Chile Forum

I am considering pursuing a Masters degree at UAI in Chile, setting myself up for a PhD back in the States to launch off a career as a professor. I'm not very familiar with the nature of requirements for professors in the U.S. Will a Masters in Chile be recognized as a legit degree? and if not will the PhD in the States overcome that deficiency? Any insight would be very much appreciated.

As far as I know, there are many chileans, peruvians, bolivians, etc. teaching in good US universities, all they graduated in their country of origin and then doctorated in USA, some examples:

Sebastian Edwards Henry Ford II Professor of International Economics, Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA (graduated in U Católica de Chile)
Ricardo Caballero, MIT Dept of Economics
Eduardo Engel, Yale Dept of Economics
Andrés Velasco (our Ministro de Hacienda) Sumitomo Professor of International Finance and Development
Eduardo, Schwartz Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA
etc... there are many more

It seems that chilean degrees, at least in economics, are well apreciated

tombrad2 wrote:. . . . It seems that chilean degrees, at least in economics, are well apreciated

Ah, the Chicago boys!

Tomás is correct, a doctorate in the United States will overcome any reservation regarding a foreign master's degree. And a master's from a good and well-known Chilean university, particularly in a field in which the teaching faculty of that university are well-regarded, would likely add luster to (or certainly not detract from) your application to a doctoral program in the United States.

Problems come from little-known or "shell" universities. Might I ask what has happened to the Universidad de Puerto Varas?

I would warn you however that you need very strong research skills going in to a PhD program of any sort in the States or Europe. When I was doing my masters in Europe I found a lot of the kids from Latin America did not have any research writing skills or experience. I started teaching research writing to a group of Latin American students at the University. They would not have survived their grad programs without it.

I started doing it because a few had asked me to help look over their papers and they had made such fundamental mistakes with citation that it would have been viewed as plagiarism, even though they had not intended to break the rules. They came really close to making mistakes that would have gotten them kicked out of the University or at least suspended for simply not understanding the research culture. So, do your homework about doing your homework in a different academic culture. Even one University to the next can have radically different expectations. Talk to some of the professors directly you want to study under. If they like you, they can also help get you around a lot of the standard application process problems.

In the States they started hammering it in to me in 9th grade on a formal level, and then almost every class of my undergraduate program involved at least one research paper (analytic philosophy). I can count on one hand the number of formal multiple choice type tests I took. Philosophy professors tend to view them as a waist of time, but a lot of other fields tend to avoid them now also in favor of research papers. Spend some time catching up on things like the MLA and related thesis writing standards for your field. They are expected as basic skills, and even the entrance application may not bother to test for it. That is what happened to the students I taught in Europe. They had the credentials, but research writing was just assumed by the University and they found themselves way in over their heads once they got there.

Also, you should be aware that a masters program is often not required in the States. It may help, but it is not really a step to a PhD. Students often move now directly from undergraduate work directly in to a full 4+ year PhD type program, with perhaps the option of receiving a master diploma half way through. Typically a department will have two different tracks, depending on what you study for both PhD and master students. PhD will be far harder to get in to, and thus perhaps having completed a masters might help you get in. A masters is not half way point to a PhD. More like an intro to a PhD program.

By the way, all my students made it through their programs and went on to work doing research at places like the WTO and such. Luckily my favorite student did not divorce me after all the red ink on her papers, and now teaches research writing skills in her law school classes in Chile. She is still holding all that red ink over my head however.

In my experience, jalundberg, what Charles has observed is correct. I've studied at American, English, and Argentine universities, and the differences between them, particularly in academic rigor, is marked. You likely will not receive as thorough an academic education in Chile as you would in the United States (why do you think that Chilean families that can afford to do so prefer to send their sons and daughters to American or even Canadian or British universities?). But much depends upon your field, the faculty in Chile, and even the value you place upon the experience itself (taking a Chilean master's degree in sociology, for example, with a thesis on racial consciousness in indigenous Andean communities would make sense, as you could do field work more easily and, better, could through the process itself make ancillary observations that would set your study apart from the humdrum).

Charles's admonition to be able to research and write well should be underlined. I find more and more young Americans -- I don't say you're one of them! -- with wasted intelligence, unhoned and inarticulate (perhaps not simply inarticulate, as they often seem never to have formed the thoughts that they would be unable to express). Being able to speak, read, and think with precision and understanding formerly was the mark of a "university man". Now it is sufficiently uncommon that having that ability to think and communicate will, with application and care, gain you admission to at least a decent graduate program; the best, though, still require either a high degree of exercised intelligence or a parental Maecenas.

The reason why I am leaning towards a Masters program in Chile is because I am looking to specialize in Latin American political history, and I personally feel that it would be best to learn this subject in Latin America from Latin American professors. Then I would move back to the States to finish with a PhD, hopefully while teaching in a university. I am not too worried about ensuring that I can write, read and analyze at a high level; I am current doing my undergraduate work at a liberal arts university that encourages extensive research papers over standardized testing. Furthermore, as a double major in Management and Spanish I have been able to get sufficient work using APA (in Management) and MLA (in Spanish). But someone please let me know if I am mistaken in choosing to study in Chile, am I wrong in my assumption that I will get a better perspective learning about Latin American political history in Latin America?

jalundberg wrote:. . . . [P]lease let me know if I am mistaken in choosing to study in Chile, am I wrong in my assumption that I will get a better perspective learning about Latin American political history in Latin America?

I think so. My first career was in history, though I did my doctoral work in American history, and long ago at that. If I remember correctly, good graduate programs in Latin American history existed at Harvard, Chicago, even at (again, I'm unsure of my memory in this as, at the time, Latin American history held little appeal for me) Yale, William & Mary, and the University of Texas; the Californian universities didn't come close, though I'd guess that Stanford (along with Columbia) may have bettered their programs in the years since.

The Universidad de Chile has a reputedly fairly good program in Latin American history (a brief acquaintance with the department indicates that it is heavy on reduction to political theory, however); no other university in Chile, as best I'm aware, is much regarded in the States or England. Of course, after completing course work on the master's in a good American university, you probably would want to go to Latin America for some of your research.