Certificate in Mushroom Cultivation

Hello!


While looking for an excuse not to start with my MBA thesis and surfing around in the net, I have found an interesting course provider: https://www.361online.com/. Especially the University Certificate in Mushroom Cultivation caught my attention.

I mean, for boosting my CV, this is quite interesting (just imagine my signature: Mac Juli, Certified Purchasing Manager (FH), Six Sigma Green Belt, DipHE (Open Uni UK) *and* Certified Mushroom Cultivator) - this is a good start for small talk, isn't it?

No, let's get more serious: Does anyone know them, has anyone made experiences with them?


Best regards,
Mac Juli

 

Just treat the mushrooms as some firms treat customers and some schools treat students:

Feed them BS and keep them in the dark. Standing orders for a lot of governments, too.

 

Their About Us page merely displays a series of peculiar bios for their predominantly Indian team. Knowing that someone is "outgoing" or that another team member is a "technocrat" or a "fitness coach" didn't really tell me much about this organization proper.

I'd be curious to see if any of our expert DI sleuths could dig up more information on the history of this operation.

 

Mac - wouldn't "Certified Cannabis Producer" look even more impressive on your CV?

I tend to think there's more money in The Cannabis Production certificate from my alma mater, Niagara College. https://www.niagaracollege.ca/environment/program/cannabis-production/

Private enterprise is still alive and well here. I'm not a smoker myself (of anything) but I hear the Provincial Government's "legal" marijuana is both expensive and poor quality. So almost everybody still goes to the guy down the street, as they always have. If I see a lineup outside the Government Marijuana store - it's because of social distancing, not a surge in business.

Good school, that. They teach beer, wine and cannabis production. ...And I wasted my time on Psych, Sociology, Biochemistry, economics etc. Why? Why?

 

All I know so far is that these people market degree programs - and don't name the universities that award the degrees. Their credits don't add up either.
Who ever heard of a BBA that is 15 credits? That's what they say - 15 credits. The 252 contact hours listed is roughly 15 credits as per the US system - which falls far short of the 120 needed for a BBA. It's about one semester. Even if it's a 3-year degree it should add up to 90. 252 contact hours doesn't add up to a degree in ANY system. All the other degree programs seem similarly deficient in contact hours for a degree.

15 credits? If they mean 15 courses , OK. Still light. Should be 30 for a 3-year degree. But even at 15, that's 16 - 17 contact hours per course. That's about ONE THIRD of a 3-credit course. I can do the math - all day - but I can't make it work. Maybe they've got cards they're not showing -- but I'm out. C'mon. Full disclosure guys!

 

Did a whois. Site originally registered 2009. Renewed 2019 - home is Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. Only name connected with site on Whois is Gopinathan, who is shown as Chief Integrator on the 361 site's "About Us." That's it. Like Sgt. Schultz in Hogan's Heroes - 'Ve know not'ing'

And maybe 'Ve don't vant to.' The degrees seem mega-cheap - about $800 for a bachelor's or master's. Yes, I know this is India - but they're targeting outsiders (say they have US branch - can't find it) and also say something about European universities -- so maybe it's a Groupon-like degree - but doesn't add up to a full degree program as I'd expect. Again --out. They start hiding stuff - I'm gone. Messdiener, you're going to have to hire another sleuth.

I think it's "degree-looking papers" again.

 

This seems even dodgier than the ENEB Groupon deal, for sure.

Thanks for doing some investigating for us, Johann! Maybe we need to award you a P.I. cert to verify your official DI sleuth status!

 

You needn't bother. I don't really think I'm much good at it - certainly not anything like a professional. A few years back, I actually wanted to earn a degree in Private Investigation. I found a reasonably-priced unaccredited Associate's, offered by a reputable Pennsylvania Private Investigation firm. I called them and they were very nice people.

They informed me that the degree program had been cancelled (I think the State might have made new legislation re: unaccredited schools) but they still offered a non-degree, diploma course. I decided that if I couldn't get the degree, I'd forget about investigation for the time being and learn something else. As far as I know, the agency still offers the diploma course. The price is reasonable. They were SO nice and efficient, I may give them a call yet... You've got me thinking... Old guys can be detectives. I could be the new Barnaby Jones!

