Divvys Blog

May 29, 2018

Should You Choose a Full Masters Degree or Postgraduate Qualifications?

When many people think of continuing their studies beyond the undergraduate years, they think of master’s degrees. After all, this advanced qualification is the subsequent step.

But it’s not the only step -- particularly if you’re short on time, money, or inclination. The good news if you find yourself unsure about whether a master’s degree is right for you?

Postgraduate certificates (PGCerts) and postgraduate diplomas (PGDips) offer another appealing option.

Read on for a breakdown of the pros of these two options for expanding your knowledge and skills following your bachelor’s degree.

Why Pursue a Master’s Degree?

If your goal is to pursue an academic career, the master’s degree the natural next step. After all it, along with the PhD, is necessary for landing an academic position. However, master’s degrees offer value beyond the academia, as well.

For starters, you may have heard the expression, “The master’s degree is the next bachelor’s.” In today’s increasingly competitive job market, more and more employers view master’s degrees not only as a distinguishing factor among candidates, but also as a must-have. So even if you’re not yet sure whether you want to work in academia, a master’s degree can help position you for career success in any sector by giving you access to more jobs. If you’re already working in a certain field, a master’s degree can help you level up. If you’re thinking of changing careers, meanwhile, a master’s degree can facilitate the transition in the most advantageous way. In this sense, a master’s degree can be viewed as an investment in your future -- whatever that future may be.

Indeed, a master’s degree can be viewed as a means to an end, but it is also an opportunity in and of itself. If you have a personal interest in or passion for a topic, a master’s degree is all about engaging with the material in a more comprehensive way. In encouraging students to engage with a subject from multiple angles, the master’s degree also facilitates the acquisition of in-depth knowledge and sophisticated skills in the chosen area.

But a master’s degree isn’t just about what you can get out of it. It’s also about what you can give. As a master’s student, you not only become part of an elite chain of knowledge, but you become the next link with the chance to contribute to world knowledge through your own insights and discoveries. Of course, the credibility, recognition and sense of accomplishment that go along with the master’s degree should also be acknowledged.

Why Pursue a Postgraduate Qualification?

We’ve addressed the many reasons to get a master’s degree, but we haven’t discussed one major reason not to: Because you’re not sure what else to do. Advanced degrees are inherently purposeful, and that purpose originates with you. Without that purpose, the value of your degree declines.

The takeaway? Unless you’re absolutely certain that a master’s degree is right for you, other options may make more sense. Enter postgraduate qualifications. Both postgrad certificates and diplomas offer challenging content without requiring the dissertation.

In many cases, these qualifications can also be applied toward the master’s degree for students who wish to pursue it. Andy Lane, a professor at the Open University (OU), the UK’s largest academic institution and the world’s leading distance learning provider, told The Guardian, “The certificate is a third of a full master’s, then the diploma is two-thirds, and if you wish to top it up to the full master’s you do the dissertation.”

But it’s also important to recognize that postgraduate qualifications are very much self-standing in their own right.

Said UK university director of online studies Gail Miles of the popularity of postgrad certificates, “It’s driven by an increasingly competitive employment market that demands continued professional development and upskilling. It can be difficult to commit to a full degree program and there is greater need for students to see a return on investment from their education faster than ever before, allowing them to climb the career ladder, demonstrate standout performance and increase their job security.”

Postgraduate credentials are often more vocational in nature with studies in business, technology, science, and healthcare particularly prepondant.

In addition to taking less time than master’s degrees, postgraduate qualifications are also celebrated for their flexibility. This makes them a manageable choice for students with jobs and families. Continued Miles, “We expect to see an increasing shift in the way that master’s education is delivered and consumed….We’re moving away from intensive reading and long theses, and towards practical education and the development of a mindset that is solution-oriented, and geared to problem solving.”

One last thing to keep in mind when deciding whether to opt for a master’s degree or a postgraduate qualification? While the routes may differ, both add up to an inside edge on the journey to reaching your goals.

May 29, 2018

Brits more likely to insure mobile phones than health

by RITEBET, in

That is according to research from pensions firm Scottish Widows, finding that just 9% of people have a critical illness policy, compared with 12% that insure their mobile phones.

This is despite more than a fifth admitting they would not survive financially if their salary took a hit due to a long-term illness, with two-fifths of households reliant on just one income.

“It’s a worrying truth that people are more likely to insure their mobile phones than their own health,” Scottish Widows protection director, Gary Burchett, said.

“We increasingly think in the short-term, caring more about tangible things in our day-to-day lives. People aren’t thinking about insuring their health or life until it’s too late.”

