Of Misrepresentation & Degree Mills!

After following the "Dr" Claim-en Chiang's saga for the past few days, my curiosity got the better of me. I went to google what degree mills are, and so I cut-and-paste the entire top portion for my readers below.

Now, Eagleboy remembered attending one of his "free" seminar also, round about last year. The remembrence still carried with it some post-indigestion churnings in the stomach. I could still feel the same old hardcore pressure-selling tactics to lure the un-initiated to sign up his so-called "Bao-Jiak" trading course. Sibeh sian one, listening to nothing but his metal credit card and some cave in Sentuksah...

Me, being the 'not-so-smart' one, of course missed the "once-in-a-lifetime" opportunity to be his student. Sad to say, Eagleboy also didn't come from a very reputable education background. He only graduated from NUS, which he always believe it stands for: Nothing Up Stairs (in the thinking department). He can't be smart enough to sign up for such a deal. Afterall, it is only $3800 what, and can use credit card and pay by instalments you know.

Suffice to say, there is no more stones around on the floor for me to cast now. All thrown already. Someone had already hurled the last one. I hate to say this but I am curious to find out how this poor ignorance bastard will defend himself. Afterall, if you claimed to carry a PhD, you cannot act "blur". That will put other PhDs in very bad lights, you know.

Now, I have always thought that PhD people have "Permanent Head Damage". But now I believe they "Purposely Hide their Deception". These people will have to "Pay Heftily until Dried". His "Program Has been Disrupted" and he will be on the "Public Hate-List Display".

But before all these shit, Eagleboy suggests the cockter better "Prepare His Defense" before a class-action suit!

Here's the site: http://www.chea.org/degreemills/frmPaper.htm

Diploma or degree mills come in many guises. Some degree mills blatantly offer to sell a degree and perhaps a transcript from a legitimate school. Others can be easily recognized by promising that an applicant can receive a degree in a very short period of time, sometimes as little as five days. Another type of degree mill will purport to look at an applicant’s life experience and award a degree based solely on a description of this experience. Others may require the student to submit papers or other assignments, but still will provide the degree in a short period of time with much less work than would be required by legitimate institutions. An advertisement that claims a student can “earn” a degree in much less time than it would take at a legitimate institution is likely evidence that the school is a degree mill.

Degree mills may resemble legitimate institutions in some ways. For example, many legitimate schools provide credit for life experience, but almost all of these schools require students to provide extensive documentation demonstrating how their experience relates to the learning objectives of the course or courses for which they are seeking credit and may require papers that relate the experience to the course requirements as well. Some schools will also provide opportunities for completing the requirements for a degree in a short period of time. Typically, however, these kinds of programs are intended for students who have completed a considerable number of college-level courses, perhaps at a number of institutions, but have not put these credits together to complete a degree.

Now, early in the 21st century, technology is the impetus for a renewed threat. In the past several years, concern over the problem of fraudulent operators has escalated because of the ease of creating a fraudulent institution on the Internet. A moderately skilled web designer can very easily and quickly create a home page for a fraudulent school with the look and feel of a home page of a legitimate school. Often, it is difficult if not impossible to track down the individuals responsible for perpetrating the fraud, and even if they were to be located, they could very well be operating from some location outside the jurisdiction of state or U.S. laws. It is likely that many of these fraudulent schools are also short-lived, making detection even more difficult. They can start up, collect considerable amounts of money from consumers, go out of business, change their name and emerge as a new entity in a very short period of time.

This is occurring at the same time that there is more and more pressure on individuals to earn degrees, not only bachelor’s degrees, but master’s and doctoral degrees as well. Jobs and promotions increasingly go to individuals with the greatest educational qualifications, even when individuals’ work experience may be more relevant to the job than is a degree. This creates pressures on individuals to obtain degrees, tempting some to take the easy route to a degree – the degree mill.

Taken from CHEA
Council for Higher Education Accreditation