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Toby
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Location: Wedded Bliss
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 Posted: Sun Jun 20, 2004 8:13 pm Post subject: What MA Did You Do? Where? How Much? |
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What MA did you do?
Where did you do it?
Was it online?
How much was it?
Would you recommend it? |
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The Lemon
Joined: 11 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Jun 20, 2004 8:37 pm Post subject: Re: What MA Did You Do? Where? How Much? |
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| Toby wrote: |
| What MA did you do? |
MEd, Curriculum Studies.
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| Where did you do it? |
Halifax, Canada. Was teaching at a local high school at the time.
No. Just a bunch of teachers sitting around in a university classroom after school talking shop and drinking coffee, twice a week for two years. The program was really interesting, but not nearly as taxing as what some people I know here have to do for the online programs.
Honesty, I don't remember. Pretty cheap - $5000US maybe for the whole thing? The local school board paid for most of it, and the rest was written off as a tax deduction. I don't think it cost me anything, at the end of it.
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| Would you recommend it? |
Yes. There are many jobs that require an M in Anything. And I enjoyed the coursework. I don't remember it being difficult, but that may be because I enjoyed it so much - if it's fun, it doesn't seem like a burden.
Last edited by The Lemon on Tue Jun 22, 2004 6:16 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Flex Bulkchest
Joined: 06 Jul 2003
Location: currently?...I don't know it's a room, with a computer....
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| Posted: Sun Jun 20, 2004 11:46 pm Post subject: |
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i did my MA in Canada at Guelph,
in economics,
they pay you,
it's damn hard
ha..good luck with your choice |
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Zed
Joined: 20 Jan 2003
Location: Shakedown Street
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| Posted: Sun Jun 20, 2004 11:52 pm Post subject: |
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posco's trumpet
Joined: 20 Apr 2003
Location: Beneath the Underdog
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| Posted: Mon Jun 21, 2004 1:09 am Post subject: Re: What MA Did You Do? Where? How Much? |
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| Toby wrote: |
What MA did you do?
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applied linguistics
| Toby wrote: |
Where did you do it?
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This fall I start at a well-known university in the USA.
| Toby wrote: |
Was it online?
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No. Online degrees are a mistake--they are not as widely recognized as on-campus degrees.
| Toby wrote: |
How much was it?
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They're paying me (full scholarship plus stipend).
| Toby wrote: |
Would you recommend it?
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A free degree from a well-known university....hm... Would I recommend it? I'll give you three guesses. |
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Zyzyfer
Joined: 29 Jan 2003
Location: who, what, where, when, why, how?
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| Posted: Mon Jun 21, 2004 1:25 am Post subject: Re: What MA Did You Do? Where? How Much? |
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| posco's trumpet wrote: |
| No. Online degrees are a mistake--they are not as widely recognized as on-campus degrees. |
Okay. But I wonder how doing some coursework online and having credits transferred when you get into the real classroom would go. There's surely a handful of generic classes that MA's do, and I don't want to be sitting on my duff all year with no personal advancement. Two years was enough of that. |
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OiGirl
Joined: 23 Jan 2003
Location: Hoke-y-gun
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| Posted: Mon Jun 21, 2004 2:08 am Post subject: Re: What MA Did You Do? Where? How Much? |
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| posco's trumpet wrote: |
| No. Online degrees are a mistake--they are not as widely recognized as on-campus degrees. |
I can't imagine doing an on-campus degree at this point in my life. I will pursue a degree in TESOL and wouldn't want to do it without being in the classroom to put the new ideas to the test. I wouldn't have the free time to do that while teaching back home.
Do you look down on distance but not online degrees any less?
If someone won't recognize a degree I earned honestly, I really don't want to work with them anyway. |
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Homer
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Jun 21, 2004 2:18 am Post subject: |
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Did mine in Canada (York).
Classes were a breeze (classes are just classes afterall).
The dissertation was a challenge.
As for on-line vs on-campus, not taking into account posco's tunnel vision post, it really depends on what your needs and goals are.
There are more and more quality online or correspondance M.A.'s out there that will be a perfect fit for someone looking for some PD (Prof. Development).
