Comments on: What’s a master’s degree worth?

By: funny

funny — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 12:58:09 +0000

@ Bill: There are Ph.D. programs in humanities, and you can get jobs both in and out of the academy with advanced degrees in humanities. To “use” the degree pragmatically in a direct way, a master’s degree in humanities will get you a decently paid f/t job in a community college, and it also looks very good on the résumé when you apply for jobs with the NEH or for state humanities councils. The most active and successful state humanities councils pay their executive directors well — I applied for that position the last time it came open in Arizona, where the starting salary was around $90,000. Arizona’s council, which is large and active, has a number of other staff positions that look interesting and fun. There are many indirect routes to parley any degree in the liberal arts into interesting, well-paying jobs; you just need some originality to recognize how to do it.

And as your comment implies, the intellectual benefits of what I like to call “real” education (as opposed to voc-ed) are manifold. I personally happen to think these outweigh the vocational benefits of university-level programs whose primary purpose is to get students a job.

By: Bill Cleland

Bill Cleland — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 12:30:53 +0000

I’m half-way through a Master of Humanities degree and really liking it. No, it’s not from a world class school, but it is properly accredited. It is interdisciplinary in nature. Before beginning it, I checked with a few colleges, who supported the idea of this degree, stating that they would be interested in hiring someone with this background. If properly designed, this degree can have within its structure a cohesive bond of unifying themes. I centered mine around classical studies emphasis while augmenting the degree with 18 hours of Latin language at the graduate level, nine hours of which were accepted into the Master of Humanities. Some would say the classics are useless, as well as the humanities in general. Seneca two thousand years ago defined academic learning as having “no utilitarian value.” That sounds like the ultimate in futilitity by modern standards, and yet we are reading, publishing, digesting and lauding Seneca two millenia later. Is it worth incurring debt for this degree? For me it is. It is more than a Master’s in English or history. As a unified whole, this interdisciplinary degree stands as a unit of coordinated effort, which has been integrated and united to a subspecialty in the classics. For some it would be futile, while for others it is the culmination of themes from other disciplines in an holistic body of information. This degree ties together concepts of slavery in the New World with that of the past, philosophy of the ancients with psychology of Jung and Freud, the creative force behind art that hearkens back to Greek vases with inscriptions that give us a glimpse of early Indo-European languages tracing the origins of civilization. Check the typical student reading lists from 1920 compared to 2005 and determine whether or not this is for you. As an aside, I work with a young woman who just graduated with a BS in social work. I mentioned Massachusetts in reference to New England, and her comment was “I thought Massachusetts was in the United States.”

By: kitty

kitty — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:07:36 +0000

“Look for research assistantships that waive tuition. ”
Research assistantship isn’t the only assistantship there is. There is also teaching assistantship and in some fields – like computer science, engineering, math – and in large universities and in some fields assistantships are very easy to get. In some schools and some fields there is a shortage of teaching assistants. Occasionally there are some jobs on campus that are considered “assistantships” – i.e. they come with the same tuition and fees waiver and the salary that could be higher than that on teaching/research assistantships. For example, the university where I got my MS/CS had programming jobs in some departments for people with BS/CS that counted as “assistantships”. This is probably why they had a constant shortage of teaching assistants in CS.

Assistantships is a great way to get a graduate degree. Not only don’t you pay a thing, you are paid a salary. Not a huge salary but enough to cover all expenses and have some money left. I had about half of my assistantship left after basic expenses.

In fact, if you can get an assistantship graduate school is a great way to “sit out” the recession: you cannot get a job anyway, so why not have one that pays you to study? By the time you get your advanced degree a recession may be over.

By: funny

funny — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 02:18:35 +0000

@ Chris: Agreed: military programs are excellent. My feeling is, though, that joining the military is like deciding to teach: it’s something you do because you feel committed to an ideal. My father started out Navy… When he tried to re-up as a young man and some quack wrongly thought he heard a heart murmur, he joined the Coast Guard. After that he had a long career in the merchant marine, which today is regarded as a variety of military service (and well it should be, considering the number of torpedoes he dodged during WW II, and that my mother had to physically restrain him from signing up for the near-suicidal Mermansk run).

As my father’s brat, I think young people who sign up for the military should do so first because they want to serve their country. Any good things (personally) that come from it should be secondary.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:38:11 +0000

I think joining the military to earn a Master’s degree is actually a fantastic idea. If you are the type of person who would actually consider it, you may be the type of person that the military would benefit from. A number of my colleagues (I’m a Navy pilot, by the way) joined for this reason, or at the very least undergrad, and they have branched off into other areas of the Navy and government where they are doing great work.

Our military and government needs smart, well-educated people and thats why they are willing to pay for you to get an advanced degree. Its a gamble, considering you may leave after your payback period, but for those who stay the payoff is tremendous.

By: Joe

Joe — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:08:32 +0000

What’s a master’s degree worth??? Not much if you buried yourself deep in debt just to earn it.

By: SJ

SJ — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:51:19 +0000

Well… reading things on computers is different =)

First, I hate blanket statements like these. I wrote a simplified analysis for engr-ing majors a while back.
Things that mess up the analysis is the ability to find funding, making your employer foot part of the bill, and the desire to do higher level research. I mean, if you really truly want to work in R&D you more or less have to go to grad school.
If it’s just the $$$, then it depends on time (years needed) and other opportunities.

But actually, you could write the same thing about a BS.

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Mon, 06 Jul 2009 03:59:24 +0000

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By: funny

funny — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 06:07:30 +0000

@ MBA: It runs 1,750 words. An average magazine feature, typically targeted to people with an eleventh-grade reading level at best, is 1,500 to 2,000 words. If the copy bores you, it’s not because of its length.

By: MBA

MBA — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 04:28:02 +0000

Should you be breaking articles in a 300 words post each and make a sequel? Honest opinion, I got bored with the length of the article. Wouldve enjoyed it in parts if it were smaller.