Hello friends, I have been caught in a dilemma recently.

When I was 24, I completed a BTEC HND and an online bachelors degree from the uni of Wales from the UK. It was a bad move because it turned out that the uni has a horrible reputation and my validated degree is not recognised by most employers, making it hard to find a graduate job back home in Singapore. It also doesn't help that the two biggest universities back home are ranked 12/13 in the world and are churning out graduates.

After that, I went backpacking for a year or two and then worked in universities in China teaching English.

Now, I am already 30-31. I want to go back home, earn a decent salary, get married, buy a house, etc. I applied for a few courses and I have been admitted into 2 courses

1. Do a masters in politics from a top 20 global university

2. Do a mphil/phd with funding from a top 40 global university

I am not sure if I complete a masters in politics, will my lousy online degree still hinder my job search/career progression? I hope to work in the government sector or in a bank after this.

I am also quite interested in doing the phd as I have been working in universities for a few years now. However, surely in academia, they will not hire someone like myself even if I have a phd since my bachelors is of such lousy calibre? My age is also a slight issue as I will be 35 when I complete the phd.

There is also the option of transferring my online degree's credits onto a more reputable degree and completing it in 1-2 years time, but I feel a little tired at doing another bachelors again and wonder if it is necessary.

What do you guys think?

I personally don't think your BSc will hinder your career progression once you get a MSc.

Having spent 20+ years in Banking I will answer this purely from that perspective (not academia or politics) please bear in mind that only having qualifications gets you a foot in the door at the lowest level - with the opportunity to rise. With experience only, you may miss the chance of getting some of those interviews. It's a catch 22 situation.

Degree's, viewed in isolation in industry are not the silver bullet, people need to remember they do not trump experience and demonstrable achievements. But.. and here is the positive.. if you get a role and you have a relevent degree then you have an advantage and it is your responsibility to utilise your knowledge.

My advice on which to choose? Want to work in a bank - option 1. Want to work in academia - option 2. Now toss a coin and find out which one you really want to do.. if you are disappointed by the result simply do the other one :)

"My advice on which to choose? Want to work in a bank - option 1. Want to work in academia - option 2. Now toss a coin and find out which one you really want to do.. if you are disappointed by the result simply do the other one :)"

This is great advice!

AOE, has got it spot on!

I don't think your BSc degree will hinder you. No need to transfer it, Your postgraduate degree is what people will look at. Whichever option you will take, you will be fine.

Only take number 1 route if you are sure you don't want to do a PhD, as a funded PhD is hard to come by.

top 20 or top 40 global university is not very different!

And I wouldn't do a PhD unless you want to work in academia. A PhD is not that advantageous anymore outside of academia.

Is the PhD offer from the US? If it is there's normally a point where you can opt out with a Masters if you decide that an academic career isn't for you, so you might be able to have the best of both worlds. It would be worth checking anyway. The academic job market for Politics PhDs is horrendous, and unlikely to improve, so pick your research topic carefully if you do want academia and keep contacts open for a non-academic plan B.

Hi, the PhD offer is from a good university in Asia. It is a PhD in Business (my online BTEC/degree were in Business). The supervisor is pretty top notch as well, he published in many top journals. I am just worried I will be looked down upon even if I get into the PhD and do relatively well and be unable to find a job in academia later given my 'degree mill like' bachelors.

I can exit with a masters in research after 2 years but a masters in research is viewed as a failed PhD in many cases. I might as well go all the way and not let my supervisor down.

The PhD is funded but after all deductions (rent, food, tuition, etc) , I will have very little savings at the end of each month, basically, I will be without income for 4-5 years.

I think I may go into industry as well, particularly research for government or private companies, or consulting roles.

The politics masters (with many economics modules inside) offer is from a university in Singapore. It think it may provide me an option to apply for a corporate type job in a MNC in Singapore, once again not sure if my online degree from wales will be an issue here.

There is an option to transfer credits from my bachelors and complete a reputable degree from a group of 8 Australian university ranked around 100 globally in a year or two.

Personally, I think I wanna go for the PhD. But I have very limited research skills (only did some applied research, mostly qualitative surveys, triangulation of techniques, and wrote a qualitative 40 page dessertation, etc). Will it be hard to learn the more technical research stuff? Such as meta analysis, regression analysis, etc?

I am a qualitative person so long essays and words are not a problem, I do well with words. 4 years is a long time, and I got to wait another 6 months as well, so that is almost 4-5 years.

Looking at profiles of PhD students, they are all mostly from top universities, so I do feel a bit small I guess.

If I do the Msc in Politics and do well, I can also do a 3 year Phd after that with funding.

The fact that they offered you means you are good enough. Don't worry about others.

In terms of research skills, is there any reason why you can't do qualitative or mixed methods?

I had absolutely no background on qualitative or quantitative research skills, and I've had to go to research method courses and attend modules to learn. It has been really enjoyable so far and worked well.

Is this guaranteed?

Not guaranteed. But the Msc and PhD are the same department, so they seem to like their own graduates a lot and even waive courses for Msc graduates.

Employers in Singapore have problems even accepting my online HND/wales degree as a diploma equivalent it seems.

Frankly speaking, in Singapore, very few people want to do a PhD because people are pragmatic and they recognise that there is very little money in doing a PhD. So all my friends have gone into banking, medicine, law, civil service, big companies, etc.

So 90% of those who do a PhD are non locals. So, my gut feeling is that they will be happy to accept any local student and provide funding, especially to their own student.

I don't think doing a Masters or PhD will improve your career prospectus. Rather, they are seeking work related experience. Doing more study, could simply make you overqualified for these jobs.

I think this depends on the country you are in. In many countries, simply having a MSc or PhD gets you a pay rise. I've also been applying for UK jobs recently (non-academic), and I've seen several jobs specifying that postgrad degrees are desirable.

i have no choice. i only got an online degree from the uni of wales, which basically makes me unemployable in singapore. it is not even treated as equivalent to a diploma.

the only way is to get a more credible masters level certificate i think. in fact, i am thinking of transferring credits to get a new and more reputable degree after i finish my masters as well, this can be done in one year full time or 2 years part time.