So, you graduated from high school. Yesterday or 15 years ago, it doesn't matter. You can breathe out, work, stay awake, take a break from solving specific problems and narrow your specialization as much as possible in order to become an expensive professional. Well, or vice versa - choose what you like, delve into various areas and technologies, look for yourself in a profession. The study is over, finally and irrevocably. Or not? Or do you want (very necessary) to defend a dissertation, go to study for pleasure, master a new specialty, get crusts for pragmatic career goals? Or maybe one morning you get up and feel an unknown craving for a pen and a notebook, for consuming new information in a pleasant company of adult students? Well, the hardest thing - what if you are an eternal student ?!
Today we will talk about whether there is education after high school, how a person and his perception change, what motivates and what demotivates us all to study, study and study again.
This is the third part of the series "Live and Learn"
Part 3. Additional education
Part 4. Education inside the work
Part 5. Self-education
Share your experience in the comments - maybe, thanks to the efforts of the RUVDS team and Habr readers, someone's education will turn out to be a little more conscious, correct and fruitful.
▍Master
Master's degree is a logical continuation of higher education (in particular, bachelor's degree). It provides in-depth information on specialized subjects, expands and deepens the professional theoretical base.
Master's degree is chosen in several cases.
- As a continuation of the bachelor's degree, students simply take specialized exams and continue their studies, as in senior years.
- As a deepening of a specialty, a specialist with 5-6 courses chooses a master's program in order to deepen and consolidate knowledge, receive an additional diploma, and sometimes just to stay a student longer (for various reasons).
- As a way to get additional education on the basis of higher education. A very difficult challenge: you need to learn a "foreign" specialized subject and enter a master's program (most often for a fee), passing through the competition with native students of the selected university. However, it is quite a possible story, and it is this motivation that seems to me one of the most justified.
The biggest problem of the master's program is that the same teachers read there as in the specialist's and bachelor's programs, and most often this happens according to the same manuals and developments, that is, time is wasted. And if bachelors have an objective need for the “second part of education”, then it is better for specialists in the same profile to choose another way to deepen their knowledge.
But if you decide to enter the magistracy not according to your profile, then I will give you some tips for preparing.
- Start preparing about a year in advance, at least from the previous fall. Take the ticket plan for the entrance exams and proceed to the analysis of the tickets. If the specialty is very different from yours (an economist went to psychology, a programmer to engineers), be prepared for the fact that specific difficulties with subjects will await you. It takes time to overcome them.
- Ask questions on thematic forums, sites, in groups. Even better, if you find a person with a chosen specialty and ask him about the "secrets of the future profession."
- Prepare from multiple sources, work on preparation almost every day, review materials.
- At the entrance exams, position yourself as a specialist who is interested in learning, and does not go for the sake of a piece of paper or a tick. This makes a good impression and smooths out possible gaps in the answer (unless it's a test or a written exam).
- Do not be nervous - this is no longer an obligation and not a duty to your parents, it's just your desire, your choice. Nobody will judge you for failure.
If you decide to study, study honestly and conscientiously - after all, in the magistracy you study for yourself.
▍Postgraduate studies
The most classic option for continuing higher education for ambitious guys who are ready to make their contribution to science. For admission to graduate school, you must pass three exams: a foreign language, philosophy and history of science, a profile subject in your specialty. Full-time postgraduate study lasts 3 years, part-time - 4 years. In the daytime budgetary postgraduate study, the postgraduate student receives a scholarship (total for the year 13 = 12 ordinary + one subsidy “for books”). During the course of study, a graduate student does several basic things:
- prepares his independent scientific research (dissertation) for the degree of candidate of sciences;
- completes compulsory teaching practice (paid);
- works with the supervisor, sources, leading organization, etc., writes reports on special forms;
- speaks at conferences and symposiums;
- collects VAK publications in special accredited journals;
- passes three candidate exams (the same as for admission, only with a higher level of theoretical training and scientific knowledge + translation of scientific literature).
Upon completion of graduate school (including early or extended under certain circumstances), the graduate student defends (or does not defend) his Ph.D. .
Really, it's boring? And it even smells a little of old books, library cloth and custom-made envelope glue. But everything changes when she comes - the army! From being a haven for bots, graduate school is becoming the subject of fierce competition from guys who don't want to serve. At the same time, they definitely need full-time postgraduate studies, and there are treacherously few places in any department in it. If you add a little cronyism, a corruption component, sympathy from the commission, then the chances are melting ...
In fact, there are several tips for graduate students for any purpose.
- Prepare early, the sooner the better. Write articles for student scientific collections, participate in research competitions, speak at conferences, etc. You should be visible in the scientific community of the university.
