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Why not apply the same analysis to law and medical school--whose
students continue their education only to improve their job prospects?
Leonard
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+leonard -dot- porrello=soleratec -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+leonard -dot- porrello=soleratec -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- c
om] On Behalf Of Technical Writer
Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2008 6:33 AM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: RE: master's degrees
<snip>Hope this isn't going too overtime, but this topic is really
interesting to me because my husband is working on his MLIS (Master's in
Library and Information Science). He's entering his third year of
studies and it's no easy venture: weekly exams, 30-page papers every few
weeks, the whole shebang! I was surprised to hear about the work load
for a friend of mine who is working on a master's degree in the
education field. Her projects for one quarter included reading a couple
of books, answering some questions about the readings on the front and
back of ONE sheet of paper, and her final project was a 10-page long
PowerPoint presentation! Apparently the goal of the final project was to
make sure they knew how to use all of the functions of PP because that
slideshow was atrocious: colors, graphics, and effects mixed together to
make a seriously ugly slideshow. So it seems that the institution
offering the degree, as well as the type of degree being earned, may
have an effec
t on the level of difficulty. I no longer assume that just because
someone has a master's degree that they worked really hard for it.
Jennifer </snip>
The timing of an MA or MS is more critical than the topic. If you
eliminated from current MA/MS programs all the students who completed
BA/BS and couldn't find jobs, the programs would be decimated. If you
then eliminated all the students trying to wait out an economic downturn
by hanging out in grad school a few years before jumping into a (not
very good) job market, universities would start having major problems.
The selling point of an MA/MS to students is that "average salaries" for
degree holders are x dollars more than BA/BS degree holders. That is,
hang out another couple of years, eat more pizza, drink more beer, and
get an extra X thousand a year when you graduate.
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