The value of life experience degrees
The landscape of education has suffered drastic changes over the past few decades, from the traditional brick-and-mortar college to long-distance programs and finally to online education. In addition, these changes have paved the way for the exponential development of the degree selling business, which is flourishing now more than ever. Although it has been around for more than 10 years, selling and buying degrees is still a new practice for some people, which is why there is still confusion regarding some of its components. One such example is the “life experience degree”.
The origin of the life experience degree
The “life experience degree” is a term pertaining to the degree selling business and, in particular, to diploma mills. But it wasn’t always this way. Indeed, the idea started from a legit practice developed in the UK, whereby universities implemented an equivalating system for people who enlisted in a degree program, but who already had a lot of experience in the field. If they were able to prove this experience, it would be equivalated with a fitting number of credits, rending the program cheaper and shorter. This allowed mature individuals who were already good at their profession to certify their skills and to earn a degree with a smaller financial investment and in a brief period of time.
Defining the life experience degree
Diploma mills, which are business that attempt to trick people into buying disadvantageous products with no value on the employment market, have picked up on this original idea and turned into the “life experience degree”. Starting from the UK equivalating system, diploma mills claimed that people could just put together a portfolio of their work and life experience in order to earn a degree for it. Of course, unlike a real degree, theirs would be much cheaper, instant to earn and requiring absolutely no work from students. Sometimes, a basic knowledge test would be required in addition to the portfolio, just to make the whole process look more like a mock-university program.
How much is it worth?
Put in simple terms, a life experience degree is worth close to nothing on the employment market. Unless you are planning to get hired by a very small company that does not perform background checks, this type of degree will only cause you more trouble than good. Indeed, almost all employers perform screenings of the resumes of their applicants and sometimes, when a large corporation is involved, they even hire a third party to do this for them in a more professional, efficient manner. A life experience degree would be immediately detected during a scan of this type, rendering it useless and even dangerous, since some states have clear regulations about using a phony qualification in order to gain an advantage over your co-workers. Thus, the value of a life experience degree is rather negative or at least null.
Fortunately, you don’t have to make use of a life experience degree if you need to become qualified fast. In fact, there are many legit businesses over the Internet that can help you procure a real, recognized certificate to verify your skills in front of an employer. All you have to do is to get in touch with a reliable degree provider like ourselves and place an order for the right degree.