CurlyDarling
06-04-2009, 08:43 PM
June is underway, and Moscow's newly-anointed graduates are pouring out of universities, institutes and academies, brandishing rolled-up sheepskins like broadswords and mustering en masse in the Sparrow Hills for a headlong charge into the unsuspecting world below.
Make that the suspecting world, actually. The first words many of Russia's new bachelors, masters and doctors hear from prospective employers may not be: "How about an unpaid internship?" or even "Sorry, there's a crisis on" - no, the best and brightest may well meet less discouragement than skepticism: "You say you have a degree from Prefabrograd State - can you prove it?"
If the proud graduate's response is to unfurl a diploma, the interview may prove a short one. As a form of authentication, the average institutional sheepskin offers a less convincing affirmation of its bearer's bona fides than a passport, a work permit or, come to that, a letter from uncle Fedya, the precinct police chief.
Everyone knows that a wide variety of diplomas are on sale at Moscow's better metro stations. You can probably pick up a degree in Oriental Languages, like James Bond, at the Universitet station (along with a "used" cell phone that 007 might envy). And counterfeiting aside, the country is fairly awash in "legitimate" diplomas from bogus institutions, many of them pay-for-play degree mills and/or Chechnya draft-dodging centres set up during the woefully under-regulated '90s.
But even a real diploma from a real institution offers scant evidence of what went into earning it. Of courses taken, books read, theses written and knowledge gained, the diploma says not a word - which is why it belongs under glass on a wall, not at a job interview.
Yet because it is a document, and the Russian obsession with arcane documentation remains undiminished since Gogol's Chichikov began buying up titles to dead serfs, the parchment diploma continues to carry evidentiary weight in certain circles - including mine: twice I've been asked to produce diplomas as evidence of my qualifications to teach at Russian universities.
So far I have successfully declined, noting with polite incredulity, "You have my curriculum vitae, which shows my degrees and who awarded them. And you know, most Americans don't cart their diplomas around in their luggage..." Both times the deans have backed off at this, one of them perhaps prompted by an assistant suggesting, "If it comes to that, we could send you to a good metro station." Everybody laughed.
If it ever does come to that, I won't produce a diploma, of course, but a transcript - the official document that matters to Americans, the one your university sends out (for a modest fee) to show exactly what you studied and what degree you got. No graduate school or potential employer is likely to question an official, raised-stamp transcript, which Russian institutions should duly note.
And American institutions should also take note, because transcripts are now changing. After centuries in the same ink-on-paper format, the transcript is being reinvented - or reprogrammed, perhaps. Soon a job applicant will be able to download positive proof of graduation in a trice from a pocket BlackBerry - and ask an interviewer, if it seems appropriate, "Want a quick look at my thesis, too?"
According to Thomas Black, Stanford's innovation-friendly registrar, the next standard in post-parchment authentication will be an interactive digital transcript whose hyperlinks allow any authorised online user to access a wealth of information beyond the simple confirmation of a student's degree - such as his dissertation, the faculty who taught and advised him, and the special projects he took part in. Why not video highlights of his debate at Oxford?
The digital transcript is already a fact; as its dimensions and potential are pushed and explored, there's no reason Russian institutions can't become part of the process. Indeed, Kremlin support for this mini-front of the digital revolution makes perfect sense: not only does such record keeping represent a worthy anti-corruption measure - putting the lowlifes at the Universitet station out of business, one hopes - but academia itself stands to gain in the bargain. When both teacher and taught know their efforts will become part of a restricted-but-accessible public record - and transcripts name names! - many courses may become less pro forma and more pro-active. Everybody wins.
Perhaps one day soon a potential employer, looking at his desktop screen, will tell my godson Ilya, "Wow, you got a 5 from Professor Sidorov. I'm impressed. And that's a nice graduation picture of you standing beside him, too. How is the old coot?"
Try buying that in the metro.
Mark H. Teeter teaches English and Russian-American relations in Moscow.
Moscow News
Make that the suspecting world, actually. The first words many of Russia's new bachelors, masters and doctors hear from prospective employers may not be: "How about an unpaid internship?" or even "Sorry, there's a crisis on" - no, the best and brightest may well meet less discouragement than skepticism: "You say you have a degree from Prefabrograd State - can you prove it?"
If the proud graduate's response is to unfurl a diploma, the interview may prove a short one. As a form of authentication, the average institutional sheepskin offers a less convincing affirmation of its bearer's bona fides than a passport, a work permit or, come to that, a letter from uncle Fedya, the precinct police chief.
Everyone knows that a wide variety of diplomas are on sale at Moscow's better metro stations. You can probably pick up a degree in Oriental Languages, like James Bond, at the Universitet station (along with a "used" cell phone that 007 might envy). And counterfeiting aside, the country is fairly awash in "legitimate" diplomas from bogus institutions, many of them pay-for-play degree mills and/or Chechnya draft-dodging centres set up during the woefully under-regulated '90s.
But even a real diploma from a real institution offers scant evidence of what went into earning it. Of courses taken, books read, theses written and knowledge gained, the diploma says not a word - which is why it belongs under glass on a wall, not at a job interview.
Yet because it is a document, and the Russian obsession with arcane documentation remains undiminished since Gogol's Chichikov began buying up titles to dead serfs, the parchment diploma continues to carry evidentiary weight in certain circles - including mine: twice I've been asked to produce diplomas as evidence of my qualifications to teach at Russian universities.
So far I have successfully declined, noting with polite incredulity, "You have my curriculum vitae, which shows my degrees and who awarded them. And you know, most Americans don't cart their diplomas around in their luggage..." Both times the deans have backed off at this, one of them perhaps prompted by an assistant suggesting, "If it comes to that, we could send you to a good metro station." Everybody laughed.
If it ever does come to that, I won't produce a diploma, of course, but a transcript - the official document that matters to Americans, the one your university sends out (for a modest fee) to show exactly what you studied and what degree you got. No graduate school or potential employer is likely to question an official, raised-stamp transcript, which Russian institutions should duly note.
And American institutions should also take note, because transcripts are now changing. After centuries in the same ink-on-paper format, the transcript is being reinvented - or reprogrammed, perhaps. Soon a job applicant will be able to download positive proof of graduation in a trice from a pocket BlackBerry - and ask an interviewer, if it seems appropriate, "Want a quick look at my thesis, too?"
According to Thomas Black, Stanford's innovation-friendly registrar, the next standard in post-parchment authentication will be an interactive digital transcript whose hyperlinks allow any authorised online user to access a wealth of information beyond the simple confirmation of a student's degree - such as his dissertation, the faculty who taught and advised him, and the special projects he took part in. Why not video highlights of his debate at Oxford?
The digital transcript is already a fact; as its dimensions and potential are pushed and explored, there's no reason Russian institutions can't become part of the process. Indeed, Kremlin support for this mini-front of the digital revolution makes perfect sense: not only does such record keeping represent a worthy anti-corruption measure - putting the lowlifes at the Universitet station out of business, one hopes - but academia itself stands to gain in the bargain. When both teacher and taught know their efforts will become part of a restricted-but-accessible public record - and transcripts name names! - many courses may become less pro forma and more pro-active. Everybody wins.
Perhaps one day soon a potential employer, looking at his desktop screen, will tell my godson Ilya, "Wow, you got a 5 from Professor Sidorov. I'm impressed. And that's a nice graduation picture of you standing beside him, too. How is the old coot?"
Try buying that in the metro.
Mark H. Teeter teaches English and Russian-American relations in Moscow.
Moscow News