Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Credentialism

So I finished my final MBA class this past Saturday. I still have to complete the directed internship, but the project is already mostly done, I just have to compile some survey results and make the pitch.

It's been an interesting two years, to say the least. I went in with two and only two goals for attaining the degree:
  1. Open more professional doors. As I will turn 44 in a few days, it occurs to me that my career path needs to be more, shall we say, solidified, lest I meet the standard American working class dog's fate of working till the day I drop, leaving the cubicle farm feet first, a life by definition less than fulfilled. In other words, time to shit or get off the pot, professionally speaking. Until I start pulling down at least high-five/low-six figures, jury's still out on that one.
  2. Gain more knowledge, of how and why things work, of specialized areas, of where to refer when in need. Really, to put it in somewhat Rumsfeldian terms, to learn more about the unknown unknowns, the things about which I didn't even know I didn't know. This goal was attained much more closely than the first one, because of the trade secret of the MBA -- you don't have to memorize everything from every class you take, every factoid that's pumped into your head, you just have to recall where to look it up for reference.

Of course, there were other valuable lessons, most of which I already knew but were reinforced with various degrees of vigor. The textbook industry is a goddamned racket, from author to printer; your instructors, while chock-full of the bien pensant sentiments one would expect sinecured academics to be flush with, are still susceptible to the same strains of peer pressure and business expectations as any of us in the real world are; you are handed rote ethical nostrums to dutifully recite, as if they were the bidnessman's Hippocratic Oath, without the rich context the ongoing shenanigans in the financial sector so abundantly provide; you need to memorize and regurgitate, and speak extemporaneously on the matter -- whatever it may be, balanced scorecards, Porter's five forces, why EVA is infinitely more important and useful than EBITDA -- as if your very life depends on it.

Most of all, what is reinforced is a rather unique arrangement, where you are both student and consumer, a role somehow both inherently subordinate yet festooned with Important Surveys on how well you enjoyed your extraordinarily high-priced product. It is a very strange business model, perhaps unique -- just as the insurance industry is the only major business model that is predicated on the company not providing the service for which it has already been paid, so the post-secondary edumacation system is the only model that caters to you even as it pushes you around.

It's been an enoyable experience, the way I assume a triathlon is for its participants -- it's an accomplishment just to complete it, really. But from the start, despite my goals and high-handed sentiments about the process and quest for knowledge and value -- something I still believe, for myself at least -- I have always thought about the subtext of the first goal enumerated above.

This is perhaps the biggest racket of all in the university system, this idea that a piece of paper is so incredibly valuable that it trumps all else, and thus is worth paying a couple years' wages (if it gets you the job it's supposed to, a tenuous proposition at best these days) for. And the truth is, it is and it isn't -- there is value attached to that piece of paper, so long as its holder realizes that there are people with nothing more than high school diplomas doing the same job just as well.

And really, now that I know where to look, and what to read, and with all the free resources on Teh Intartubez, I can tell you right now that the knowledge is available for free, or for less than $200 worth of books anyway, so you really are paying the big bucks for the credential.

I knew this from day one, to have it confirmed is alternately frustrating (because I still have to pay for the privilege) and comforting (because even with my worst assumptions about people and things, I love being proven right, which I always am).

All that said, it's been a fun ride. I love the library, I love the campus and the energy of it. I can see why some people never want to leave. But in the end, I do think that once the health-care battle has been more adequately addressed, it may occur to folks that granting more accessibility to higher education will lead to better macro outcomes in a rapidly crumbling society. You can't keep gouging kids at every turn, and expect them to just want to keep "getting ahead", especially when more and more that just means for them a decade or so of student loan repayments.

5 comments:

  1. Let me be the first to congratulate you here on that degree, Heywood. I hope it serves you well.

    Here's hoping you find more time soon to post your fine observations in the future. You write as well as driftglass (actually, you write better, perhaps mainly because you don't repeat yourself so much; so keep writing when you feel like it. Drifty is kinda stuck in the 'gotta write every day' thing.... He needs to find work that pays him what he's worth, too.)

    I relate to a lot of what you write about kollege - esp. the good memories. At the moment I'm sorting through and scanning work I did 20 years ago as a hobby, in a field I can recommend as your next foray into academia: theoretical physics. Truly mystical to learn, and in math and physics you're generally judged more on understanding this great stuff than on your ability to spout b.s. on demand. I always liked that about it.

    I audited the physics (at UT Austin), and marvelled continually at the time that the education was free (not even particularly valued, it seemed), whereas there was lots of extra pain and expense involved in getting the paper.

    I finished my real master's in '75 in math and CompSci (and don't recall ever having been asked to grade my teachers - they seemed to get good ones just fine by letting their peers judge.)

    Just beware of the pyramid-scheme nature of the college chase these days. You can do just fine on $65k in a pinch... ;-) (In '74 tuition + expenses at CMU was $3600, texts were $5-10. And an appendectomy with a week in hospital was $750. (I still have the receipts.) Like many progressives, I somewhat suspect MBAs had something to do with the change... Sorry - a prejudice. I'm confident you will be a better specimen, a credit to your race. ;-)

    Best wishes and warm regards.

    dk

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  2. (PS: $3600 per year, that is. dk)

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  3. Yes, what Anonymous said, generally. Just getting through it is an achievement to be proud of, and I'd like to congratulate you too. I'm sure you will remember, when you get the better job you undoubtedly deserve, what you said about the people without the credential who also can do the work.

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  4. Congratulations, H. Glad to hear it's over; hope now this translates into a better job for you, with more money and more free time, to keep writing for us lurkers. Or am I deluded -- an MBA means just more work for the same money? I forget which is it, these days. Anyway, great news. The boy did good.

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  5. Thanks, all of you, much appreciated. Obviously I won't be the asshole predator MBA that uses the financial sector as a playground, but I'm at an age where "changing things from the inside" is not really a viable option. More like find a better job ASAP, so's I can get those student loans paid down, start socking some money away, and prepare to pull away from this house of cards as soon as possible. I hear you can get by in Costa Rica pretty reasonably these days.

    Marius, I did think that with school ending, there would be more time to write, and there will, but probably not as much as I previously thought.

    It's as much desire as time; as I've said before, sometimes I feel like I'm in a rut, writing about the same tremendously stupid people, and the even stupider people who idolize them. But there's nothing else in particular I feel like writing about for the most part.

    So as our latest iteration of manufactured electoral consent kicks into high gear for the next eighteen months, I'm sure the sideshow will provide plenty of fodder. But in addition to catching up on a lot of reading (ostensibly for enjoyment, though right now I'm working on Peter Hopkirk's The Great Game and Kim Warren's Competitive Strategy Dynamics, moderately heavy lifting until I work my way back around to The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest), I've been trying to get my guitar chops back, maybe start a project along that line later in the year, some recording, possibly a reasonably-priced PDF instruction e-book if I can put my own spin on it.

    As far as work, just being in the public sector -- especially in Cali -- means more work for the same or less money (probably an 8% hit in PERS contributions later this year, while being allowed to replace less than half the staff that's jumped ship in the last year). So the real project this summer is, yes, to look for greener pastures, perfect market for that.

    But I do still have that urge to call fools for what they are, and invent newer and filthier epithets to describe them.

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