[10068]

You're about to finish a 2-year program at a local community college.

They allow you to pick from this list which Associate of Arts and Sciences (AAS) degree will display on your diploma, regardless of the courses you've taken.

In other words, you get to pick based solely on what you think will "look good".

Which do you choose and why?

 

[wink]

Maths, because it's real science..........  

 

[JuanseAmador]

Maths, because it's real science..........   :wink_face:

All of those are "real sciences", except for the arts of course.

 

[JuanseAmador]

I guess the one with the highest intellectual status must be mathematics, so maths for that regard. The whole point of a diploma is to show it off.

Personally, I'm more of an artistic person, so if it were a common and regular diploma, mine would be on musical theory or engineering, something along those lines.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

 

They allow you to pick from this list which Associate of Arts and Sciences (AAS) degree will display on your diploma, regardless of the courses you've taken.

 

That sounds dubious as hell. What if you put in Mathematics and the employer assigns you to a job that actually requires serious Math? Like you get a job in law enforcement, then they ask you to do a geographical profile to narrow down where the serial killer operates or lives? Or you put in ES and then they ask you to check if there are still enough beetles rolling buffalo poop?

 

Over here not only can one NOT do such things (educational institutions are regulated, and first jobs for fresh grads require the academic transcripts even with some job experience) but they separate Arts degrees - consisting of social sciences like political science, sociology, economics, geography, and psychology (a "soft" science considering the multitude of factors you can't account for that screws up predictability, no matter how many numbers we can crunch and how many Calculus and Stat units are required on most of these programs) and humanities programs like philosophy and literature - from the Science degrees which include the hard sciences and in some universities Management. You either get a BA/MA or BS/MS/MD based on what program/Major you got into and then you get rated for a "Minor" based on what you spent your 15units of whatever into, so for example I was able to get a BA in Political Science, Minor in International Relations; then now working on an MA in Political Science, specialization: International Relations.

 

[10068]

They allow you to pick from this list which Associate of Arts and Sciences (AAS) degree will display on your diploma, regardless of the courses you've taken.

That sounds dubious as hell. What if you put in Mathematics and the employer assigns you to a job that actually requires serious Math? Like you get a job in law enforcement, then they ask you to do a geographical profile to narrow down where the serial killer operates or lives? Or you put in ES and then they ask you to check if there are still enough beetles rolling buffalo poop?

Over here not only can one NOT do such things (educational institutions are regulated, and first jobs for fresh grads require the academic transcripts even with some job experience) but they separate Arts degrees - consisting of social sciences like political science, sociology, economics, geography, and psychology (a "soft" science considering the multitude of factors you can't account for that screws up predictability, no matter how many numbers we can crunch and how many Calculus and Stat units are required on most of these programs) and humanities programs like philosophy and literature - from the Science degrees which include the hard sciences and in some universities Management. You either get a BA/MA or BS/MS/MD based on what program/Major you got into and then you get rated for a "Minor" based on what you spent your 15units of whatever into, so for example I was able to get a BA in Political Science, Minor in International Relations; then now working on an MA in Political Science, specialization: International Relations.

Just for the record, I wasn't saying this is a real situation. It's purely hypothetical. I'm surprised you would think it was legit...

Anyway, thank you for your post and feedback

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Just for the record, I wasn't saying this is a real situation. It's purely hypothetical. I'm surprised you would think it was legit...

Anyway, thank you for your post and feedback

 

Because there are actually colleges that we call "diploma mills," and then non-Ivy League or equivalent foreigners come here to manage subsidiaries wondering why companies choose only between four schools generally (and then there's a fifth for Engineers).

 

Or at least, they wonder about that until such time that some dude with an otherwise impressive set of credentials is asked to write a memo, and it looks like it was written by somebody whose only exposure to whatever language you asked him to do it in is a few TV shows and no other formal training. My Godfather was in the government back in the 90s, HR sent him a guy with nice credentials, and then the communications and memo drafts looked like they were written by a twelve year old who didn't have a dictionary on him. Government has clamped down, but whenever they close one instead of students being thankful that they're paying a diploma mill will stage protests because they spent too much time there already and now the government tells them it's wasted time. I think they prefer having an employer tell them that, and I can't fathom how that's better.

