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Unposter
Joined: 04 Jun 2006
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 Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 9:30 pm Post subject: |
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If you want a job in Korea, as long as you have a BA from a recognizeable university, any online degree, especially a Ph.D. would get you bumped to the head of the line with someone with the same relative experience. I don't think most Korean universities care or would make much effort to look into it except for maybe a few of the more prominent universities.
If you want a job someplace else, No. An online Ph.D., unless you do a very, very special and ground breaking dissertation is not going to get you very far. |
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PeterDragon
Joined: 15 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 1:35 pm Post subject: |
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Last edited by PeterDragon on Sun Aug 14, 2016 11:44 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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ren546
Joined: 17 Dec 2010
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| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 8:57 pm Post subject: |
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| PeterDragon wrote: |
| If Ren is correct, such a degree might not be for me. I have heard that the surest way to be able to migrate to Canada is to actually get a degree IN Canada, and land a job in-country after graduating. |
If you're American, then it's not hard to get permanent residency status if you can find work and a sponsor. If you have a practical skill like carpentry then it's easy. If you're an academic, it might be a little harder. It's generally an unspoken rule that Canadian universities prefer to hire Canadian academics. If you don't believe me, scroll through the faculty list of any department/university that you might be interested in working for.
If you're just looking to work in the education field (e.g. teaching children), then you would need to get licensed (you need at least a B.Ed. for that). An advanced degree from a Canadian university would certainly help if you were looking for a job in educational administration, etc., but it's not necessary unless the qualifications you currently have are mediocre, or from a no-name university that no one has heard of.
If you want to continue to work in TESOL, there are actually a lot of jobs opening up due to the recent influx of immigrants in places like Calgary and Saskatoon. Still jobs in Ontario and BC, of course, but they're more competitive. You would need to be TESL Canada certified (and provincially certified depending on your location), but you can qualify for that with just a CELTA.
Anyway, good luck! |
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ThePoet
Joined: 15 May 2004
Location: No longer in Korea - just lurking here
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| Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2012 11:16 am Post subject: |
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| ren546 wrote: |
| PeterDragon wrote: |
| Interesting, I didn't know that Unisa degrees were respected in North America. My wife and I are toying with the idea of Canada as our long-term settle-down country, so I may look into Unisa. I've heard a lot of good things about it, but you wouldn't know them to see their website, that's for sure. |
They're not "respected" by everybody in Canada. If you want to work in Canada, I suggest you contact prospective employers and see what they tell you about this. You might be surprised/disappointed by what you hear. |
No degree is respected by anyone...its the person that has the degree and their achievements that earn the respect. While I would agree that in any case and for any position it is important to do your homework to find the acceptability (not respectability) of the degree you are going for, you'd be surprised how many people actually just see the word "Ph.D" on a resume and they glass over other candidates. As for the UNISA degree....our Vice-President of academics actually talked to me about UNISA after I complained about the runaround I was getting by the university I was in before from north america and the one I was applying to locally. He is from South Africa originally and has done fairly well for himself. And I would put his abilities, achievements, and talents against anyone who has their Ph.D. from any other university you'd care to compare. Of course I wouldn't compare prestige, but along with prestige usually comes a fairly hefty tuition fee. |
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ren546
Joined: 17 Dec 2010
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| Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2012 6:39 pm Post subject: |
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| ThePoet wrote: |
| While I would agree that in any case and for any position it is important to do your homework to find the acceptability (not respectability) of the degree you are going for, you'd be surprised how many people actually just see the word "Ph.D" on a resume and they glass over other candidates. |
Well, maybe in some Korean schools they wouldn't care, yes, but find me one single credible employer in North America who isn't going to critically evaluate where your PhD is from and I would be VERY surprised. I can also speak from experience and say that at all of the university interviews I have had here in Korea, someone from every committee not only acknowledged the fact that I was working on my PhD, but also asked detailed questions about program itself.
Anyone who has embarked on the life-consuming task of getting a PhD knows that it's a lot more complicated than just adding letters behind your name.
