Graduate Degress: Are they worth it?

[Barrister]

I'm on the iPad so I must be brief -a JD is a bachelor's degree because there is an actual graduate degree in law - the LL.M.

Which you get after a JD.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I just dug my diploma out, it says:

"we confer upon him the degree of Bachelor of Science..." (and then some other stuff about recommending me to the President as a commissioned officer in the Army), so unless a JD says "Bachelor of Science" on the diploma then I can't agree with it being a Bachelor degree.

[PDH]

I don't trust anyone with a graduate degree.  They are unamerican.

[Josquius]

Now that everybody and their dog has a bachellors degree it does seem to an extent that masters are what bachellors once were.
However....with so many people getting masters these days, often not necessarily the best and brightest but just those who didn't know what else to do and felt they had a year or two to spare.....Things are iffy.

American university fees are just insane. That adds yet more thinking to whether its worth it or not, its not just a time concern.

[stjaba]

Journalists earn $50,000 there? Who wants to marry me so I can come over?

I did a three-month intense post-graduate certificate to legitimise the whole career change thing. Wish I could have afforded the money or the time out to do an MA.

$50,000 may be the average salary for journalists, but the job market is extremely tough for journalists. Based on the number of unemployed journalist majors I know, it seems like a journalism degree is nearly worthless. Incidentally, I know a bunch of former journalists in law school, so it's kind of a "out of the fire, into the frying pan" situation for those guys.

[Ideologue]

I'm on the iPad so I must be brief -a JD is a bachelor's degree because there is an actual graduate degree in law - the LL.M.

Which you get after a JD.

If you're a total retard, or getting it in tax.

LL.M.s are a fucking joke, except for tax, and just another example of the scam.  S.J.D.s are beyond the impossible.

Otto, the proper classification of a J.D. has been a running contention between me and Beeb for over a year.  I guess it's all well and good sit on top of the gaol while your bank account swells with that sweet, sweet government lucre and claim, humbly, that you've merely got a pair of bachelor's degrees, but for some of us this shit matters.  And as employers, such as the country's largest employer, or the foreign interests with whom I treat, have taken my position and view the J.D. as the equivalent of a master's degree, I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with my (less ) learned colleague.

[Admiral Yi]

That 50,000 for journalists is skewed by some big money at the high end.  I've known people working for local papers who made starvation wages.

[Ideologue]

Journalists earn $50,000 there? Who wants to marry me so I can come over?

I did a three-month intense post-graduate certificate to legitimise the whole career change thing. Wish I could have afforded the money or the time out to do an MA.

$50,000 may be the average salary for journalists, but the job market is extremely tough for journalists. Based on the number of unemployed journalist majors I know, it seems like a journalism degree is nearly worthless. Incidentally, I know a bunch of former journalists in law school, so it's kind of a "out of the fire, into the frying pan" situation for those guys.

Oh God.

Then again, the people I really don't get are the engineers and accountants and such who went to law school.  LOL PATENT LAW LOL HIGH FINANCE.  I don't necessarily feel bad for them, since they at least have a credential to fall back on.  "I was in a coma."

[fhdz]

"But I degress".

[Barrister]

I'm on the iPad so I must be brief -a JD is a bachelor's degree because there is an actual graduate degree in law - the LL.M.

Which you get after a JD.

If you're a total retard, or getting it in tax.

LL.M.s are a fucking joke, except for tax, and just another example of the scam.  S.J.D.s are beyond the impossible.

Otto, the proper classification of a J.D. has been a running contention between me and Beeb for over a year.  I guess it's all well and good sit on top of the gaol while your bank account swells with that sweet, sweet government lucre and claim, humbly, that you've merely got a pair of bachelor's degrees, but for some of us this shit matters.  And as employers, such as the country's largest employer, or the foreign interests with whom I treat, have taken my position and view the J.D. as the equivalent of a master's degree, I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with my (less ) learned colleague.

If you're going to try and pull shit like that, I'll be forced to point out that until and unless you pass the bar, you're not my colleague at all.

Fundamentally, any degree which is your first course of study ought to be termed a bachelor's degree.  Just because many programs now require a degree in an unrelated area as a pre-requisite for admission does not make them a master's degree.

But fundamentally, focusing on the doctor part of your degree is frnkly emphasizing the wrong part.  What's important is that you have a degree in law.

[CountDeMoney]

If you're going to try and pull shit like that, I'll be forced to point out that until and unless you pass the bar, you're not my colleague at all.

What's the legal term for pwn3d?  Is that a form of tort?

[Ideologue]

But fundamentally, focusing on the doctor part of your degree is frnkly emphasizing the wrong part.  What's important is that you have a degree in law.

Hey, it's not like I named the thing.

If I'd been Dean Langdell, I'd have named it a master's of law.  LL.M.s did not, I believe, exist at the time, so I'd have named that, when they did arise, "LL.D." or something similar.

In any event, I can split the difference with you: academically, it is not strictly a master's degree; but as far as effect in the wider world outside law (where it is a professional degree and, generally speaking, a required certification), it should be treated as a non-field (or in some cases--e.g. public administration, business, political science [lol]--allied field) master's degree.  Would that be acceptable to you?

What's the legal term for pwn3d?  Is that a form of tort?

