Masters Propio (ENEB, etc)

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Garp, Jul 4, 2020.

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  1. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    I don't doubt that's the case for a lot of people. We've already discussed use cases where this program wouldn't do.

    That said, in return, I'm always a bit hesitant about use of terms like "better" in situations that are highly dependent on specific goals that vary considerably from person to person.
     
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  2. Maniac Craniac

    Maniac Craniac Moderator Staff Member

    Depends on what that explanation is worth to you, and how much explaining you think you'll have to do.

    If it's possible for people to get jobs and accolades with fake degrees, it should be at least as possible to do the same with a real degree, even if the details of how and where that degree was obtained are rather uncommon and poorly understood.
     
  3. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    This is why I wouldn't be all that worried. Using its English translation, people will just see it as another degree from one of the thousands of schools they've never heard of and I bet most of the explaining would pertain to it being earned online, assuming they even ask.
     
  4. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    I think a lot of people would ask - and the first question would be "How's your Spanish?" And the second, if/when they find out you no habla, would be "Why (and how) did you get a degree from Spain?" And so the explaining begins... and never ends. Operating on the principle that all hiring managers are dummies is dangerous - and offensive to hiring managers. The same applies to the assumption that any other group of people - occupational or not - is comprised mainly of dummies.

    I don't like the thought of people in public service - schools, police, municipal etc. using these degrees to get a pay bump. Some do so with fraudulent degrees now. These could be a big pay booster for the less courageous who don't want to commit fraud. A great $295 investment that costs taxpayers.
     
    Last edited: Aug 3, 2020
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  5. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    I have no problem with someone using something that isn't fraudulent for that purpose. I'll just save my worry for something that is fraudulent, and there is plenty of it to worry about.
     
  6. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    You should worry. This costs you. Maybe you don't realize the clerk who hands you license plates at the DMV makes way more than the others, simply because he/she has a master's degree-with-explanation. Or the desk-sergeant down at the Precinct. Multiply it by thousands of individuals and see what it does to your tax bill - already padded by those who have fraudulent degrees.

    A Master's degree used to be a really significant accomplishment. Hard to see it watered-down to this - an easy pay-bump.
     
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  7. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    That's just it. How IS your Spanish? And did you enjoy the paellea? Well, no, you see, I... And off to explanation-land we go.
     
  8. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    But this isn't fraudulent...
     
  9. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Why? "The school is in Spain, and the program was mainly in English but included a course on learning Spanish for a business setting. I chose it to gain international perspective and save a lot of money relative to North American schools." How hard is that?

    Why? The reason for the increase in pay is that the worker is presumed to be more productive from having gained knowledge, not because they overpaid to get it, and no one is saying that this program doesn't have a worthwhile curriculum.

    It's a testament to how overpriced higher education is in a lot of places that there's so much hand wringing when a program's price is actually reasonable.
     
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  10. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    I'd have loved to get an LL.M. from the University of Barcelona by the way but one of the biggest reasons for doing that instead of studying at an American school would be the chance to live in Barcelona for a year. Wow...wouldn't that be amazing? I mean, really?
     
  11. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Not the biggest worry. I could tell stories, but afraid I'm still bound by the Public Service Code of Ethics...
     
  12. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Of course, I'd come home with a lisp and some strange Catalan vocabulary.;)
     
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  13. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    It would. I've always wanted to see Gaudí's cathedral, although at this point they should finally have it completed in a few years and I'll probably go after that.
     
  14. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Això és divertit! (That's funny!) :) I'm told that Catalan-speaking people (e.g. in Barcelona)
    don't have the lithp. They pronounce it "Barselona." But the rest of Spain ... you know how it is.
     
    Last edited: Aug 3, 2020
  15. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    It's a good, succinct explanation, Steve. It also demonstrates what I said. Degrees with explanation - you'll always be explaining. Your topic may vary, though.

    Yes - that is the reason for the increase. Not the degree's fault that the premise (I feel) is often faulty. How does this degree (or many others) make a license-clerk or a police officer more productive? Plus - these particular degrees can't be used for that purpose (government jobs) in Spain. But they're OK here? Strange....

    And right you are. 100%. Nobody said that the program doesn't have a worthwhile curriculum. Including me. I just don't like the thought of having to pay extra for the degrees of others, I guess.

    Point of the day! That I can't argue with.
     
    Last edited: Aug 3, 2020
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  16. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    I had a young woman instructor once from Barcelona. She pronounced it with the lisp and in fact insisted on teaching us the vosotros form. But midway through the semester she mentioned that she had had to learn standard Spanish just the way we were learning it because she grew up speaking Valenciano.
     
  17. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Incidentally, if I understand the situation correctly, there's a bit of a political scrum about Valenciano vs. Catalan. Both are listed separately as "official" languages in Spain but for all intents and purposes, they are the same language. The respective communities, however, insist on everything being done in each language separately and titled that way.
     
    Johann likes this.
  18. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    That lisp, by the way, once acquired takes a bit of effort to eradicate. I don't know why but it does.
     
  19. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    That's a very fair question. It seems a bit like credentialism run amok, doesn't it?

    Depends on whether they get reported by any of the evaluators as equivalent. IIRC, so far the only one we know for sure says it's equivalent to a 30 semester-hour graduate diploma, which might not qualify for programs like you're describing, even though a lot of Master's degrees are 30 graduate credits. So in that sense you might get your wish!

    Although there are a lot of K-12 school systems in the U.S. where there's a bump at "Master's + 30 credits". I don't know why that is, but my understanding is that's why you see Specialist degrees in education and not much else.
     
    Johann likes this.
  20. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    You know, that adjective "propio" is an interesting word. I am not a scholar of legal (or any other kind of) Spanish but my understanding of "propio" includes the English expression"in and of itself". If I were to say something like "in the City proper" I might use "propiamente" meaning appertaining to the City as the City. I'm not explaining this very well and I may not even be using the word correctly. The most common use is to signify ownership. "La cosa es mi propia." So I might think that "titulo propio" means that it is the "proper to" the granting University, that it doesn't belong to any other institution.
     
    Johann likes this.

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