Again, you can tell yourself that it's the person that really matters, but it's not. Employers don't look at your resume and say, "Wow, he/she has 5 advanced degrees? That's it. Such diligence! She's hired." They'd likely say instead, "He/she has 5 advanced degrees? Let's look at this a little more closely. PhD in 3 years?!? South Africa? What the hell?" |
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ThePoet
Joined: 15 May 2004
Location: No longer in Korea - just lurking here
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| Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2012 12:47 am Post subject: |
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| ren546 wrote: |
Well, maybe in some Korean schools they wouldn't care, yes, but find me one single credible employer in North America who isn't going to critically evaluate where your PhD is from and I would be VERY surprised. I can also speak from experience and say that at all of the university interviews I have had here in Korea, someone from every committee not only acknowledged the fact that I was working on my PhD, but also asked detailed questions about program itself.
Anyone who has embarked on the life-consuming task of getting a PhD knows that it's a lot more complicated than just adding letters behind your name.
Again, you can tell yourself that it's the person that really matters, but it's not. Employers don't look at your resume and say, "Wow, he/she has 5 advanced degrees? That's it. Such diligence! She's hired." They'd likely say instead, "He/she has 5 advanced degrees? Let's look at this a little more closely. PhD in 3 years?!? South Africa? What the hell?" |
Ren, I will tell you from MY own experience, my new immediate boss just about has a visible woody when anyone with the Ph.D. behind their names apply for an instructional designer or project manager gig at the institution I currently work for. He has almost accepted two candidates for openings in my area until we, as a group spoke to the people in an informal setting and asked the coordinator not to hire these people...not because of their educational credentials which were impressive, but because we could tell those people did not have the right experience to work in our program using the design processes we use and under the pressure we have to complete curriculum at the end of the fiscal and calendar year. there wasn't a fit. They did not have the experiences they needed to be good at what we needed them for. Our new coordinator got so irate that he has now hired two people without letting us meet them first - they've simply shown up one day at a vacant desk. I am sure that he is not an isolated case when it comes to management.
When you say that your Ph.D. was acknowledged and asked about - that's common sense, but they would do the same whether your degree was from Harvard, Oxford, or UNISA...its professional curiosity, and also a measure not just of the degree, but how well you discuss and present it...they're fishing for you as much as your degree. I've been asked about my choices in non-traditional degrees as well, and I've gotten the jobs I have applied for. And I can tell you, that in my UNISA degree, I am researching a kick-ass subject that is also non traditional in nature, but that everyone I've talked to sees the potential in for the future of their institution. It has become a focal point of the interview more than once.
Absolutely, the degree is more than just the letters. I can also tell you that the experiences of people I have worked with and who I know who have been in both traditional and non-traditional programs have all said the rigour and self discipline they had at a distance program far outweighed the traditional degrees they took.
As for your last comment about where the degree came from...if a hiring committee, took the stance you speak of I can certainly see how they would let diamonds fall through the cracks in their closed minds if they didn't interview at least a mix of these traditional and non-traditional degree holders. By simply rejecting a doctorate degree holder from non-traditional (Argosy, UoPhoenix, Capella, Northcentral University, TUI, UNISA, Open University of the UK, Open university of Hong Kong, etc.), as well as traditional universities - even those that offer Doctorates entirely by distance now (U of Calgary, Athabasca, Edinburough, etc.), they have not practiced the diligence you speak of.
BTW, speaking of Oxford, and perhaps someone on here can confirm or deny this from experiential accounts...I was told by a guy I once worked with who held a Ph.D. (not from Oxford) that when you get a bachelor's degree from Oxford, and then you work for five years in the field you studied in, they mail you a Masters degree in the same field - their logic being that a bachelors degree from Oxford with 5 years of experience is equivalent to a Masters...so if you get a B.A in commerce, and then you work as a bank clerk for 5 years, that would give you the Masters??? I can't believe it, but he swore up and down it was true. If that IS the case...so much for valid credentials on a resume. I suspect it is an urban myth, but I'd be interested in finding out. |
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PeterDragon
Joined: 15 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2012 2:53 pm Post subject: |
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@...........
Last edited by PeterDragon on Sun Aug 14, 2016 11:45 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Shimokitazawa
Joined: 14 Dec 2007
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2012 7:23 pm Post subject: |
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| nathanrutledge wrote: |
Not everyone wants to work in an ivy league university, and the way that education is going, online does not carry the stigma some of the posters on this board seem to have.
