correct a fiction as if members of the board had no right to know the truth about the slur. If Wannajd ‘benign and innocent’, why the shyness about admitting his/her error and why all the abuse?

WannJD: your last post alongside your replies to my corrections is interesting. "I thought distance learning was a place for me to find freedom from academic pomp and circumstance"
and: "Is anyone going to address the inappropriate, anti-social nature of the second post in this thread? Nope. ... You are too busy being right about the facts, and you refuse to address the social, polite issues that are norms in the real world that somehow get ignored in forums. "

Right about the facts? That is what education is about, and as for "social, polite issues" I suggest you re-define the use of your language from the gutter in your earlier posts.

But welcome to the world of informed discourse, polite language, no need for expletitives (deleted or otherwise), and respect for standards in the republic of the interlect.

For BobC I referred to the way the "world of discourse is going" not "what's wrong with the world". There is, of course, a difference, but that would be too tedious to explain if you did not understand what was written in the first place.

 

I guess I took Marketing 101, which says you need to know your audience and market to them. If employers and Universities don't hire non-AACSB schools here in the US (or CA), why wouldn't they go for the accreditation, if they are trying to sell their DL programs to the US. I understand they have been around for hundreds of years, and don't think they have to, but it will be difficult to penetrate the market here if they don't meet the minimum requirements for the "target audience".

Ike - There are plenty of books out there on Sales, Marketing - look especially at the "4 P's" - it is an introduction to how to market. Also, the school I am looking at in the UK DOES have AACSB accreditation - they know their audience - I guess I still don't understand why others don't, if they are targeting the US market.

I have learned a lot on this board, but again, I can't change the rules of the Universities, I can only make sure I attend a school that I will be able to use the degree. Everyone is different. Not ignorance (though some of it may be, but that is why I love to learn, if in a classroom or here on the boards), but I see it as reality.

I think some think so highly of themselves that they can't remember when they were learning something new. It is hard to believe that one person knows everything, but some sure do think they do!

 

Wrong again, I will. All Professor Kennedy said was, “Your innuendo is as uncharitable as it is unfounded.”

You should consider yourself extremely lucky that an educated and civil individual answered your first gaffe on this forum. In contrast, your response showed no evidence of you being either. It was not the second post in this thread that was inappropriate and anti-social, but instead, the third.

My only questions concern the fact that, more than once, Professor Kennedy has referred to WannaJD as Wannabj. Is this some kind of Freudian slip, or is it an example of that subtle and wry British wit? Could the good Professor have much more of a sense of humor than any of us suspected?

 

Like your spirit...

At the risk of taking some shots myself, I for one like your spirit.

Your commentary about professors earlier on, even though it caught flak for the crude language, had me dying with laughter. I love seeing sacred cows brought down to the level of us normal earthlings....

 

Blah blah blah. <Pompous snipet here>. blah blah. Now I know the origin of Charlie Brown's teacher's bugel voice. Good Grief!!!

In conclusion, blah blah blah.

 

Way to go, Bob. You really drove that point home. Unfortunately, it was precisely the point Professor Kennedy was trying to make.

 

Attn: Professor Kennedy

Dear Professor Kennedy:

You have been participating in this forum for quite some time, and the nature of your postings at times characterize you as a true professor, a bitter student and a hater of the American system of education.

Also, do you possess an earned doctoral degree, and if yes from which institution? If no, why not?

May god save the queen!!!

May God bless America!!

Thanks,
Rick

 

Heriot-Watt University MBA used to be referred to as the SUPERMARKET DEGREE - (go buy the modules - no degree required)

AND


UoP (University of Phoenix) degrees are referred to as DRIVE THROUGH DEGREES

Go figure!!!


Rick

 

Anonymity hides what?

DLguy2003 (and BobC, and WannaJD)

My name and institution (Heriot-Watt University) has always been made public, so you know where to find me. You can look up Heriot-Watt University at the nearest British Council office (there is one in California at San Francisco) but it is also on the Internet, or try of Google search.

For your information, you cannot become a faculty member today, let alone a Professor, without Bachellors, Masters and PhD degrees in the UK. I am not sure what an 'unearned PhD' is but perhaps you can enlighten me. All professors at EBS have doctorates.

All three of you, who have recently joined this board hide behind anonymity, without declared jobs, degrees, or qualifications. Judging by the limited evidence we have of your manners, I am not sure that you are members of any university, and certainly not one that would be proud of your behaviour in public (which is probably why you hide behind anonymity).

Your assertion, again without evidence, that I am somehow 'anti-American education' is so false as to be laughable, and before you drive on to accuse me of being 'anti-American', let me stop you there. I have no idea what leads you to accuse me of being a 'bitter student', or indeed what that means.

I am sometimes appalled at the apparent ignorance of some few contributors to this Board who open up without having any idea of what they are talking about, who lambast anybody of draws their attention to facts they seem to be unaware of and, in a few recent cases, whose language is hardly a sign of civilised discourse.

That does not make me anti-American education; it does make me concerned about the absence of their education when I come across it. For a country which produces more Nobel prizes that any other (with Britain coming highly ranked - of which Scotland has produced a disproportionate share), I cannot have anything but respect for American education. Whether you are likely to be included in the benefits of an American education remains to be seen. Present performance does not augur well for that prospect.

In current international circumstances, I would have thought that the USA needs all the friends it can get in Europe. I happen to be one of those friends, contrary to the views of many in my community, and I shall hold steadfast to that support, despite the evidence that in the Normal Distribution (a statistical term) of the attributes of civilised discourse I sometimes come across a few people from the extreme tail several standard deviations from the US mean.

 

What was this thread suppose to be about?

Seems like the apology was made and should be accepted. Enough is enough.

Let's back to the purpose of this board.

 

**yawn**

 

PROFESSOR KENNEDY

Thank you for staying on topic and stating the facts. There are a few new members, anonymous, as you have pointed out, who should be embarrassed about their ignorant blabbering.

Not long ago, I questioned HBS' plan to assess some part of DBA subjects by assignment.

You were prompt and courteous in your response. Thank you.

All Americans are not flippant, just as all citizens of the UK are not football hooligans.

The United States has no better friend than the UK.