"Defending" Degrees

I'm not sure how much time anyone spends defending their degrees. I can't remember ever having done so.

But if somebody doesn't think highly of distance education, they will think less highly of a distance degree than a residential degree, no matter where it was earned. Or if they are motivated by the increased social status that they hope that their degree will give them, they will be sure to dismiss the "lesser" schools, as you seem to be doing.

There are always gonna be snobs in the world, and I don't think one needs to worry about them unduly.

If you think that everything reduces to the name on your diploma, feel free to seek the most pretentious name that you can find, with my blessing. But if you try to posture and pose on that account, I'm not gonna defer to you. Snobbery is never attractive.

Explaining or defending, call it what you like. But if somebody doesn't like distance education, they will think less of you for having a distance degree. If they think that they went to a better school than you, they may try to put you down for that. If they have a nicer house, faster car or a more beautiful girlfriend, they will show them off too.

 

Many of us identify who we are based on what we do for a living, the area in which we live and the status of our affiliations and possessions. Naturally, this human factor pervades the realm of credentials as seen in the diverse feedback in this thread. This is the unfortunate side of living in a society that places such undo value on these symbols of success.

The problem with placing very signifcant emphasis on external sources to define our identities and self worth is that when they are gone,or our plans don't work out, as for example when one loses his status job through downsizing ,ones' identity is also in danger of being lost or eroded!

The point being that where one obtains their degree (as long aas it is RA) should not form the basis as to our individual worth since this may possibly negate our ability to mobilize and utilize our internal resources and strengths to achieve our goals. If we need to be so overly concerned or defensive as to where our degrees derive than this vulnerability will be reflected, on some level, in our interactions with others, potentially evoking in others their questioning the validity of our credentials .

It is to our benefit to be aware that success, emanates, to a large extent, from internal acceptance and self approval which is then reflected in the manner in which we relate to others and consequently how we are perceived, not our diplomas, in our professional and personal lives.

 

I think it may be valuable to be able to explain why you went with a DL degree over a more traditional degree. I think most employers are pretty practical people, and if you tell them that you couldn't attend a traditional program because you didn't want your schooling to infere with your work, they may be duely impressed with your committment to work and education.

This may not work for non-RA degrees if the employer is looking for RA-degreed individuals. And it won't work for the companies (especially the top-shelf consulting firms) who tend to look for ivy-league graduates.

For me, if all else fails, I will just remind them that I am a graduate of Charter Oak State College: "You know, one of those really good east-coast schools," and just leave it at that.

Tracy <><

 

I was talking to an acquaintance recently, now retired. His BA was from Dartmouth and his MA from Harvard. His career had been in secondary education administration. His only regret, as expressed to me, was that he didn't complete his education instead at Salem (MA) State College. Said it would have been easier, far more convenient, and much cheaper. What he found in the school system over 40 years was that peers with Salem State credentials were progessing just as well and rapidly as those with Ivy credentials. So there's one situation where academic snobbery didn't pay off as had been expected. As I stated before, it's not the degree that makes the man. I realize that this one anecdotal instance does not conclusively prove that case, but is, at least, one real world illustration of it.

 

In some situations the quality of your credential is irrelevant, it is
simply a check-box. Depending upon the situation any degree (unaccredited,
state approved, DETC, RA, professional accreditation) may enable the check
and open the opportunity. However this does not mean that in every
situation the quality of your school / program will be ignored. In many
situations your credentials are relevant and will mean more than a
check-box. In these situations the quality / perceived quality of your
education is important.

On residency...I don't understand why we some programs with
residency are included (Union, many Nova, etc.) but others excluded (Duke,
Stanford, etc.)

Your degree is only one of many factors that open opportunity. Specific
exceptions to the rule do not invalidate the rule... that you can be
successful without Harvard does not invalidate that it is easier to be
successful with Harvard.

A RA degree can be a time bomb. Online and for-profit schools are two
categories which could cause an explosion if gone unnoticed... a recent
survey in a business publication showed limited acceptance of MBAs from
online (accredited) schools.


If you reside a large distance from the institution granting your degree,
you may need to explain how you earned your degree, this is a fact
regardless of the school you earned your degree from (Harvard, Stanford,
Duke, etc.). Distance learning is becoming very common and accepted and
in most cases this is indeed a simple explanation for no "defending" is
necessary.

