"Master’s Degrees are the Biggest Scam in Higher Education"

God, it reminds me of a course that I had to buy 3 books, and the prof only covered 3-4 chpts per book and didn't cover the rest cause it wasn't needed.

thankfully all the books were hand me downs. lol.

 

More than most people I think I really enjoyed my textbooks. I have several on my book that I still reference to this day, but nothing burned my waffles quite like having to buy a book and then find out it was only used or not used at all. When I go to learn something new, I often look for a textbook first.

 

Well, that explains so much in my life.

 

A follow up.

Many graduate programs are "scams," according to higher education policy analyst.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/graduate-programs-masters-degree-scams-negative-return-on-investment/

 

Math is foundational knowledge that is covered in undergrad. ASU has math prerequisites.

Math requirements
You must have two semesters of advanced math in Calculus I and Calculus II and a background course in Discrete Math.*

 

I played around with the data table, and accounting consistently does terribly. Almost every program has a negative ROI. People might be better off with just doing a 150-credit bachelor's program.

 

Most of the universities/colleges' graduate programs are cash cows; especially, those programs for professionals. It is up to an individual student to determine the return on investment. The vast majority of them do not take ROI into consideration by searching more into the career and job prospects.

 

Speaking only of myself, my Masters wasn't any sort of scam. Such things can be hard to quantify but I think the degree helped me negotiate a pretty healthy promotion and salary increase. It was a lot of work but worth it in the end.

Now, had I paid $50,000 for it instead of something under $10,000 I might feel differently.

 

The video has good stuff in it though.

 

People put so much weight in ROI in terms of compensation but give virtually zero thought about personal satisfaction. Will my Duke degree get me to making $250,000 per year? Doubtful. However, ill be a lot of satisfied with myself from a personal standpoint. Well worth the money in the end.

 

Couldn't agree more. If you feel good about yourself, it's worth it. Degree or otherwise. Me? I'd be sorely tempted to take that $70K or whatever to a really fine Italian tailor.

But I'll admit, your decision is infinitely smarter - and ... props to you! Cheers!

 

Maybe one of these days I will drop some change on high end clothing.

 

You'll likely have it to drop. I likely won't.

 

It's still missing Calculus III, Multivariable Calculus, Linear Algebra that are commonly required in BS in CS program.

 

Calc III is Multivariable Calculus.

And I'm not really following the critique here. If your claim is that you need that math knowledge to be successful in machine learning, then the people who lack those skills would not be successful in courses that require that math knowledge, whether it were a prereq or not.

 

I never considered this before, but neither of my programs had textbooks.

Union, by definition, did not because each learner created his/her doctoral program. Learning was likely to be much more experiential.

My program at Leicester took a different tack to the "taught" portion. You had to do 8 classes over 2 years. Four of them they required and you could select four electives. Each "course" was a huge binder containing scholarly articles on the subject, connected together with material written by the Centre for Labour Market Studies, the college running the program. (It has since been incorporated into the School of Management, and was so by the time I graduated.) So, you might get 30 or 40 articles and 50-or-so pages of original material introducing, connecting, and expanding upon the articles, turning it all into one cogent volume. No teaching, no classes, no classmates. You had a course advisor you could consult--I did that only once. Near the end of the term you received a list of discussion questions. You selected one and wrote a paper on it. That paper was the sole basis for your grade in the course. If the paper was unacceptable, you were given a chance to re-write it based on feedback from your course advisor.

While I'm on it, my Leicester program didn't have comprehensives or orals. Once you completed your courses--not self-paced--you then wrote a more advanced thesis proposal than the one in your admissions package. This is where I got tripped up. At the time, the proposal was limited to 1,000 words. (I objected to this strenuously. It was later expanded; I have no idea if my objection was part of that decision, but the timing would indicate it.) In that confined space, I could not get across why my study topic was pertinent to the program. We went back and forth with this for awhile. Then I flew out there to meet with one of the senior faculty members to hash it out. I even offered to take a lesser award and drop the program. That triggered the response I needed. They allowed me to submit a bigger paper--5,000-word limit--on my topic, arguing why it was worthy of scholarly study. (Despite the degree title sounding like a professional doctorate, Leicester considers it a scholarly degree equal to the PhD.) So, I did. My topic was approved and I was off. There were still more adventures along the way--there usually are in a rigorous doctoral program. I'm sure those will pop up in a post some day.

 

I bought the cheapest accredited LL.M. in tax I could find. This degree can be bought online at any level of "prestige" you desire including no less than NYU whose LL.M. Tax program is the degree if you want to work on Wall Street. Tuition at NYU Law exceeds $50,000. Denver Strum Law gets a bit more than half that. Taft Law got a little over $7,000 plus books. I'm satisfied.

 

Incidently, my experience with Taft Law was overall very positive. There was one glitch for which I never got a good explanation; I wrote my first semester exams at El Paso Community College but somehow between the examination and the school the exam papers disappeared. No harm done, really because the school, after consulting with DEAC, decided to award credit based upon the (extensive) coursework. The subsequent examinations went off without incident. Those later exams were noticeably more technical and difficult.