Distance Learning is a growing branch of higher education that should not be overlooked. |
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VanIslander
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
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| Posted: Mon Jun 21, 2004 2:40 am Post subject: |
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I finished all my coursework on campus at the University of Windsor in Windsor, Ontario, Canada but I have to return to defend my M.A. thesis in Philosophy sometime next year. I had to pay about $1,000 a semester in tuition but I don't remember because in actual fact they paid me to learn because graduate students with good undergraduate marks can easily get a teaching assistantship which netted me over $3,000 a semester after tuition was deducted. If you have the grades, apply for an assistantship. Some departments give them to all, others to most, others to a significant minority of grad students. There's no such thing as "Gee, I can't afford grad school", at least if you're a Canadian with good grades.
As for distance degrees (mailed paperwork) and online degrees (real-time email, chatroom and/or webcast participation), there's a clear difference between the degree mill departments (started up over the last decade to churn out a high volume of grads supervised and graded rarely by PhDs) and the longstanding departments (full of reputable, publishing PhDs with high standards for entry and for graduation). Unlike campus-based programs, with distance and online degrees you get what you pay for. I'm amazed that there's people who want a reputable graduate degree with low entrance standards, low tuition, low workload, and little requirements for research courses and thesis.
(That said, you can learn a lot in any program, if you put your mind to it and set your own standards.)
There's several reputable graduate departments in Britain that offer (at least a partial) distance option, and one in Canada: The M.Ed. program at The University of Calgary can now be taken in distance mode and it's fully recognized by other universities as on par with the campas-based option, for those looking at doctoral level studies afterwards (or for those wanting to work in the many government-funded immigrant and second language schools in Canada). |
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posco's trumpet
Joined: 20 Apr 2003
Location: Beneath the Underdog
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| Posted: Mon Jun 21, 2004 4:51 am Post subject: Re: What MA Did You Do? Where? How Much? |
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| OiGirl wrote: |
Do you look down on distance but not online degrees any less?
If someone won't recognize a degree I earned honestly, I really don't want to work with them anyway. |
It's not me, Oi -- it's the immigration departments of several countries (but not Korea). |
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kiwiboy_nz_99
Joined: 05 Jul 2003
Location: ...Enlightenment...
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| Posted: Mon Jun 21, 2004 4:54 am Post subject: |
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No. Online degrees are a mistake--they are not as widely recognized as on-campus degrees.
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Particularly in the area of ESL this is increasingly not the case. There is more and more respect being given to the online qualification, as it is recognised that in this feild there is nothing particular to be gained by being onsite, while with online work you get the benifit of continuing your teaching experience and being able apply new things immediately in the classroom. |
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posco's trumpet
Joined: 20 Apr 2003
Location: Beneath the Underdog
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taejonguy
Joined: 14 Jan 2003
Location: Daejeon, Korea
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| Posted: Mon Jun 21, 2004 10:34 pm Post subject: Re: What MA Did You Do? Where? How Much? |
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| posco's trumpet wrote: |
| OiGirl wrote: |
Do you look down on distance but not online degrees any less?
If someone won't recognize a degree I earned honestly, I really don't want to work with them anyway. |
It's not me, Oi -- it's the immigration departments of several countries (but not Korea). |
I know that that is why I am studying for my MLS degree...gotta make those immigration boys happy!
Seriously, as someone in the HR field, I can say that (generally) there is very little difference in corporate percetion of on-line degrees and traditional degrees if the schools are
a) properly accredited
b) somewhat well-known
My school Fort Hays State in Kansas is a) but not b) 
Frankly, that is not a worry or a concern because the course is useful in my field and provides both important information and personal growth. A nice side benefit is the cost as I will graduate with a MLS in HRM for about US$5000!!
If anyone is interested the are located here:
http://www.fhsu.edu/mls/
Majors include:
Art, Assistive Technology, Chemistry, Communication Studies, Computer Information Systems, Criminal Justice, English, English for Speakers of Other Languages, Geology/Geography, Gerontology, Health and Human Performance, History, Humanities, Human Resource Management, Information Networking and Telecommunications, Instructional Technology, Mathematics/Math Education, Modern Languages, Music/Music Education, Organizational Leadership, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Public Administration, Science Education, Sociology: Cultural Studies, and Social Science Education.
By the way, a MLS is a Master of Liberal Studies degree... 
I have taken four courses (10 hours) and the requirements are 31 total hours (1 1-credit hour class and 10 3-credit hour classes)
If you have questions fire away! |
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taejonguy
Joined: 14 Jan 2003
Location: Daejeon, Korea
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| Posted: Mon Jun 21, 2004 11:12 pm Post subject: Online degree information... |
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Jonnie's Distance Learning Page
Accredited College Degrees By Distance Learning
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Haven/2386/distance.html
This website will answer all your questions regarding accreditation etc. It also provides a link to HUNDREDS of schools providing online programs. the range from MBA's to Law, Administation and Ministry!