It was a pretty sick burn.   WELL MET.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Fundamentally, any degree which is your first course of study ought to be termed a bachelor's degree.  Just because many programs now require a degree in an unrelated area as a pre-requisite for admission does not make them a master's degree.

Yeah but Bachelors is a term with a real definition (basically being any degree that gives a diploma with the word Bachelor in it.)

If you become a Pharmacist you do not get a bachelors degree at all, typically you enroll at a college that has a pharmacy program and you take roughly two years of classes as "pre-pharmacy" (basically undergraduate chemistry/biology coursework and usually you satisfy some generic liberal arts requirements at this time.) Then you get into the pharmacy school proper which is usually another 3 years, sometimes 4 (so you have a 5-6 year total degree time.) They then you give you a piece of paper that says "Doctor of Pharmacy."

I don't agree that it's a bachelor degree because bachelor degree is a nomenclature thing. Should it be considered a Doctorate? No, not at all.

The problem is a lot of other random stuff has been "grafted onto" the existing academia system. In ages past a Bachelor or Baccalaureate degree would be something some young upper class guy might get as part of the standard education of persons from his economic class/social strata. It would usually be followed up by a job working for some firm or business venture or things of that nature (I'm thinking 19th century America here at least.) Master's and Ph.Ds as they were only really existed for the small subset of people who were intending to go into academia. At least by the mid-19th century that was how things worked in the U.S. If you intended to become a professor you would go on to graduate studies and then do a dissertation after even more study and get a Ph.D. No one pursued graduate studies for any other reason other than to become a academic, it just was simply not done, there was no reason for it whatsoever.

People in the legal profession who had historically been trained through an apprenticeship system wanted the prestige that comes with formal education, and decided to create law schools as we know them today. (If you look at say, many American founding fathers who were lawyers they typically just got a traditional classical education at university followed up by an apprenticeship and then taking the bar.) Over time as the desire has always been to create/magnify the "prestige" of practicing law it's become more hierarchical. At first it wasn't atypical for someone from a good family to be finished with their initial college education by 18-19 and go into the law schools of the time, it also wasn't atypical to go into law school without any pre-requisite college education. However, as part of that desire for prestige at least in the United States you eventually had law school admissions de facto require an undergraduate degree, to reinforce the concept that someone who graduate from law school had a "superior" degree to someone who just graduated from a normal college program.

Somewhere along the way people in various other fields wanted (or the college system created the demand) post-undergraduate education that could enhance their resume/prestige, and they wanted more than just a piece of paper saying "dude took some courses" they wanted a fancy graduate diploma that showed they were a step above their peers. So then the Master's degree was sort of hijacked and turned into a "certificate of continuing education" and that's all it really is for Engineers, teachers, IT professionals, accountants, et al who get them. I do question if employers or employees really benefit at all from these and speculate they are a smart way that universities have tapped into corporate dollars (which often fund professionals getting master's degrees.)

[jimmy olsen]

I'm on the iPad so I must be brief -a JD is a bachelor's degree because there is an actual graduate degree in law - the LL.M.

Which you get after a JD.

If you're a total retard, or getting it in tax.

LL.M.s are a fucking joke, except for tax, and just another example of the scam.  S.J.D.s are beyond the impossible.

Otto, the proper classification of a J.D. has been a running contention between me and Beeb for over a year.  I guess it's all well and good sit on top of the gaol while your bank account swells with that sweet, sweet government lucre and claim, humbly, that you've merely got a pair of bachelor's degrees, but for some of us this shit matters.  And as employers, such as the country's largest employer, or the foreign interests with whom I treat, have taken my position and view the J.D. as the equivalent of a master's degree, I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with my (less ) learned colleague.

If you're going to try and pull shit like that, I'll be forced to point out that until and unless you pass the bar, you're not my colleague at all.

Fundamentally, any degree which is your first course of study ought to be termed a bachelor's degree.  Just because many programs now require a degree in an unrelated area as a pre-requisite for admission does not make them a master's degree.

But fundamentally, focusing on the doctor part of your degree is frnkly emphasizing the wrong part.  What's important is that you have a degree in law.

I got a Masters in Education without getting a Bachelor's in Education.

[Barrister]

But fundamentally, focusing on the doctor part of your degree is frnkly emphasizing the wrong part.  What's important is that you have a degree in law.

Hey, it's not like I named the thing.

If I'd been Dean Langdell, I'd have named it a master's of law.  LL.M.s did not, I believe, exist at the time, so I'd have named that, when they did arise, "LL.D." or something similar.

You are mistaken.

LL.M. has existed for a lot longer than the JD.  US Law Schools traditionally handed down the noble LL.B. degree, which could be followed up by the LL.M.  It was only in the 60s when many schools converted their LL.B. to a JD.  Apparently if you dig around you can still find a few ancient professors whose CV lists them as having a LL.B.

In any event, I can split the difference with you: academically, it is not strictly a master's degree; but as far as effect in the wider world outside law (where it is a professional degree and, generally speaking, a required certification), it should be treated as a non-field (or in some cases--e.g. public administration, business, political science [lol]--allied field) master's degree.  Would that be acceptable to you?

It should be treated as its own unique thing - a professional degree.