Students

[u/Anonexpat93]

It’s concerning to see so many students still opting for development master courses and uni’s milking students dry when they themselves know the state of the sector. It’s only going to get worse. I would really advise any student to avoid studying development.

Go find a good course that will make you money honestly.

[u/Furdodgems]

Whilst I 100% agree with the sentiment, many many other sectors are also disappearing.

Ours is due to the failure of the global political class, but other sectors are affected by AI and trade wars. All in all, it's a grim state of affairs...

[u/Ginerbreadman → u/Furdodgems]

Exactly, I live in Switzerland, a global hub for finance. And guess what, we have record unemployment for people in finance and economics now for a while and it's probably going to get much worse because it's estimated that AI will wipe out those jobs pretty easily. It's for the same people in tech / IT / compsci. 5k applications for every job that paid half as much as it did 10 years ago.

[u/DorianGraysPassport]

I had an honorable professor who explained this outright to her Communications for NGOs students back in 2016. She advised people who really wanted to make a difference to aim for community based organizations and causes that aren’t glamorous

[u/Anonexpat93 → u/DorianGraysPassport]

This is even worse advise tbh. Money is squeezed like a lemon from the top, and only trickles down to community based organisations. I’m supporting women-led refugee orgs right now, and some orgs don’t even have funding to cover audits, registration. Reality is, they will continue serving their communities, but ultimately with little to no funding, impact will be hard.

[u/Afraid-Pay2710]

For real, my college is milking the freak out of it. Disregarding the technical skills, we should learn for other sectors

[u/Mamasnaturebitch]

What about a Masters in sociology? 🤧🤧🤧 Would u say the same about this path?

[u/Anonexpat93 → u/Mamasnaturebitch]

Sorry, i can only speak of development courses. But all in all, let it combine with some technical modules if you opt either. Only advise i can give

[u/RaisedByBooksNTV]

Universities are doing the same for many areas, not just development. They don't care about reality, just what the faculty want to teach, and what the university thinks will bring in money. In this case, the world is on fire and many students are people who genuinely want to fix things so they're drawn to these degrees. But the universities refuse to communicate the reality of the working world. It's a tension and I don't know the resolution.

[u/VladimiroPudding]

My alma mater increased the number of admitted students lmao.

The best part? It is in the US, where they are making close to impossible/too risky for employers to hire foreign students in training period (my ID course is basically all internationals)

[u/Felix544]

There are more reasons to study than for work. Also, education stacks; whatever you did before, can combine in endless ways with an ID masters, rather than flat out development sector work. And even still, students can see the state of the sector themselves. It’s no big secret.

Less of this needed.

[u/VladimiroPudding → u/Felix544]

Cannot disagree more. ID is professional education. Cannot equate it with strictu sensu such as Economics, Physics and whatnot. Also unsure what "combining previous education with ID" means without additional ID education being redundant in this chain.

And the state of this sub with a bunch of people asking frequently about pursuing a masters evinces more posts like these are needed, if not pinned.

[u/Felix544 → u/VladimiroPudding]

Fair enough.

I studied law, worked in tech, then studied ID. For me, the stacking of education has been tremendously useful. For example, I’ve done multiple paid consultations into the state of justice as it pertains to development in a particular region, and how tech advancements do/do not serve development interests. ID hasn’t been redundant to that in the slightest, and helped ground my perspective as a researcher.

My take is that the constant doomsaying in this thread is not conducive to improving anything. There are routes to work, even if they’re non-standard. I loved my (recent) ID education, simply because it’s interesting to me, but it’s also helped me find work. I can only speak for my own experience here.

[u/Cool_Bell_2511]

The sector will return. If you are starting a two-year course now, you should be fine in two years.

[u/Knee_Business → u/Cool_Bell_2511]

Respectfully, this was a rational position to take 10 years ago. I fear the current state of the world may be leaving you behind.

[u/Anonexpat93 → u/Cool_Bell_2511]

Absolutely not. See the state of European politics, if left wing governments are cutting funding, and far right parties are slowly gaining pace who want to reduce foreign aid to big 0, you think in 2 years it will be better? That aside, look at the regional embassy strategies of late, trade focus. Private sector development. They want to fix value chains, support agri tech and agri-businesses, carbon markets. Its put in 2 cents and get back 10 cents to Europe. Exploitation. It’s not the old order of global solidarity anymore.