Like many things in life, higher education is a bell curve? you have a
relatively small number at the top, a large number in the middle and a
relatively small number at the bottom. Whether you "explain" or "defend"
will depend upon the school you went to and who you are addressing.
Obviously if you go to the bottom schools and are in a situation where
quality matters, there is a good chance that you will have some defending
to do. One man's snobbery is another man's standard but to assume that
there is not quality difference is naïve. Many people feel the need to
"defend" there DL degrees not because of the method of delivery but because
of the quality of program/school.

 

Following this thread and seeing how you Yanks tie yourself in knots over this “defending my degree” business has been a really interesting and to some extent eyebrow raising exercise from where I sit on the other side of the world.

In Australia we do not have to put up with the things you do. We enjoy the fruits of an education system controlled by the government (or if not strictly by the government, by a process sanctioned by the government.) This means the eventual “purchaser” of the education (the employer) has confidence in the piece of paper and therefore the holder, no matter where it was obtained.

Another factor that differentiates the two countries is that, in the good ‘ol US, you have a long history of user-pays for tertiary education and this clearly has contributed to the very large gap between good and bad schools, or at least the perception of such a large gap. (And lets face it, as this thread shows, perception IS reality.)

Our history in Australia is one of universal tertiary education, although in very recent years this has changed (and I won’t go into that debate here). This, combined with government control and, may I add, Australia’s culture of egalitarianism, has resulted in a relatively non-hierarchical education system.

Now, before I get the pisser flamed out of me, I am talking in general terms here and explaining things as I see them relatively between America and Australia. What I am saying is that I doubt we could sustain 50 odd posts if the thread started with “should I go for a University of NSW degree or settle for Woollongong”.

Of course there is some pecking order of universities here in Australia, but nothing to the extent you guys have. And this pecking order is often, I think, more in the eyes of those close to the system like academics, professionals and students. My good friend, Peter French, has strong views (as we all know!) about the varying quality of Australian universities – and I am sure he is right – but my point is that the greater Australian public, if asked, would not differentiate to a marked degree between institutions. ALL Australian university qualifications are held in reasonably high regard by Australians. From the posts in this thread, it does not seems the greater unwashed in America see their home-grown degrees in the same homogenous light.

I have qualifications from two Australian Universities, Tasmania (one distance, one on-campus) and Deakin (two distance), and am enrolled at a third, Monash (distance). I can honestly say it has never been a negative issue for me as to where the degrees were obtained or whether by distance or otherwise. On the contrary, I have found people regard distance degrees as an achievement because it demonstrates (i) you can handle pressure and effectively priorities large workloads, (ii) you have abundant self-organisational skills, (iii) you can set goals and meet deadlines, and (iv) you have ambition. These are all qualities which employers admire and require particular for management and professional positions. They are qualities more than often directly specified in the job selection criteria. Since I received my first distance degree in 1991 from the non-sandstone University of Tasmania, I have moved through four jobs, each higher up the “tree” than the other, and have always written up the above virtues in my job applications. Without exception, interviewers have considered a distance degree a plus.

I am truly sorry that Americans have to wrestle with such a hierarchical system, and such a distaste for distance education. Being smug, watching such national hand wringing can be a bit fun from afar, but seriously is anything to be done or are you stuck with it?


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Peter Tucker
Australia

 

I have found this preference to be shown in all of the interviews, save one, that I have had in the last five years. What I have found even more interesting is the increasing faculty interest in the DL process, and the very <i>idea of the possibility </i> of a paradigm shift from teacher-led to learner-centered education. 'Tis a cool thing, indeed.

Candice

 

Hi Peter,

From my experience, this board grossly overemphasizes this issue - if one stays within the realm of Regional Accreditation (RA). The issue / challenge remains on either (a) "lessor" accreditors, and (b) the unaccredited. In reality - in regards to numbers - these schools tend to be few and far between when compared to RA schools. On this board, they are the ones that tend to get the "press".

Lack of DL acceptance is also another arena over-inflated - if one were to merely glean info from this board. It was an issue years ago. Now that many RA schools have ventured into the waters, it is widely accepted with a few dinosaur-type critics here and there. I bet some scribes hated the invention of the printing press too.

I do have a question about the Australian system:

How much latitude is there to launch a new school - one that might be innovative and break beyonds the boundaries of the "establishment"?

My reason for this question is this: It seems many US-based, innovative schools (many in the 1970s) were able to break new ground *thanks* to the lack of governmental control. They started without accreditation.

For example, many US-based respected "adult-learning education models" (my preferred term to DL - which is only a piece of the picture) have grown out of the freedom allowed (Fielding, Union, etc.) in academia. Many of the boundary-breaking practices (and assumptions) from these innovators have been mimiced by the very schools that had historically opposed their very existence.