- Choose a department, specialty and a narrow topic to develop it in term papers, research studies, a diploma, and then in a dissertation. The fact is that it is important for the university, the department and your supervisor that there are effective defenses, and a student with such a serious approach is practically a guarantor of another successful defense, and other things being equal, they will choose you. This is directly the main, very significant factor - believe it or not, but it is more significant than money and connections.
- Do not delay preparing for the entrance exams - they will overtake you almost immediately after the diploma, and this is very inopportune. Although it’s quite simple to pass them: the commission is familiar, the states are still fresh in your head, you can take a foreign language the one that you know best (for example, I had French - and next to the “triple” crowd of “English” it was a jackpot. Moreover , I know from experience with graduate students that many people start learning another language 2 years before admission in order to gain an extra score).
Education in graduate school is about the same as in a university: periodic lectures (should be in-depth, but depends on the experience and conscience of the teacher), discussions of dissertation fragments with a supervisor, teaching, etc. It takes great time from work and personal life, but in principle it is tolerable, in comparison with a full-time university - in general, a paradise.
Let's leave the topic of writing a dissertation outside the brackets - these are three more separate posts. .
To defend yourself or not is entirely your choice. Here are the pros and cons for you.
Pros:
- This is prestigious and says a lot about you as a person: perseverance, ability to achieve goals, learning ability, analysis and synthesis skills. Employers appreciate it, it has been repeatedly noticed.
- This is an advantage if you decide to become a teacher in the future or in the present.
- A PhD is already a part of science, and if necessary, the scientific community will gladly accept you.
- This greatly increases self-esteem and confidence in yourself as a professional.
Cons:
- A dissertation is a long time, you will spend a lot of time on it.
- For a scientific degree, a salary supplement is provided only in universities and some state institutions. companies and authorities. As a rule, in the commercial environment PhDs are admired, but the enthusiasm is not monetized.
- Advocacy is a bureaucracy: you will have to deal with the practical lead organization (this could be your employer), with the scientific lead organization, with journals, publications, opponents, and so on.
- Dissertation defense is expensive. If you work at a university, you can get financial assistance and partially cover the costs, otherwise, all expenses fall on you: from your trips, printing and postage to tickets and gifts to opponents. Well, a banquet. In 2010, I got about 250 rubles, but in the end the dissertation was not completed and brought to the defense - money in business turned out to be more interesting, and the work is more serious (if anything, I repent a little).
In general, from the height of experience, I will answer the question of whether it is worth defending as follows: “If you have time, money and brains, yes, it’s worth it. Then it will be lazier and lazier, although with practical experience it will be somewhat easier.
Important: if you are defending yourself precisely because you have something to say in science and there is no goal to cut off, gain a foothold in a university or receive a postgraduate scholarship, you can apply for a job - this form of postgraduate education is cheaper than paid postgraduate studies, is not limited by strict deadlines and does not require entrance examinations.
▍Second higher education
One of my employers said that not having two higher educations in our time is simply indecent. And the truth is, sooner or later it comes to us along with the need for a change of specialty, career growth, wages, or simply out of boredom.
Let's define the terminology: the second higher education is education, as a result of which a new specialist with certain theoretical knowledge and practical skills is formed, and the certificate of it is a state-recognized diploma of higher education. That is, this is the classic path: from 3 to 6 courses, sessions, exams, state exams and defense of a diploma.
Today, a second higher education can be obtained in several ways (depending on the specialty and university).
- After the first higher education, enter and fully unlearn a new specialty in the daytime, part-time, evening or part-time department. Most often, such a choice occurs with a radical change in specialty: he was an economist, he decided to become a foreman; was a doctor, trained as a lawyer; was a geologist, became a biologist.
- Study in the evening or part-time in parallel with the first higher education. Many universities now provide such an opportunity after the first year and even provide preferential admission with an average score above the standard established by the university. You study in the main specialty and at the same time receive a diploma in law, economics, etc., most often a translator. To be honest, it's not very stressful - as a rule, the sessions do not overlap, but there is less time for rest.
- After the second higher education, study in a shortened program (3 years) in an adjacent specialty or in another specialty with passing part of the exams (by agreement with the university).
The easiest way to get a second education is at your own university: familiar teachers, easy transfer of subjects, often convenient mechanisms for installment payment for tuition, a single infrastructure, a familiar atmosphere, your own classmates as part of a group (as a rule, there are several such students per stream). But it is studying at one's own university that turns out to be the most ineffective in terms of the growth of knowledge and skills, because it happens out of inertia and more for the sake of "everyone ran, and I ran."
However, the motives are different, and it is worth considering what motivates those entering the second higher education and how the quality of their education is connected with this, how much the expended strength and nerves pay off.
