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Columbia LSMA
| Razzle-dazzle bright pocket flask | 05/21/10 |
| Tan Dashing Property | 05/24/10 |
| Slate Arousing Sanctuary | 05/25/10 |
| Razzle Giraffe | 05/26/10 |
| jet-lagged idiotic casino trump supporter | 07/10/10 |
| Razzle Giraffe | 07/25/10 |
| Sadistic Sound Barrier | 07/06/10 |
| Claret church building | 07/08/10 |
| Sadistic Sound Barrier | 07/09/10 |
Poast new message in this thread
Date: May 21st, 2010 3:38 PM Author: Razzle-dazzle bright pocket flask Is Columbia's LSA a rip-off cash cow or a legit MA program? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1317418&forum_id=3#15046622) |
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Date: May 24th, 2010 4:12 PM Author: Tan Dashing Property Complete waste of time. Seriously. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1317418&forum_id=3#15072069) |
Date: May 25th, 2010 7:19 PM Author: Slate Arousing Sanctuary cash cow. avoid. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1317418&forum_id=3#15083287) |
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Date: May 26th, 2010 11:04 PM Author: Razzle Giraffe TTT
Stay away! It is a festering TTT Cash Cow out to get your money!
The same thing can be said about most Columbia masTTTers degrees. |
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Date: July 10th, 2010 9:28 AM Author: jet-lagged idiotic casino trump supporter What does TTT mean? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1317418&forum_id=3#15460772) |
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Date: July 25th, 2010 6:46 PM Author: Razzle Giraffe TTT = Third Tier Toilet (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1317418&forum_id=3#15608883) |
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Date: July 6th, 2010 12:48 PM Author: Sadistic Sound Barrier not the greatest. i never quite understood this program.
lots of teachers and unemployed people do LSMA to either gain credits toward a mandated pay raise or make themselves more "marketable" in a generic sense.
it's a step up from something like HES, but if you're hell-bent on doing a terminal masters and paying out your ass, i never quite got why you'd do LSMA instead of a regular MA or MS program that is a little more comprehensive. maybe it's less expensive since you pay by credit and can do it over time while you work (?). that seems like the only potential advantage. |
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Date: July 8th, 2010 10:34 PM Author: Claret church building They seem like pretty standard area studies degrees. You can always take advanced language courses on the side. The fact that you can work a bit as well in one of the largest high end job markets in the world instead of spending two years sequestered away in a library is a big plus too.
All-in-all, this board cares way too much about the relative merits of terminal MA / MPP / MPA type degrees. For 90% of employers, they are marginally better than a BA and not as useful as an MBA. No one is picking hairs over whether you went to Columbia vs. LSE vs. Chicago or whatever the hell the comparison of the day happens to be.
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Date: July 9th, 2010 3:57 AM Author: Sadistic Sound Barrier not every LSMA degree is area studies. let's go with that, though, and i'll simply give anecdotes consistent with my own experience.
there are three "area studies" degrees for east asia at columbia--MARSEA, EALAC, and LSMA. if you've done any of these degrees and have any capacity for objectivity, you'll realize that LSMA students are largely nontraditional, with more "pedestrian" career goals than the other two. lots of teachers, admin assistants, etc. in the LSMA program, whereas the other two tend to be filled with people right out of top or decent undergrads who want some specialized regional training before law school/MBA/PhD or a career in finance (less common), NGO mgmt, etc. my MARSEA class had students from harvard, gtown, columbia, wellesley, northwestern, and a number foreign universities. every person from that class is now either in a PhD program or is doing government or NGO work.
area studies programs might get roundly shit on here, but the truth is that LSMA and MARSEA/EALAC students (and other regional equivalents) are divergent breeds. not saying that either is all that impressive, but they have very different goals.
so i guess, to be as deferential as possible to LSMA students, you can say that LSMA students have very different goals and outcomes compared even to other area studies students (which are seen on this board as highly unprestigious). that's a best-case scenario. at worst, you can make a case for LSMA being a less rigorous, less respected program than some of the others, realizing that these are all highly niche-oriented programs. |