Suspicious of someone's qualifications.

[YNK]

A family member (not local to me) claims to have completed a masters in politics and economics (and later abandoned a PhD).
I did attend his degree ceremony many years ago.

He makes passive aggressive jokes and refuses to seriously engage in any meaningful way whenever a conversation touches on the subject.

I recently asked for some information only to be told "we didn't do the cold war".

Is it even possible to achieve a masters degree in this subject without covering the cold war?
I'm really trying to get my head around this and it's really bothering me.

This has really bugged me but I'm worried I'm I being a bitch for smelling a rat?

Glad you're reassured about his qualifications.

Of course, for him to have set your Spidey senses off like this, he may just be a gobshite! Always good to be wary of them, regardless of their academic past.

What an odd question. History is vast! Economics degrees primarily focus on the theory of economics such as macro and micro economics and politics teaches the theory behind the major typos of political systems. There’s no reason to have learnt about the Cold War. He might have but it’s completely normal not to have done this. You also attended his ceremony so how on earth could he have been lying. You can’t just show up to a ceremony and ask for a robe! You receive credits for each passed subject and the correct number is needed to graduate. I assure you that Uni’s check that students have graduated.

i assume that you don’t have a degree yourself or you would know that generalist degrees don’t cover everything to do with a topic area. Why are you trying to find proof that he didn’t deserve his degree? I assume that he doesn’t want to answer questions as he knows he’s being quizzed or he’s long since lost any interest in the area. Leave him alone and accept that he did get and deserve his degree.

@YNK So just to be clear on this, you attended his degree ceremony but you don't believe he has a degree?

Good lord no - I wasn't testing him!

Being only armed with general knowledge that would be a crazy thing to do.

😂 I've got a similar degree and some people love to begin 'debates' with me as soon as they find out. No thank you. I just laugh it off and feign ignorance. I only want to talk about degree specialism when I'm being paid - not when I meet a random person in the pub.

And I didn't study everything either. He might just not be bothered about getting into debates?

I have a science degree, I studied a teeny tiny subsection of the overall topic in great depth that's what all degrees are really at least in the UK where you specialise fairly early and the higher levels degree you have the more you specialise. In other countries you can have a more rounded approach taking semesters in other topics alongside your major, I believe Scotland and America both have systems like that.

@YNK have you ever thought of taking an OU course if you are interested in the subject, you don't require any formal qualifications and they even offer free short course on many topics through the Open learn website.

Of course not - I know he has the degree, I just thought a degree would have surely covered the cold war but if not a masters certainly would have.

Not being academic myself it's what I imagined, but I can see I was wrong.

I'm sorry if people have been offended by my mistake.

Thank you but I've been expanding on my general knowledge since I retired after having a stroke and I'm thoroughly enjoying it with no pressure to add to my qualifications - it's a real luxury.

Oddly, my relative was commenting on my eclectic reading choices after looking up Goodreads, which is why we had the conversation in the first place.

When did he do his degree? The cold war is something that might have been touched on in politics courses 30+ years ago but would be considered history now.

Yes, something very bad happened more recently and I'm afraid I was forced to create some firm boundaries in our relationship.

I guess a lot has played on my mind since then so I'm glad to let this one go.
Things became very difficult totally unexpectedly.

Actually I wouldn't count on that !

I have a PhD in a related field and I couldn’t really tell you much of anything about the Cold War other than name the major players. 🤷🏻‍♀️ It doesn’t interest me.

But you actually saw him collect the degree?

Studying a subject to masters level isn’t like studying it at school or even normal degree level. It’s not a matter of it ‘covering’ all topics and stuff being ‘taught’. Students will normally choose a specialism. University learning is kind of more about HOW you learn- research, applying critical thinking and analysis to literature, building a growth mindset- than teaching information as such.

My son in law did a degree in Maths, a Masters in computer science and a PhD in computational linguistics (or something like that). If your cousin did not want to study the cold War in depth he would choose different modules. I did a law degree and know nothing about Patent law for example but I used to know rather a lot about Revenue law.

I have a Ph.D in Computer Science. It didn't cover 99.9% of Computer Science topics but I did cover that remaining 0.1% sub-topic in extreme detail becoming the world expert on it (no one else should have done what you are doing in your Ph.D). It's the same with a Masters - you probably only cover 5% of the possible topics but that detail is deeper than an undergrad.

One thing I will note is that when you reach that level of education, you are very cautious who you discuss your learning with - it's exhausting having to explain the basics just so you can have a reasonable conversation. That's why academics seek out other academics to be friends with. Unfortunately, you don't get to be that selective with family (as superbly demonstrated in the OP).

The Cold War is a huge subject. You could study an entire degree about it and still only skim the surface. That’s why it’s not typically covered in masters degrees.

I have a master’s in economics and politics and didn’t study the cold war.

It's very possible, as everyone's said, you study in great detail a very few topics/events/theories. These kind of qualifications give you the skills of analysis, writing, developing an argument, interpreting data, understanding criticism, how to apply theories etc. You're not meant to come out knowing broad facts about the whole subject, you come out knowing how to study it. I think it's a common misunderstanding that universities teach huge swathes of general information, that you then come out knowing every king and queen of england in history or the plot of every famous novel if you're studying English literature. You don't, you come out understanding how to study tiny sections in great depth.

I studied politics and history! And I remember very little of it! I remember the stuff I was really interested in but there was so much information and reading, I memorised it at the time and then forgot all of it.

My DH has gone back to uni now and studying international relations and one of his modules was on political theories, which I obviously studied in depth. I shamefully remember almost zero!

Eh? What’s this thread about then?

My degree was business and management and I could't tell you much that I learnt from it except what I have since expanded upon over thr past 20 years of work. Alsonwe did a whole three year module on entrepreneaurship which did not include how to set up a company, which is why i took the module then didnt learn anything I wanted to find out about. His degree may not have covered the cold war and for masters and phd you really specialise in a couple of things only

Hi OP you seem like a really lovely poster who has listened to others and changed opinion, I wish more mumsnetters were like you! It sounds like something deeper is going on here, I'd trust yourself and your doubts even if the Masters thing is a red herring... if he's making you uncomfortable or is pushing boundaries then perhaps that is the thing that needs your attention, please put yourself first in this relationship x

Isn't that higher education. You learn more and more detail about less and less stuff.

Why are you interrogating him and investigating?. What is to you?