What is the supposed problem with the MSM/L?

Discussion in 'Business and MBA degrees' started by Maxwell_Smart, Oct 13, 2019.

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  1. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    Ashworth had a bachelor's degree in psychology?
     
  2. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    Here's Ashworth's bachelor's degree in psychology. It does not have many business courses as part of the curriculum. It looks like your typical bachelor's in psychology.

    https://www.ashworthcollege.edu/bachelors-degrees/online-psychology-degree/curriculum/

    They have free electives, which can be in anything. The rest of the electives are general education electives, and business courses, other than business analysis, don't count as general education.
     
    Last edited: Oct 19, 2019
  3. JoshD

    JoshD Well-Known Member

    This is the thing...an MBA and a MSM are both general management degrees. An MBA is not going to make me a finance, marketing or accounting expert just like a MSM is not going to make me an expert. We can argue one has a few more quantitative courses, sure, but no point in arguing when, like I said above, both are GENERAL management degrees.
     
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  4. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    :) Then instead of focus, perhaps it can be considered akin to a specialization or something to that effect. After all, I've seen degree programs with just one or two courses that covered the specialization. I think we can all agree that even when there may be some exceptions, it's common to find more courses based around money in an MBA.
     
  5. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    When I was there, the flexibility that appears to exist now wasn't on the table. You took what they gave you and on the track they put you on. Choosing the major was the only thing you had control over. For example, the following courses were classified under business and were placed on my course list:

    Organizational Behavior
    Human resource management
    Human relations (under the human resources designation)
    Business Ethics

    Introduction to Business
    Business Communication
    Personal Finance
    Principles of Finance
    Principles of Management
    Principles of Marketing

    Although, I had no problem with it because I was interested in those courses.
     
  6. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    That has everything to do with Ashworth having a limited number of electives and nothing to do with psychology programs typically requiring many business courses. When Ashworth built up their catalog, they allowed students to choose their electives.
     
  7. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    We've been saying all along that MBA programs tend to be more quantitative. It's an interdisciplinary degree. It's going to have a little bit of everything from the business sub-fields, and every single course in a program can't be a specialization. One finance course does not make a specialization, one accounting course does not make a specialization, one human resources course does not make a specialization, one ethics course does not make a specialization, and so on.
     
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  8. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    Well, I said "one or two". While I'll agree that 3 courses is common, I don't think there is a hard rule that says there has to be a very specific amount of courses to qualify. We've just seen an MBA from a major university (Boston) with only 6 courses, 7.5 credits per course sure (and even that's odd), but still 6 courses. I've seen Masters degrees with 8 courses (like Madurai) and less than 30 credits. And I seem to recall Patten having a program with a shorter specialization, or they were cramming in courses around it from other programs and making associations to the specialization course to make it seem like there was more to it than there actually was.

    "Limited" is subjective. As I've said, at the time, there was no choice in what you could take. That doesn't mean there weren't plenty of other courses (there were plenty), it just means students didn't have a choice in picking individual courses, and there could've been plenty of reasons for it all of which no one would know for sure except the administration at that time, but this was the earlier 2000's and I'd bet it was a technical matter more than anything else. At the time, they were still converting from being a by-mail program to fully online. Some assignments still had to be mailed and feedback on papers came by mail, handwritten.

    I could find programs that are similar where courses that would be classified as business are on the list, but it's pointless (and I'm not interested in doing that) because there are too many programs to wade through.

    Last thing I'll say on this, I've seen quite a few over the years. I even showed one. I can't unsee what I've seen, sorry.
     
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  9. Maxwell_Smart

    Maxwell_Smart Active Member

    There are still 2 business courses on the list right now that are mandatory, and it could be 3 with Intro to Business if a student started on the AAS track. There is Human Relations that's under Human Resources/Human Resource Management, and I don't think there can be much debate that Industrial/Organizational Psychology is a business course. It's sometimes called Business Psychology after all.
     
  10. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    I/O psychology is, first and foremost, a psychology course. It's psychology of the workplace. There is also social psychology (it is not sociology), media psychology (it is neither media studies nor journalism), child psychology (it is not pediatrics), political psychology (it is not political science), and other psychology sub-fields for various settings and types of individuals.

    Some schools classify human relations as a human resources course while others classify it as a psychology course. It's the psychology of human relationships. Business borrows more from psychology than the other way around. Many management courses are really just psychology and sociology courses for the workplace.
     
  11. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    You haven't shown one psychology program with "many business courses."

    Your post pretty much says that Ashworth was likely requiring business courses because they were transitioning from a correspondence model. I think any reasonable person would call that limited options. Ashworth didn't start offering bachelor's programs until 2007. Twelve years later, their bachelor degree offerings are still small.

    Patten required three courses for their MBA specializations. You can still see the curricula at JFK University (they purchased the competency-based programs) because it hasn't changed. A specialization is normally not one course. If a specialization were one course, then every course in the program would be a specialization. Their finance specialization has three actual finance courses, not accounting. Accounting is a separate field. You can't meet the accounting requirements to become a CPA by only taking finance and economics courses because they are not one and same. You need a substantial number of real accounting credits; these aren't interchangeable fields because finance does not prepare you to do complex accounting and auditing.
     
    Last edited: Oct 24, 2019
  12. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    If you're referring to the associate's degree in psychology, it no longer requires Intro to Business.
     
  13. Maxwell_Smart

    Maxwell_Smart Active Member

    Have you spoken to anyone there about it? I haven't (I might soon though, I have a couple contacts in academics there that I haven't spoken to in a while), but I ask because the website (with maybe an exception or two) only lists their science tracks. They used to have a note saying you had to call to sign up for the AAS programs but I don't see that now either, so that's interesting.