 

 

[wuwhere]

Two years of math in a community college is not much math, probably just up to calculus. Its just a tool. To use or apply it you have to take physical sciences, mostly Physics. But you would also need higher math.

 

[10068]

Just for the record, I wasn't saying this is a real situation. It's purely hypothetical. I'm surprised you would think it was legit...


Anyway, thank you for your post and feedback

Because there are actually colleges that we call "diploma mills," and then non-Ivy League or equivalent foreigners come here to manage subsidiaries wondering why companies choose only between four schools generally (and then there's a fourth for Engineers).

Or at least, they wonder about that until such time that some dude with an otherwise impressive set of credentials is asked to write a memo, and it looks like it was written by somebody whose only exposure to whatever language you asked him to do it in is a few TV shows and no other formal training. My Godfather was in the government back in the 90s, HR sent him a guy with nice credentials, and then the communications and memo drafts looked like they were written by a twelve year old who didn't have a dictionary on him. Government has clamped down, but whenever they close one instead of students being thankful that they're paying a diploma mill will stage protests because they spent too much time there already and now the government tells them it's wasted time. I think they prefer having an employer tell them that, and I can't fathom how that's better.

Ahhh fair enough.

Unfortunately these issues apply to public schools in the United States as well. I can't count the number of high school graduates I've met that would -- or at least SHOULD -- probably fail grade-school English.

It baffles me that our school system can deem a student a success (graduate) who has a vague and dumb grasp on their own first language, never reads books, and doesn't know anything about professional correspondence.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Ahhh fair enough.

Unfortunately these issues apply to public schools in the United States as well. I can't count the number of high school graduates I've met that would -- or at least SHOULD -- probably fail grade-school English.

It baffles me that our school system can deem a student a success (graduate) who has a vague and dumb grasp on their own first language, never reads books, and doesn't know anything about professional correspondence.

 

In our experience, it's actually the government-owned colleges that are better in general, since the regulatory body (where I worked at BTW, which is why I'm very familiar with the issues) has closer coordination with them. It's the private universities that, obviously since they're for profit, that are always functioning as diploma mills save for a few, like the one that excels in Engineering that I mentioned above. Of the four top universities here, one is the government-run University of the Philippines (which has campuses everywhere), and the other three are Catholic schools owned by three orders - the Jesuits, the LaSalle brothers, and the Franciscans, and lo and behold, these aren't for profit either, save for some of it helping the Orders' funds (actually, if Jesuits teach or whatever, nearly all their salary is sent to the Orders' funds, so they can actually teach anywhere under any institution that would accept them - we even have one teaching Foucault's philosophy in a government university). They could actually function totally without donations from alumni due to the high tuition fees, but aggressive collective bargaining means that all unused funds by the end of the school year are bonuses for the blue collar staff, and that's how you get a gym maintenance worker to earn $1,200/mo (salary plus the bonus divided by 12mos) while a new professor with a newly minted PhD gets around $600 to $700. The faculty and other white collar staff don't do aggressive collective bargaining because if they eat into the blue collar staff's bonuses people can get pissed, and all they want guaranteed is that their children get 50% off for every parent working there. That's true for all staff and that's how some of the maintenance staff for example get to send their children to such a school, and my friend's parents even saved up enough to build a small private dorm outside the campus for students who don't want to deal with in-campus dorm curfews (ie, the workaholics and the drunks, if not workaholic drunks).

