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?

I'm MLit. I managed to achieve this without having read any of Jane Austen and most of Charles Dickens. People assume I'll be a whizz at Literature in pub quizzes. Well, maybe. If it's on the five books I wrote about for my Master's thesis 😂. Even I was surprised how few books I read. It was mostly papers about books.

Please get a life. Not any of your business. Even IF he was lying maybe it’s from a place of insecurity….back off!

My dd’s history A level teacher gave her his very own notes from him masters to encourage her, it was medieval history

Yes - you might be unreasonable. Academic study does get deeper but also narrower.

The old joke is that you learn more and more about less and less... until you know everything about nothing :)

It sounds to me like he's had to suffer far too many ridiculous conversations where people take the piss about him not knowing absolutely everything about global politics (or possibly simply not agreeing with their view on something) as the behaviour/response you describe suggests to me that his guard is up.

I have an MA in Politics and didn't study the Cold War.

A Masters only takes a year.

Gosh, so many posters have obviously been triggered and continue to be upset regardless of previous posts showing my apologies for being wrong and the reasons for my discomfort.....all while I have been 'getting a life'.
Perhaps some of you should take a leaf from your own book and stop trying to create false narratives for other folk.

I made an error (not the first and no doubt not the last).
Once again, apologies to anyone who has been hurt by my mistake. Please don't let it eat you up forever, the error was rectified long ago.

You posted on a public forum. People gave their opinions. telling people to get a life on a post you asked for help on. Lovely.

Good luck.

It was me being told to get a life actually. You may have missed that due to your knee-jerk.