    From the 2019 catalog:

    Students must complete the following mandatory first course within each degree program, irrespective of their choice of major. No transfer or credit by exam will be accepted for these courses. Students who do not earn a passing score in any of these courses will be academically dismissed from their program of study.

    Associate of Applied Science – C01 Introduction to Business
    • Associate of Arts, Associate of Science – OR110 Achieving Academic Excellence
    • Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science - OR110 Achieving Academic Excellence
    • Bachelor of Science in Nursing (RN-BSN) – OR111 Achieving Academic Excellence
    • Master of Business Administration, Master of Science – Noncredit Orientation courses

    Although I tend to lean more toward the business side with that course, the other way I could see it is as a hybrid in much the same way I see organizational behavior which I've seen pop up in psychology programs and business programs. Given what the field is about, it seems impossible to not have the concepts of both creep into one another.

    Hmmmmmmm. I don't know about this one, Sanantone. He did discuss his program with at least 10 business courses that weren't electives. I think it's fair to say, two semesters of business courses is a lot of business courses for a degree that's not in business.

    I don't know how widespread that is, it's not something I've ever cared to look into so I'm not saying I agree or disagree with LA's point on that part when applied to the entire field of programs available on the globe. However, at least for this one program, I know from reading his list that the 10 courses on this page were for the AAS in Psychology at one time (which isn't listed on the site), and the AAS is 20 courses, so 10 of them were business related non-electives.
     
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  14. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member


    I'm sure LearningAddict is telling the truth about what's on his transcript, but he hasn't provided any evidence. He does have a history of making false statements. If he can find an old catalog, that would be proof, but it doesn't matter. His program, as it was, doesn't exist anymore. His statement that psychology programs often contain many business courses is false. Everything else is you two grasping at straws because his first claim couldn't be proven.

    I don't know why there is even a debate over whether I-O psychology is a psychology course. It literally has psychology in its name, and even Ashworth codes it as a psychology course. It is perfectly normal for a psychology course to be in a psychology program. The only business course in Ashworth's program is human relations. If you read the description, it's a career and personal relationships success course. No matter how you slice it, one business course (or two if you count the psychology course you think is a business course) is not "many business courses."

    The truth is that I-O psychology is usually housed in a psychology department and not in a business department. If there isn't a specific psychology department, then it's usually in a liberal arts or social science department. If you want, I can provide a bunch of links proving this. Unlike some, I'm not making wild claims that don't have evidence to back them up.

    The curriculum for the associate's degree in psychology is on the website. If Ashworth requires Intro to business for an AAS program, what is the link between that and what's considered important for a psychology major? It's a blanket requirement that they have for a degree type, not a major. If they thought the course was that important, then they would require it for all their associates and bachelors in psychology.

    In short, Ashworth currently only requires one business course for psych majors, and it's a behavioral science business course at that. Most psychology programs do not require many business courses. That's all there is to it.
     
    Last edited: Oct 25, 2019
  15. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    By the way, Ashworth requires a biological psychology course. Are we going to start making claims that biological psychology is a biology course and not a psychology course? Ashworth's program has three social courses, which is more than the one business, but not one person has said that Ashworth's program is heavy on sociology. Now, I can actually link to several psychology programs that REQUIRE multiple biology courses. This is more common than requiring multiple business courses because the brain is a part of biology.
     
  16. Maxwell_Smart

    Maxwell_Smart Active Member

    No, sanatone, I'm not grasping at any straws because I couldn't possibly care less about the claim you're debating against. I think I was perfectly clear in stating that his claim of there being many business courses in psychology programs in general is of zero interest to me. The only thing I mentioned to you was that he talked about his particular program, and I'm certain he's telling the truth since I took the same program. If I recall correctly, we both were enrolled there around the same time, so I doubt the setup for my track would be much if any different. That said, he doesn't have to show anyone his transcripts on a public message board. Besides, LA has never shown to be a dishonest person, ever. He may say things that are inaccurate unintentionally, but you do that too, we all do it, it's simply human error and no one is immune to it.

    I don't know why you're debating it at all because it literally speaks to business in its name as well being Industrial/Organizational. I don't know of any businesses on this planet that wouldn't fall into one of those slots, and as I accurately stated before it's also known as business psychology, and that is a fact, so there really is nothing to debate on that.

    He discussed the past program which required more business courses, not the program currently listed on the site, so that point is irrelevant. Moreover, regardless of how it's classified on the site, I/O Psychology is a specialty characterized by the scientific study of human behavior in organizations and the work place, in fact that is its literal APA definition, and the book (Riggio) for that particular course is definitely focused entirely on business/work place matters, cover to cover. I've read it, it's not what I "think", it's what it is.

    Human relations is not only obviously an indispensable component of business, the book (DuBrin) they use for the human relations course is entirely focused on business and very specific on-the-job concepts from cover to cover, and I know because I read that one myself as well. So if they're not business courses, the textbooks being used and what's contained within them sure have people fooled, and at a number of schools too since other schools have used and continue to use those exact same textbooks.

    I can't speak to what they deem important or not, but at one time Intro to business was mandatory for every degree program there and it's still mandatory in a number of them according to the 2019 catalog, that's what we know for sure.

    To reiterate, whether that's accurate or not is of no interest to me, that was LA's claim, not mine. I have nothing to add to that, or the rest.

    I think this has run its course.
     

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