First, who said that US/Canadian schools are the end-all-be-all of universities? The British system of PhD work tends to be dissertation only, so who cares if you write it while sitting at a desk in a school, or if you write it on a beach on some secluded island, emailing and skyping with your advisers? Also, loads of Universities offer PhD's via distance with the requirement that the student do 1 month a year in residence. The majority that I've seen are of that nature, with very few being completely distance.
Second, if someone came to me and started name dropping, I wouldn't give a rat's tail - it's all about THEIR work. What have THEY researched, what have THEY published - who cares if they fetched coffee for Noam Chomsky (overrated anyway!) or dropped off Krashen's laundry - what have THEY contributed to the discussion? And I wouldn't care if they did it from Thailand or while wasting away in the stacks.
OP - if I were you, I'd do a bit of research. Find a nearby state university and check who they are accredited by, and then compare. If this place doesn't match up with what the state uni has, I'd be wary. Plenty of places out there to do the work - no need to waste your time with a place that doesn't match up with everyone else. |
You're the guy "balls deep in Ph.D work" right now, right - aha!!! Nice.
Anyways, I see a lot of problems with your thinking. First, not everyone (maybe no one?) here has stated that they want to work in an Ivy League university. Besides, this is Korea.
Second, while you may not care about the name or ranking of the university you choose to attend, they Koreans, Japanese and Taiwanese do. That, and they are distrustful and biased against distance study.
Third, anyone who says they have a Ph.D that they obtained through distance study is going to set off alarm bells among those doing the hiring and screening of job applicants. A distance Ph.d should not even exist, really. One needs to work closely with adviser(s) and communicating online seldom works well. I've talked to a few people who were pursuing Ph.D degrees through Birmingham and eventually dropped out. So I've listened and learned a little bit about these distance schemes and their disadvantages.
Those who are most vocal about the legitimacy of distance post-grad degrees are those who hold them.
I'm not a strong advocate of distance learning for master's or doctorate research based degrees (or what should be research based degrees) and feel that they lack in quality over the on campus degrees. They just cut too many corners, especially those now that can be obtained solely through coursework completion. To me that's insane (Thanks mainly to the British and Australian universities for this).
And you won't find many resources sun tanning, drinking beer and chasing skirt on the beaches of Phuket. Sorry to break the news to you buddy.
Good luck with your distance Ph.D, though. You'll need it. |
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ren546
Joined: 17 Dec 2010
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| Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2012 8:01 pm Post subject: |
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| PeterDragon wrote: |
@Ren:
Thanks for the advice. My hope is that, if I get another advanced degree in Canada, I can be seen as more worthy of local hire. (Canada's very affordable grad tuition, even for foreigners is also appealing.)
Failing that, I'm basically a semester shy of an American state teaching license and am considering doing that. I also have a Bachelors in social work, or I suppose I could get a CELTA and try to work for LINC or some other adult program. My wife's a nurse, so hopefully that helps too.
Thanks for the advice about Calgary and Saskatoon. Do you think I'm right that a second masters from a Canadian university would allow me to work in higher education there, or should I only aim for LINC, the public school system, etc...? |
If you get your state teaching license and somehow use that to get licensed in Canada, and a CELTA, along with your social work degree, and whatever experience you currently have, you could pretty much walk into a job working for a government program. There are also a lot of jobs in adult education for Aboriginals (including a heavy ESL component), which you would be more than qualified for if you were licensed and had a background in social work. The EAP university programs in provinces like Ontario and BC might be hard to get into, but the ones in Alberta and Saskatchewan are expanding, and often advertise for openings.
I'm not sure about the details regarding how easy it is to transfer your state license to a Canadian teaching license, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be too difficult. Every province is different, though, so I guess you'd have to look into the details for where exactly you want to live.
If you get an M.Ed., then you wouldn't have to worry about it (you'd be licensed upon completion), and you'd get job search assistance through the program.
MOST IMPORTANTLY, the fact that your wife is a nurse is HUGE. As you're probably aware, there is a massive nursing shortage in Canada (especially in the central provinces), and a lot of people have been coming to Canada specifically for that purpose (e.g. my mom works at a nursing home in a very small town, and they just sponsored 3 women from the Philippines).
So I guess what I'm saying is that without the PhD, you're pretty much set, so don't bother. If anything, you can think about getting one after you're in Canada, but you certainly won't need it to get your first job in the country. |
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PeterDragon
Joined: 15 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2012 8:26 am Post subject: |
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| lkkkkkkkkkk |
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