Diploma Appearances

Now I feel obligated to confess that I have no idea where my paper diplomas are as a result of moving nine times since 2008... across multiple states. I am sure they are in a box somewhere.

 

Now, I don't feel too bad. Between 2013 and 2022, I moved to three states and one territory. In one of the states, I lived in three cities, and in another, I lived in two cities. In a few months, I will be traveling internationally full-time! I can't find anywhere I truly love in the U.S.

 

I have reached that point too. I just want a sailboat I can travel around internationally in and work remote. US Virgin islands, Guam, America Samoa, and wherever else that will let me stay for like a month or month and a half at a time.

 

I'm from San Diego. 'Nuff said.

 

My most ugly diploma is my B.A. in Political Science from Arkansas State University, granted in 1982. I think they were trying to be hip and modern.

 

MSDS Eastern University
BS Computer Science - Santos’ Metropolitan University- Brazil
MBA - Finance and Banking - United Metropolitan Universities- Brazil

 

Now, I am jealous of your degree diplomas that you can speak Portuguese.

 

I've noticed that your MBA is a Postgraduate Studies "Lato Sensu" program. This would be another interesting foreign qualification case for U.S. foreign credential evaluation services. WES appears to distinguish between Brazillian Master's degree - Mestrado (Stricto Sensu degree: requires thesis) and Graduate-Level Certificate Programs (Certificado de Pós-Graduação: Lato Sensu).

Source: https://knowledge.wes.org/rs/worldeducationservice/images/2015-3-13-KRE-Education-in-Brazil-WES-Presentation.pdf?mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRokuq3PZKXonjHpfsX97%2B0qXLHr08Yy0EZ5VunJEUWy2oIAS9Q%2FcOedCQkZHblFnV8JTa22SK0NqaQL)

Brazillian MBAs fall into the Lato Sensu category. According to this website, "In Brazil any MBA degree from abroad is considered as a Lato Sensu / Specialization postgraduate course, including those from Harvard or Wharton."

Source: https://executivo.fia.com.br/accreditation/?lang=en

I also found an internal document from ECE - Educational Credential Evaluators in the U.S. which deals with the whole matter:

"Question:
We are trying to determine if a Specialization Program in "Project Management" -"Lato-Sensu” Graduate Program from the Faculdade Metropolitana do Estrado de Sao Paulo is considered equivalent to a U.S. Masters degree from a regionally accredited institution in the U.S. We have an applicant who believes that a graduate certificate for this 12 month postgraduate program, consisting of 600 hours of coursework, is equivalent to a U.S. MBA. Thank you again for your assistance.

Answer:
It’s a tough one. Most of the lato sensu programs in business fields require 360 hours, and we don't think those 360-hour programs have enough volume to be equivalent to a US master degree. With a 600-hour program, it's approaching an amount that we'd consider for master equivalence, but we'd want to examine the program details quite carefully based on the documents, the school's website, and records in eMEC (https://emec.mec.gov.br/). We feel that these lato sensu programs really have to be considered on a case-by-case basis. If you still have questions, and could share the redacted documents, I can take a look at it. Hopefully this helps, though!
Ben Iberle ECE"

 

@tadj Good work. I like Latin and I noticed the "lato sensu" on the Master diploma shown in this thread. It looks like a tit-for-tat war. Brazil downgrades US and other foreign MBAs as "lato sensu" and US evaluators strike back at "lato sensu" Brazilian degrees.

Looks like discrimination "stricto sensu" by Brazil's higher ed. authorities likely started the war.

 

Stricto sensu: "It's a proper degree - no ifs ands or buts."
Lato sensu: "Well, it's a degree --- and I use the term loosely."

 

If the "propio" folks on this forum hear about "lato sensu" degrees, they'll start a new craze, with its own 55-page thread. Oh nooo.... Não!

 

Yes, my MBA is called "Master in Business Administration", but it is not a "master" per se. Here in Brazil, there is a distinction between "Lato" and "Stricto" sensu. Not that a "Lato" sensu is a bad course, but they have different objectives.
Lato sensu is a market-oriented course, more practical and generally shorter.

Stricto sensu is the equivalent of the US/Europe Master, and here in Brazil, it is seen as exclusively aimed at the academic environment.
Also, the Lato Sensu doesn't give me the title "Master" of something. Why call it an MBA, after all? Well, a few years ago, the term MBA became a buzzword to sell courses, and we have pretty much an MBA for anything here.

Here is a report from 2004 when this movement began:

https://www1-folha-uol-com-br.translate.goog/fsp/empregos/ce1710200413.htm?_x_tr_sl=pt&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=pt-BR&_x_tr_pto=wapp

Rafa

 

Então, por que não aprender português? (So why not learn Portuguese, then?)

 

How about diploma appearances . . .

. . . in movies?!

 

Here are most of my diplomas. I probably would not have gotten most of them if I didn't join degree info 15 + years ago.

 

I also credit my two Master's degrees and my now-in-progress doctorate to DegreeInfo and this amazing community!

 

We are kinda on the same Cumberland PhD journey together.

 

My journey predates Degreeinfo...by a lot.

At 18 I became an education specialist in the Air Force. Working in a base education center, I learned about testing for credits and, eventually, the Regents External Degree Program. This was a transformative discovery. Five of us from my base did our degrees at Regents and all five of us were commissioned as officers as a result.

My second big step was when I was browsing the Barnes and Noble in Boston in 1980 and came across the 6th edition of Bear's Guide. Wow. Due to the Carnegie Commission and explosive leaps in technology, distance learning was about to explode--in both good and (some) bad ways. An example of the good: Nova Southeastern offered a doctorate that could be done largely over the internet--long before the World Wide Web was developed. You were able to access both classes (asynchronous, IIRC) and library/research data bases via Telenet/Tymnet. This is when we were accessing the internet with 2400-baud modems. Incredible.

The bad: suddenly, running a diploma mill got a lot easier. Advertising and--more important--billing--could be done online, with the only real vulnerability for the mill was the printing and shipping process. They learned to split up these operations over many jurisdictions so that any one part of it didn't look illegal. Diploma mills went from being quaint and run by oddball characters to slick, untouchable, highly modifiable operations.

This board was preceded by an Usenet news group, alt.education.distance. (We called it aed or a.e.d.) Some of the original characters on this board were there first. (Are there any a.e.d. veterans left besides me?) Unmoderated and filled with every bad thing about discussion threads you could imagine. This board arose from that, I assume in an attempt by the owner to monetize the thing. That was more than 20 years ago.

 

I was on alt.education.distance. A big part of the problem here was that distance education was a valid method to learn but the accredited schools did not yet really offer any distance learning. This strong public need, not being satisfied by any well known higher education institutions created the wild wild west for degree mills. The hero in the white hat on his white horse riding to the rescue was John Bear.