M.A. in ancient history

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by andrekuz, Apr 23, 2020.

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  1. chrisjm18

    chrisjm18 Well-Known Member

    Agreed. FHSU has one of the lowest tuitions available. The closest thing he'd get to an Ancient History degree at FHSU is the MA in Public History.
     
  2. AlK11

    AlK11 Active Member

    What I liked the most about the program was that it was very customizable. My degree was 32 credits with 15 of them being electives. Looks like the history degree is even more customizable, 30 credits and 21 are electives. If there's not a good ancient history degree, a regular history degree with lots of classes in ancient history might be a good alternative.

    Here is my full review on my experience with FHSU: https://www.degreeinfo.com/index.php?threads/a-review-fort-hays-state-university-ms-in-health-and-human-performance.55732/#post-524200
     
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  3. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    I wasn't in the program long. Not because of its quality or the cost. I did struggle a bit with their LMS. It was very easy to miss that I had an assignment due and I did, in fact, miss a due date because it was one of those setups where you could have assignments in places other than the "assignments" area. That was minor, though. Really, it was just that I felt I needed to be working on credentials to help along my career rather than satisfy my hobby interests. I was also going through a brief phase where I thought I would leave HR and maybe try to get certified as a teacher and pull a Mr. Kotter. Once that passed, there wasn't much point in continuing on. Had I a do-over, I would have at least earned the grad cert. That, btw, is also an option. Graduate certificates are not just a fine way of leading into a masters program (if they are fully transferable) but they are also great ways to tack on to an existing Masters without earning another.
     
  4. TEKMAN

    TEKMAN Semper Fi!

  5. andrekuz

    andrekuz New Member

    You are right. They have online tuition rates, which are at $287.75 per grad credit. That is cheap.
     
  6. andrekuz

    andrekuz New Member

  7. andrekuz

    andrekuz New Member

    Did you consider teaching at the college level with a masters degree?
     
  8. TEKMAN

    TEKMAN Semper Fi!

    I think a Master's degree in teaching at the college level is fine, but if you want to make it as full-time tenure, then you have to look to get your Ph.D. in History. A friend of mine is teaching at UMGU, he has only Masters...he says he makes $2,000.00 per course less than his fellow adjunct professors who have Doctorate degrees. But that is in Information Technology courses, I assume History is more competitive.
     
  9. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    Not really. I already teach/taught at the community college level. If I went full time my salary would be about 10k less than an entry level teacher in a high school. As for teaching in a four year college, my local market is not only quite saturated with PhDs vying for adjunct work but the adjunct work pays even less and is far less stable.

    I have a colleague from the CC who left his corporate job to teach full time. He loves it. he loves the community college professor lifestyle. But it also meant he had to adjust to living on something like $33k a year.
     
  10. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Like a graduate assistantship that never ends....
     
  11. AlK11

    AlK11 Active Member

    I loled at this. What if instead of getting fulltime professorships we just look for a new assistantship after each one ends?
     
  12. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Given the PhD glut, one could argue that's exactly what a lot of schools do.
     
  13. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    Now, for him, this offered a lot of benefits. For starters, from $33k I think he went up to a whopping $37k - $40k when he got tenure. Total peer reviewed articles he wrote? 0. His tenure was granted based on super high student evaluations, extracurricular engagement and the fact that he wrote his own (self-published) textbook that he made available to students for some stupidly cheap amount of money (which tied in to high student evaluations, btw). For all of that, he is tenured. The circumstances under which he can be fired are extremely limited. He's in the state employee retirement system. He has one of the best health plans in the state. What few student loans he had left have been discharged under public loan forgiveness.

    And for him, a bout of unemployment in the aftermath of 9/11 sort of broke his ability to function in a corporate environment anyway. He's thrilled.

    Is that success for everyone? Certainly not. And I think that if you could get a bachelors degree for the cost of in-city tuition at a CUNY school across the board, things like that would look like more viable options for a lot of people. The rest of us can't afford to earn MBAs from Columbia and then work for $35 - $40k a year teaching full time.
     
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  14. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Fair enough. I was going for funny rather than judgy. :)
     
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  15. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    Oh, I didn't take it as judgy. And the absence of tone makes it hard to tell when people are being funny. I took it as a completely valid observation. In this guy's case, he sort of fell into teaching and never wanted to leave. But we see people come through here and on other forums where they want a masters so that they can teach at the college level. This is what awaits the lucky ones. Fine, of course, if you go into that with eyes wide open and can afford to do so. But if you drop tens of thousands of dollars on a Masters from SNHU and your reward is to make only slightly more than a school bus driver, it might not be the best path forward from a financial standpoint.
     
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  16. Noirjo

    Noirjo New Member

    I've considered pursuing a master's in ancient history as well but was pretty bummed when I only found one program back then, APU. However, there's a new Ancient History MA I'd recommend you look into. In the United Kingdom, there's University of Wales - tuition is about $10K for U.S. students.
    https://www.uwtsd.ac.uk/ma-ancient-history/

    Also, Harvard Univerity has an online master's degree in history - they offer some ancient history, archeology & anthropology courses that might interest you.
    https://www.extension.harvard.edu/academics/graduate-degrees/history-degree/degree-requirements
    https://www.extension.harvard.edu/course-catalog/courses-by-degree/History
     
  17. Jonathan Whatley

    Jonathan Whatley Well-Known Member

    Low-residency rather than online. But now that you mentioned HES, their low-res master's in Anthropology and Archaeology (that's one degree with a three word field of study title), Religion, and in a way Museum Studies could also tie in to an ancient-history interest.
     
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  18. andrekuz

    andrekuz New Member

    Thanks a lot. I didn't know Harward did anything like that.

    I have never heard of a university that requires you to take 3 of their classes before applying for admission. I am not saying it is bad, just new to me.

    I can't seem to find ancient history classes in their list. Maybe that is just a list of classes for the upcomming semester?
     
  19. Jonathan Whatley

    Jonathan Whatley Well-Known Member

    You'll find some ancient history related courses under department codes other than HIST, examples being ANTH E-1210 Archaeology of Ancient China and CLAS E-116 The Ancient Greek Hero.
     
  20. andrekuz

    andrekuz New Member

    Do you know why Harvard's classes are 4 semester hours as opposed to 3 from every other university I have looked at? There M.A. program consists of 48 hours. A lot of universities are at 30 for the M.A. in History, APU is 36.
     

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