Last night I had a chance to meet up with some of my former students at a Christmas cocktail party. Amid all the talk of what's happened since I left Georgetown, we also revisited why these folks are putting themselves through the stress of this master's degree program and what they're hoping to get from it.
When you reach the master's degree level, particularly a "professional" master's degree like an MBA, a Master of Public Policy, or in this case, a Master of Professional Studies degree, the focus of the degree is generally more on professional development and advancement than it is on education for the sake of being educated (which is, to a large extent, the traditional purpose underlying a bachelor's degree, though for an ever-increasing number of students at that level, it's still about job training over education.). For Creatives, the Master of Arts degree that others might find "fuzzy" is often a professional degree; a master's in drama, studio art, or English can have a professional orientation if it feeds directly into your line of work.
But do Creatives really need that level of education?
Some do, of course. If you're hiring professors at a university they need their PhD. Scientific researchers generally need at least a master's if not a doctorate. Good policy designers typically have an advanced degree as well. But does everybody need that? For that matter, does everyone even need a bachelor's?
As you figure out the requirements for your workforce, don't fall into the trap of thinking you need college graduates, or even advanced degree holders, just because you think that's the conventional wisdom. Though there is a growing trend in this country to assume that people need a degree to get ahead, you need to decide if that's really true for you. Does creative work really require a formal degree, or are you more interested in talent? Should you look for the best portfolio rather than the most prestigious university on a resume? Are there certifications in your field that are more useful than a 4-year degree? Can an associate's degree from a community college give your Creatives the formal skills they need? Ask yourself: what is the advantage of hiring someone with a degree over someone with other qualifications?
This isn't to say that a bachelor's degree doesn't carry some benefit in every line of work. A broad, liberal education exposes your Creatives to more viewpoints and opens their eyes to the world. It helps them develop different ways of thinking that can be appropriate in different situations; that's why engineers take economics and English majors take biology. There's something to be said for the demonstrated discipline of starting an intense program and seeing it through to the end. You just need to figure out what's really important for your firm, and hire accordingly. Does the cost associated with getting a degree translate into an appropriate benefit? Should you require a degree? Or should you focus your attention on other things?
Don't get the impression I'm anti-college; after 8 years in the front of a university classroom, I'm certainly not. What I'm opposed to, though, is the view of college merely as job training, or the idea that you have to go "just because." Those ideas are both being promulgated by employers, and in the process of requiring people to get degrees when the career field doesn't really call for them, they end up forcing more people to go into debt for degrees they don't really need, they cause our university populations to grow to sizes that hurt our ability to educate, and they encourage the growth of less-than-academically-stellar for-profit "colleges" that take money from students without helping them gain the tools they need to succeed. As long as employers demand their Creatives have college degrees when they don't really need them, these trends will continue, while those same employers will find themselves with a workforce that makes more demands in terms of compensation to help pay the price for that degree. Take the time instead to figure out what you really need from your Creatives, and build your workforce around that.
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