*discusses
*alluding
- can’t
Also, ‘we get relative to what the OP has pitted’? WTF?
I’m going to suggest that your assertion that your writing was ‘fine’ is actually false.
LOL.
Yes, your writing looks just fine and dandy to me.
Would you like a dookie?
hehe…
No, I am Not an English Major, and apparently spell check is there just for hints. 
Absolutely correct. And in my schools case it did. When I began my MBA, it was ranked in the top 15, perhaps even the top 10 but I honestly can’t remember now, by US NEWS (a magazine that rates universities on various criteria). My school dropped from a top 15 school to a school barely in the top 50 because they decided that they wanted at least 33% of each class to be foreign. Well, they accomplished that, but shot the ranking of the schools program and reputation to he’ll in the process.
I can only speculate as to why they chose this path, but whatever the stated reason, it boiled down to money. I’m not criticizing the foreign students… I just think the university was so geared to achieving the percentage goal that they ignored some basic requirements (being to speak English, for example). I heard they wanted to increase their global footprint to attract more foreign students to 1) increase their global profile and 2) increase revenue. Foreign students had a much higher tuition rate, and many of the kids were sponsored by someone or some organization that always paid their bills in full.
Perhaps now the foreign students speak english, and that’s no longer an issue. But when they were trying hard to build that base up and increase their global footprint, the let a lot of things slide. As a result, the schools ranking/reputation took a quick hit that they’ve never fully recovered from.
They didn’t seem to care that people like me chose the school partly because of their reputation. And I think I got a great education. However, I put a lot into it, because I thought one had to to get the high grades. Only later did I learn that even for someone who could speak perfect English, the idea that you would fail a course became almost an impossibility. In fact, scoring lower than a “C” was next to impossible. I don’t know if I would have studied less or not… That’s not my personality. But for someone who just wanted that piece of paper, he/she got it, and it looks exactly like mine.
I have never been asked for my GPA once.
If I started looking at business schools now, I might look at them, but probably never really consider going there unless it was a last resort or they paid my tuition.
And therein lies the problem. One of many.
Yeah, see, here’s the problem. English majors are not the only ones who should be able to write a coherent sentence. That would be everybody. Writing is not some esoteric skill that’s only applicable to highly specialized career fields - it’s a basic function to be able to communicate with others.
Man, I’m glad we cleared that up. Who knew?
You’d be surprised at how many students completely reject the idea that their writing should be evaluated as part of their performance in the class.
In end-of-semester class evaluations, i’ve received lots of student comments in the complaints section along the lines of:
“Too picky about writing. This isn’t an English class.”
“Harsh on papers. His criticism was rude. This class felt like a literature class and not a history class.”
The “picky” and “rude” and “harsh” criticism i give includes things like:
You need to learn how to use apostrophes correctly.
Please pay attention to subject/verb agreement.
You need to familiarize yourself with the difference between “there” and “their.”
You need to proofread your papers more closely before submitting them.
Pretty unreasonable, huh?
Are those online schools even worth anything?
I can’t imagine anyone who knows what they are would take them into account when hiring. There’s a webpage somewhere where one of the lecturers talk about working there and about how there are literally no standards for entry.
I think there was one on the University of Phoenix where I guy got to apply twice because he spelled his name wrong the first time…
Is this place (the SDMB) the equivalent of an online pub where semi-smart people come to chat and exchange ideas? Or is it an online univeristy with actual standards? Or is it a peer reviewed journal?
I’m tempted to learn leetspeak or whatever the hell that shit is just to irritate some of you people.
CUl8er
Try to, not try and.
(Yes, that was a fragment.) 
Happy reading!
Stop eluding too the fact that I not English Major. No need to right good.
Well, in an ideal world, everyone would be able to write functional prose without effort. But, it seems to me that an ability to write clearly and effectively is a useful and handy skill, however; it is not required. If it were, I should be getting a lot fewer puzzling emails.
It’s interesting that bill mentions text speak. A lot of tech support has moved to an IM model. Would abbreviated writing be acceptable there for you or would you desire the same level of formal writing as if you were communicating via email?
I had a very similar MBA experience, our school was in the top 30 or so and had about 40% foreign students (although I don’t think our rankings really moved around much because of it, I think we’ve actually moved up since I went there).. Some were great, but a lot of them just didn’t have sufficient command of English to really be able to engage the subject and be part of the dicsussion in a meaningful way. That was probably the most disappointing part of the school.
It was also true that no one really cared what you’re gardes were - BUT, the interviewing companies definitely cared what you learned, the case interview being applied pretty strongly by most good companies. Hell, United gave me an actual 2-hour sit down test when I came in for my second round.
As far as your last point about looking at business schools, I think that there’s a lot of value there - as long as you go to a top-50 school. You can learn a massive amount in 2 years that will be immediately applicable in a work environment, most have good career offices and good alumni network, adn companies still do on-campus interviews. I don’t know if there’s any degree that can add value as quickly as an MBA can (as long as you go to a good school and can interview well).
You misunderstand the product of these for-profit universities. It is not educated students, or even graduated students. It is rather student loan applications, the results of which go into the coffers of the “university” and the indebtedness thus created goes into the ledger of the student. Since there are far more people who want to go to a university than can get in, and because they are convinced that it is the degree that counts, not the learning, there will always be a ready supply of suckers.
Trust me, being able to edit really crappy writing is a very useful skill. Odds are you will someday have a boss who can’t write for crap.
I don’t think you can say anything meaningful about “this level” given your experience. It is like reading a particularly bad example of a self-published book and criticizing the publishing industry in general.
BTW, I don’t know about your field, but in mine if I see a “university” on a resume which I’m not familiar with, I look it up. If it is a for-profit university, this person gets a big black mark. That might not be true for what you’re doing.
But if you swim with nitwits, some people will identify you as a nitwit even if it isn’t true.
Definitely bad writing, but government agencies like NSA come into effect as a result of legislation, so there is a kernel of truth in that ill-begotten sentence.
I’ve already got one of those. He’s my editor.
It’s pretty much irrelevant in my field. Whether you get the job depends on where you’ve worked before. Degrees only determine how much they pay you, and between the company’s education benefits and pay scale criteria, I’ll made my money back in my first paycheck. That’s why I put up with this crap and vent on the SDMB.
No doubt. But “kernels of truth” should earn you Cs.
I certainly don’t blame you for jumping through this hoop in order to improve your pay, but it seems to me that the decision-makers at your company have some pretty ass-about priorities.
They apparently pay you based on the level of degree you attain, but they also clearly don’t care whether the degree itself has any value. So, they are willing to assist you in paying for this degree, and to pay you more once you have the piece of paper, and yet there’s a pretty damn good chance that you won’t be any better at your job at the end of the process.
I should bookmark this thread to roll out the next time someone accuses government departments of inefficiency. Although there are public sector jobs with similar problems. For example, in many districts teachers with Masters degrees are automatically paid more, whether or not they’re actually any better at teaching after they’ve been to grad school, and whether or not the program they attend is any good.
But why?
After all, you’ve just made very clear that the main purpose of this degree, for both you and your company, really has nothing to do with the actual quality of the education that you’re getting. The standard that you are held up to matters not a whit, in terms of your desire to do the degree or your sense of its value to you.
Don’t get me wrong; i actually agree with you about “kernels of truth” earning C’s. But i also believe that the purpose of a degree is to increase a person’s knowledge and understanding and analytical abilities and communication skills. If the others folks in your class are doing the degree for the same reasons as you are, then why does it matter if they write like ninth graders?