Please note for example his listing of 41 Education online offerings. The schools include: Penn State, Texas A & M, Michigan State and the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaugn. All of these are VERY highly ranked schools. This is even more apparent when going through the MBA programs offered online. So, do you REALLY think that someone would refuse to accept an online degree from these schools?
More food for thought- from Training no.40 v.5 (May 2003), pp 26-32
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"Last September, a study by Bostonbased Eduventures.com, a research and advisory firm in the corporate, postsecondary, and pre-K-12 learning markets, estimated that about 350,000 students are enrolled in online degree programs. That may not sound like much, but that's 2 percent of all students enrolled in postsecondary education in the United States-and the same study estimates that the market for fully online degree programs is growing by 40 percent annually."
and
"According to Brian Mueller, CEO of the University of Phoenix Online (UOP), 60 percent of the students enrolled at the UOP get tuition reimbursement from their employers."
and
"Corporate recruiters would be the first to hear if online degrees were a liability in the workplace, but David Brinkerhoff has encountered much less resistance to online degrees than he expected. Brinkerhoff, the president of Abbott Smith, a Millbrook, N.Y.-based recruiting firm, says that corporations are more concerned with whether a degree is legitimate than with whether it's earned online.
"I've never had anyone say that they would prefer a candidate with a bricks-and-mortar degree," he says. "If it's accredited by a major accrediting organization, who's to care whether they got their degree in their pajamas at 4 a.m. or in a classroom at 4 p.m.?"
Stacey Harris agrees that corporations are more concerned with whether a degree is accredited than how it's earned. Harris, the curriculum program manager at Clevelandbased Management Recruiters International (MRI), designs training programs for MRI's recruiters. "We don't train them to watch for online versus 'regular' degrees," Harris says. "It's the same process for both-they have to call the college and find out whether the degree itself is accredited."
and finally (!)
"In the world of academia, online degree programs have fought-and continue to fight-for respect. The industry has always been plagued by fly-by-night operations that charge customers a set amount for a degree based on life experience but require no class work or testing. These questionable enterprises gave legitimate online degree programs a PR problem that they've never managed to shake.
Still, many academics also question the validity of the more established and legitimate programs. They claim that no education is valid without face-to-face classroom time. The debate meant that, for many years, regional accreditation was out of reach for online programs. (See "Accreditation," below.)
But Thomas Russell thinks the debate is, well, academic. Russell, the director emeritus of North Carolina State University's instructional telecommunications department, has collected more than 300 papers, articles and studies that suggest that distance education generates similar learning outcomes to those from bricks-and-mortar institutions and has turned them into a bibliography called The No Significant Difference Phenomenon (International Distance Education Certification Center, 1999).
Russell maintains the bibliography on a Web site ("The No Significant Difference Phenomenon") where he solicits other studies with similar results. He also maintains a mirror site called "The Significant Difference Phenomenon," which houses citations for research that indicates that there is a significant difference between learner outcomes in online and traditional degree programs. Still, he says, "Basic research continues to say that taking courses online is every bit as good, based on the examinations that are taken."
Russell points out that in the debate over whether online education is as good as traditional education, an important issue often gets lost-the impact of differences in learners on learning outcomes. "It depends on the conditions and who is the learner," he says. "There are some people who will perform better taking a computer-based course than in the classroom, while others would fail and probably would have failed all along if they hadn't been in the disciplined setting of a classroom."
If the ivory towers still disparage Internet education, corporations are less inclined to sneer. In October 2000, New York-based career content and services provider Vault.com surveyed 239 HR professionals for their opinions of online degrees. The study yielded results that seemed troublesome for proponents of online education-only 40.8 percent of the respondents considered online graduate degrees as credible as traditional graduate degrees, and 50 percent said that online degrees aren't as credible but are still acceptable. Another 9.6 percent said that they're neither credible nor acceptable."
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Poker-Guy
Joined: 25 May 2004
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2004 5:49 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| What MA did you do? |
English Literature
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| Where did you do it? |
Carleton University in Ottawa.
Refer to my previous answer.
Not really certain. Probably $3000 a semester. But i did get a partial TA-ship.
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| Would you recommend it? |
Definately. Any MA gets you a lot further ahead here. On-campus or online. |
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