 

As for the prior levels of education however we have exactly the same problem as the US. They actually tend to like hiring from here because we speak even better English than a lot of Americans, but the problem is that the people they get to sort through are exactly the sort who graduated from the aforementioned schools and others that are closer to them than the average crap (and also likely went to the better government or Catholic high schools). The current administration has invested more in basic education to fix the problem, prompting protests against college underfunding and lots of "US vs Finland/EU" crap that doesn't apply when you are not working with the same budget. Or, well, actually we have a huge budget, but it gets blown to smithereens when you consider that there are 100,000,000 Filipinos with roughly 50%+ not legally required to pay taxes (minors, given our birthrate and younger demographic; or people who earn below the tax ceiling) but disproportionately require more of these funds to stay afloat, compared to, say, roughly 6,000,000 Norwegians with a higher percentage of people paying higher tax rates including VAT. What I hate most about the current situation is how Congress wants to lower middle class salary income/withholding taxes to gain support for the upcoming elections, when, if people are going to use the EU as an example, then high taxes are better than the IRS sending you cheques for your tax breaks.

 

In any case one way that schools now are dealing with subsidizing scholarships is to charge other people more. Some families are honest about reporting to the government university and don't mind such a system, but some - including one Congress Representative - declared only his salary and not his businesses, so his children actually get subsidized and their fraternity would probably kick the crap out of anyone who complained about it. The Jesuit school charges a high rate for everyone not on scholarship but when you get the receipt you'll see there that a sizable chunk goes to the scholarship funds (I think it's around 15%). One other source are foreign students - many choose to come here since parents would rather pay $1,000+ per semester (in the government university) plus around $300 for the in-campus dorm and maybe $800 for other expenses per semester (food and such) and get a diploma from a university that is in the global Top 500. On top of that there's a lot of arts exposure (so it's not surprising that most foreign students here have dread locks) - the premier government university has several theater companies including Noh, plus three orchestras - jazz, classical, and traditional (mostly bronze percussion). The faculty is also a multinational cast, including a Japanese instrumentalist and historian, a defector from the USSR who taught Russian (but retired a few years ago), and then there was that sad episode of some American guy who presented a diploma from Yale until one professor from his department met up with Yale professors in an academic conference and found out that nobody knows who the hell that guy was. A massive schiitstorm ensued.

 

[wuwhere]

There's a lot of cheating in colleges. The real world is worst, corporate espionage, pyramid schemes, tax fraud, over-reporting revenues, so on and on.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

  There's a lot of cheating in colleges. The real world is worst, corporate espionage, pyramid schemes, tax fraud, over-reporting revenues, so on and on.

 
Law school is the worst. During bar exams the frats and sororities pass around "tips." Where the hell did they come from? Oh, yeah, their brothers and sisters involved in making the exam happen.

 

[Nusho]

No philosophy? Well that blows

 

[Nusho]

Probably philosophy -- rigorous, not cliche, heightens interest in you, and everyone ends up asking you what the meaning of life is

 

[ProtegeManiac]

  Probably philosophy -- rigorous, not cliche, heightens interest in you, and everyone ends up asking you what the meaning of life is

 

The question is what employers think of when they see that. Government and Third-sector employers would probably consider that important depending on the position, but the private sector is a lot less likely to look at it the same way. At best, a strong background in Logic and debate varsity participation prepares one for Law or specialized advanced degrees in the social sciences. The problem with these though is that if you take the latter, even if for example you take some units in political and social philosophy, you'd have to catch up on statistics depending on the program.

 

It would be better to do it the other way around - a social science major with a minor in philosophy. I'm not sure how US colleges spread out the units, but over here we have to devote 12units to electives, which will then be considered as a "minor" degree in something else if you use them all in subjects mandated by the other department. We all take soc sci and humanities basic classes, so for example you still effectively end up with 18units of History since there are 6units mandatory. In the Jesuit college I attended, this was on top of 12units of Philosophy mandatory for everybody, and applying for a minor means another 12units. What I did was not get an official minor degree but used half in additional international relations classes and the other half in history classes. I can't remember what I did for one class though as it can be registered as an IR class as well as a history class, with one half of the semester delivered by a History professor then the other half handled by a Political Science professor who would look into the history of it within an IR framework including quantitative/behaviorialist analysis (with the conclusion of the analysis being, "look, landscape theory can get this close, but ultimately in social science there are too many variables that you can't isolate nor account for").