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnaby_Jones

 

I know the school of which you speak. At one time, they were actually accredited by one of the vocational agencies recognized by US-DoEd. For reasons I never learned, they dropped their accreditation and, ultimately, their associates degree program. (They only offered an associates degree.) They had a clean reputation (disclosure: my brother taught there in a previous century), but a look at their current web site indicates only the owner (who must be in his 70's at this point, since his LinkedIn page indicates that he has been a PI for over 50 years) and two part-time so-called instructors - only one of them claims to have an associates degree issued by the school during the days that they granted them. Functionally, today the school is a one-man show.

I have found that it is very common in the PI biz that investigators have lots of courses and credentials under their belts but do not hold any degrees. The PI field is one in which even community colleges and four-year programs will hire non-degreed teachers, since experience is often considered more valuable than mere paper credentials.

 

I thought that these "credits" were more something like their bonus credit system (as the credits to REALLY not add up to anything which would even remotely be like academic credits), but I did not do further research!

 

Some guys who are more involved than me in this subject (almost everyone) told me that Oaksterdam University, despite not really being accredited, would have more "street credibility" than most other institutions!
Hey, didn't we have this topic in another thread?

 

Yes - Oaksterdam people were the pioneers - and yes, we have a L-O-N-G Marijuana thread. But we mild and lazy Canadians waited until dope was legal here before we let colleges teach about growing and prep. I wasn't kidding about Niagara, though. I enjoyed them more than my other college experiences; they do a lot of things very well. They're right in the middle of wine and tourism country, so they're naturals at those efforts. Possibly the marijuana course is not QUITE as inspiring if delivered online, but I guess one's own stash might well enliven it ...

 

We probably shouldn't automatically jump to the conclusion that Mushroom Cultivation refers to psychoactive mushrooms. Mushrooms are ingredients in many recipes and they have to come from somewhere. (Hopefully they aren't just found growing in the supermarket's storeroom.) Producing mushrooms in quantity is a very specialized kind of agriculture. So it's easy to perceive the value in a Mushroom Cultivation program.

That's not to say that this particular program is any good. I'm just saying that the idea isn't ridiculous.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fungiculture

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennett_Square,_Pennsylvania

 

Thanks for the update, Steve. I guess all good things must come to an end, at some point. I never had any notion of becoming a PI - I just wanted to know how they do their work. The only thing I've ever done that's close is skip-tracing; I was a bill collector for (too) many years - and I got to be fairly good at finding skips. In retirement, I had a part-time job for a while - at a college, finding "lost" grads to send invitations for 25-year reunions. You don't need to be a PI for that kind of work. All happy stuff. You don't even have to make up lies.

 

Indeed. The idea is not ridiculous. There are mushroom farms near the city where I live. When I changed the subject to marijuana growing, I did so only to suggest it might have more cachet for Mac Juli's CV. Not a hint that the mushrooms were intoxicants. And yes - I cook with 'em too. Never had any experience with the psychedelic ones, though.

 

No, we shouldn't. But a look on the curriculum on https://www.361online.com/certificate-in-mushroom-cultivation did not clarify this either - many "Aromatic Crops" and "Medicinal Crops" are discussed, but these are NOT mushrooms???!!!

 

I think they are mushrooms, Mac. The entire course is four credits. Aromatic counts for two, Medicinal counts for the other two. That's the only info accessible (to me) under the "Sneak Peek" heading. I didn't see any further discussion - so I assume the course is evenly divided into two categories - aromatic and medicinal mushrooms. I have no idea if any mushroom(s) discussed is/are psychoactive or not. So - like the mushrooms - I'm still in the dark (and possibly - again like the mushrooms, I've been fed bulls#*!).

Hard to clarify anything once everything goes totally black.

 

No,what I was trying to say is that there are two menu points - "Aromatic Crops" and "Medicinal Crops" - on the course website. If you click on them them, you are going to find a lot of names of which the most part are unknown to me - like "Andrographis". But a search in wikipedia showed that a "Andrographis" is not a mushroom.

Perhaps, I am going to enroll. 5000 INR are not going to hurt too much for this!

 

Found the trouble. The webpage for Mushroom course is faulty. The sneak peek gives NO mushroom info but leads to info from the Aromatic and Medicinal plants course - which is entirely different. See for yourself: https://www.361online.com/certificate-in-mushroom-cultivation.

Forgot the mushrooms and snooped around the site for a while. They "broker" courses it seems from many sources. Indian Universities plus certs from UC Irvine, a couple other US schools. I'm leery of the whole thing. Web mixups don't help. It's your 5000 rupees, Mac. Do as you please. Your cert. will be from Tamil Nadu Agricultural Uni. Legit school. I checked.