- To master a specialty adjacent to the main one. In this case, you expand your professional horizon, become more versatile and have more career prospects (for example, an economist + a lawyer, a programmer + a manager, a translator + a PR specialist). Learning is quite simple, the intersection of disciplines is postponed in the head. Such education quickly pays off due to the demand for additional skills.
- Learn a new specialty "for yourself." Perhaps something did not work out with your first education and, having earned money, you decided to make your dream come true - to graduate from the university that you want. It’s even a bit of a manic state: to prepare for exams, to enter, and now, as an adult, go to lectures again, taking studies 100% seriously. Such studies have no purpose other than the fulfillment of a desire, and can often go sideways: for example, you will have to compete in the labor market with young graduates, grow your career again, receive a starting salary, etc. And also, most likely, you will not withstand the load and either quit or lose an important part of your life (most often personal). Learning without a goal is very bad. It is better to buy excellent books on the topic and study for pleasure.
- Learn a new job skill. Everything is obvious here: you know what you are studying for and you are almost guaranteed to recoup the costs (and sometimes the employer initially pays for the training). By the way, it has been noticed: when it is work, and not obligatory study, knowledge is given faster and more efficiently than an example. Good, proper material motivation makes the brain work 🙂
- Learn a foreign language. But this is the wrong address. Either you go to a foreign language and study daytime from bell to bell, or it’s better to find other ways to learn the language, if only because at the second higher level you will have such subjects as linguistics, general theory of linguistics, stylistics, and so on. In the evening and evening-correspondence, this is a completely useless load.
The most dangerous thing in the process of getting a second higher education is to allow yourself to study like on the first one: skipping, cramming on the last night, ignoring self-study, etc. Still, this is the education of a conscious person for quite rational purposes. The investment must be effective.
▍Additional education
Unlike the second higher education, this is a shorter-term education aimed at increasing competencies or obtaining a new specialty within the existing one. When receiving additional education, in most cases you will not come across a general education blog of disciplines (and will not pay for them), and the information in lectures and seminars is more concentrated. The teachers are different, here you are lucky: they can be all the same university ones, or maybe they are real practitioners who know which side to present the theory so that it will definitely come in handy for you.
There are two forms of further education.
Refresher courses (trainings, seminars here) - the shortest type of additional education, from 16 hours. The goal of the courses is as simple as possible - to expand knowledge in some narrow issue so that the student can come to the office and put them into practice. For example, CRM training will help a salesperson sell more effectively, and a prototyping course will help an office analyst or project manager make advanced prototypes for colleagues, rather than scribbling on a whiteboard.
As a rule, this is a good way to get the maximum information squeezed out of hundreds of books and resources for you, pump a skill, sort out existing knowledge on the shelves. Just before training, be sure to read reviews and avoid overly promoted and annoying trainers and institutions (we won’t name them, we think you yourself know these companies).
By the way, refresher courses are one of the non-standard forms of team building that combines communication, a new environment and benefits. Much better than bowling or drinking together.
Professional retraining – long-term training from 250 hours, during which the specialty is significantly deepened or its vector changes. For example, a long Python course is a professional retraining course for a programmer, and a software development course is for an engineer.
As a rule, an introductory interview is given for a retraining course to determine the level of training and primary skills of a specialist, but it happens that everyone is enrolled (after 2-3 lessons, the extra ones will still be eliminated). Otherwise, studies are very similar to the senior courses of the university: specialization, exams, tests, and often final work and its defense. The listeners of such courses are motivated, ready-made practitioners, it is interesting to study and communicate, the atmosphere is democratic, the teacher is available for questions and discussions. If there are problems, they can always be solved with the methodologist of the courses - after all, this is education for your money, often a lot.
By the way, as experience shows, in most universities the most unsuccessful course of professional retraining is English. The fact is that it is conducted by university professors, they treat the matter with coolness, and in fact you just do the exercises from the textbook and workbook. In this regard, a well-chosen language school with the practice of live communication is much better, forgive me, respected FDPO of Russian universities.
Additional education is a great way to solve problems with missing skills, try something new, try to change jobs, or just believe in yourself. But then again, read the reviews, choose state universities, and not various "universities of all Rus' and the Universe."
Outside of this article, there were several more types of additional education that do not belong to the “classical” ones: studying at a corporate university, language schools (offline), programming schools (offline), online learning - anything. We will definitely return to them in parts 4 and 5, because. they are already more related to work than to the basic higher education of a specialist.
In general, learning is always useful, but I urge you to be selective and clearly understand what kind of motive drives you, whether it is worth spending time and money solely for the sake of an extra piece of paper or the realization of internal ambitions.
Tell us in the comments how many higher and additional educations you have, do you have a scientific degree, what experience was successful and what was not so good?
▍Greedy Postscript
And if you have already grown up and you lack something for development, for example, a good powerful go to - We have a lot of interesting things.
Source: habr.com