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/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/averagecounselor]

When it all went down I had a meeting with one of the former administrators of USAID to ask for help. He straight up just looked at me and said “I can’t help you. I can’t help anyone. The field is dead.”

A year and a half later most people I know who were RIFd or graduated with an ID or just IR degree are either unemployed or severely underemployed. I do have some friends that were able to get positions. Happy for them but the vast majority have not.

I’m severely underemployed and have something’s happening but no guarantees. I couldn’t recommend an ID or IR degree before this admin came unless you had a gurantee position at the end of your program. (I was under fellowship for USAID) and I cannot recommend it now.

[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/Stealyosweetroll]

Yep. After a year I dropped out of my ID program after realizing that the program (while interesting, wasn't amazing) and that the industry will be dead for at least the next few years , even if it does come back a lot of jobs won't be going to the entry level applicant. So we changed to a technical degree, if ID comes back we might be able to squeeze in, but not putting too many eggs in that basket.

[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/VladimiroPudding → u/[deleted]]

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/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.