How does a new program get started in your house?

Barry Foster

 

A great deal, but several are already in operation; Charles Sturt University and the University of Southern Queensland each offer over 400 distance learning programs, and an Australian open university is currently under development (Peter could probably tell you more about this).

One other thing to bear in mind: If the time it took to come to a decision is any indication, the AQF probably came fairly close to approving Greenwich University.


Cheers,

------------------
Tom Head
www.tomhead.net

co-author, Bears' Guide to the Best Education Degrees by Distance Learning (Ten Speed Press)
co-author, Get Your IT Degree and Get Ahead (Osborne/McGraw-Hill)

 

In the Commonwealth of Massachusetts there are currently six schools where you can earn a Masters degree in Social Work (none of them DL BTW). As you might guess, there are any number of people who will make comments about which school is best, which worst, etc. Having worked in the field for over 12 years I have had the opportunity to work with people who have graduated from each of these schools, some of them have been great, some not-so-great. My own opinion is that the quality of the product (that being a Clinical Social Worker) has more to do with:
1) As Simon is fond of saying, the persons suitability for the profession.
2) The quality of their internship site/training.
3) The quality of the supervision they receive during the first 2 years of postgrad employment (this is what is required for full licensure in Massachusetts).
If those three factors are all positive then my experience tells me that it doesn't matter much where you get your MSW. In addition, my experience has been that once you're out of school and in the working world, your boss/co-workers only care about your skills, not what's printed on your diploma.
BTW, my reason for adding this into this thread is that one of the six schools is Salem State College (not my alma mater but I wish that I had only had to pay "state college" tuition rates).
Jack

 

Tom is referring to the University of Australia Online. I'm not sure that it's really "under development". It's part of the education platform of the Australian Labour Party. One has to be unusually trusting of the politicians to translate this into "under development".

 

In fields such as Social Work, ones' success will ultimately be measured by level of performance , ability to interact and contribute within an interdisciplinary team and on personality factors, such as being liked! The school one attended plays a limited role in how one is perceived as a professional clinician or in their level of success.

 

... Good questions and good points. I don't think it is the government accreditation thing that is the main barrier to innovation in Australia, rather the conservative culture that tends to pervade the university sector. This is changing, and the change is gathering momentum, and those who follow the availability of Australian DL programs on this board have reported more programs coming on-line which indicates a breaking down of old values. (BTW, I'm not sure if its been reported here before, but Deakin, according to their web site, is planning to offer a distance DBA this year, although few details seem available.) But yes, a free market system like that in America should always allow innovation to occur more easily and quickly. Having said that, it seems that it is the British Commonwealth countries, particulalrly Britain, Australia and South Africa, that have pioneered and accepted more readily distance education, so I'm not sure if you could say that education is more readily breaking ground in the USA.

How does a new program get started? It really does depend on the skills and perceptions of the University administrators. Australia has some of the most innovative and accessible DL programs available today. I'm not saying that other countries aren't innovative too, just that the Australian teriary education system, with all its problems, is still pretty well leading the pack.

Fo those who want quick links to all (legitimate) Australian Universities visit this site: http://www.avcc.edu.au/australias_unis/individual_unis/index.htm

Bye




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Peter Tucker
Australia

 

Innovation is neutral sentiment, neither good nor bad... it depends on the innovation.

Innovation may be good or it may be bad... like some of Enron's innovative accounting practices.

Some education innovation results in innovative ways to earn a profit while providing RA degrees to customers as quickly and easily as possible. Innovative yes... desirable?

 

WR: "True but we are here to discuss, generally, formal education. What you have stated may apply to those who are self taught without any degree".

Response: Absolutely, but it is even more relevant and applicable for those who possess higher level degrees in this era of inordinate corporate layoffs and downsizing resulting in an extremely competitive job market for professionals! In fact, prospects and expectations for employment and promotion is extremely stiff, across all professional disciplines, necessitating discussions that transcend merely focusing on the quality and comparison of a degrees status, in isolation.

WR: "Bottomline.

1) The quality/perceived quality of your degree may matter."

Response: However, it may not!

2)" There is a great variation in the quality of degrees."

Response: Obviously! However, this factor needs to be reviewed within the context of an individual's entire presentation, prefessional achievements and accomplishments, not as an isolated facet that exists in a vacuum!

 

A very nice example of what I was writing about is in this month's issue of T.H.E. Journal: LSU Electronic Classroom.