The research also shows that just 27% of UK adults currently have life insurance, 7% less than in 2017 and a year-on-year decrease of 3.6 million individuals.

Part of the reason for this ‘protection gap’ is thought to be a lack of trust for insurance companies, with Scottish Widows saying there is a misconception that firms will do anything not to pay.

It was found that Brits think just one-third of individual protection claims are paid out by insurance providers each year on average, when in reality, 97.8% of claims were paid in 2017.

After being asked why they didn’t have life of critical illness insurance, almost one-third of the UK’s primary breadwinners said they didn’t see the need for cover.

This is despite 35% admitting their savings would last no longer than three months if unable to work, 54% think they would only last a year, while 30% are not saving at all.

“Insurance providers have a role to play in building trust with consumers and helping people prepare financially in case the unexpected should happen,” Burchett continued.

“With the legislation establishing our new Single Financial Guidance Body, we view it as essential that of the many things the new body must consider, consumer financial resilience to income shocks resulting from health events is a major one."

May 29, 2018

Some parents fail to insure family trips

by RITEBET, in

According to a new study from Co-Op Insurance in the UK, while 37 per cent of parents have experienced a child falling ill or being injured while on a holiday, 48 per cent don’t take out a travel insurance policy for family holidays.

The study, which was undertaken by Atomik Research on Co-Op’s behalf and took in results from 2,000 UK parents, also found that 26 per cent of parents have either cancelled or thought about cancelling a trip because of a child becoming ill or injured. The average travel insurance claim for a sick or injured child, according to Co-Op, is £606, although some claims can total several thousand pounds. Despite this, nearly 50 per cent of parents do not insure their families for holidays (although 52 per cent do, which is something).

Of those parents who have had this experience while travelling, 33 per cent had to pay for their child’s treatment using a credit card, while 32 per cent had to use their savings to cover costs.

The top five injuries children tend to suffer on holiday, according to parents, are cuts, insect bites, bruises, sprained wrists and bumped heads. The top five illnesses are stomach bugs, flu, chicken pox, food poisoning and ear infection.

May 29, 2018

Lawyer: Florida Governor Should End Medical Marijuana Appeal

by RITEBET, in

The man who led the efforts to pass a medical marijuana constitutional amendment in Florida two years ago is calling on Gov. Rick Scott to drop the state's appeal allowing cannabis to be smoked.

Lawyer John Morgan said on Tuesday that Scott should direct the state's Department of Health to drop an appeal that is currently in the state's 1st District Court of Appeal.

Leon County Circuit Court Judge Karen Gievers ruled on May 25 that the state's ban on smokable medical marijuana is unconstitutional.

Voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2016 allowing the use of medical marijuana. Morgan and two women with terminal illnesses argued that because the amendment's language only mentions not smoking in public, users should be allowed to smoke in private.

May 29, 2018

Weinstein's Lawyer Concerned About Publicity, 'Pressure' on Prosecutors

by RITEBET, in

The lawyer defending movie mogul Harvey Weinstein against rape charges said Tuesday he was concerned that publicity surrounding the case and "inappropriate pressure" on prosecutors could be unfair to his client.

The lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, spoke to reporters after a closed-door proceeding before New York Supreme Court Justice James Burke in Manhattan, which he said he had requested to raise his concerns about the case. Brafman said he expected Weinstein would be exonerated of the charges, which he called "absurd."

Weinstein, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by more than 70 women, in some instances dating back decades, has denied having nonconsensual sex with anyone.

Brafman said he could not discuss the substance of the proceeding in detail and did not say exactly what action, if any, he had asked the judge to take. Weinstein did not appear at the proceeding.

"One of my concerns is that by virtue of some of the publicity that has occurred over the weekend, that the ability for people to keep an open mind is of concern to me," Brafman told reporters outside the courthouse. "I also think that the pressure that is being brought to bear on the (Manhattan) District Attorney's office demanding that an indictment or prosecution of Mr. Weinstein proceed is inappropriate pressure," he added.

Brafman did not elaborate on the source of the "pressure."

"I'm not certain whether there is any remedy but I wanted to make it clear that I was not happy with those issues," he said.

The District Attorney's office declined to comment.

Weinstein has been charged with two counts of rape and one count of a criminal sexual act following a months-long investigation by the New York Police Department. Authorities did not identify the two women, but said the crimes took place in 2004 and 2013. If convicted on the most serious charges, Weinstein could face between five and 25 years in prison. [nL2N1SW0E7]

Brafman said Tuesday that Weinstein was accused of raping one woman, and that he had a 10-year consensual affair with her both before and after the alleged rape.

May 29, 2018

Michael Avenatti accuses WSJ of sitting on Stormy Daniels hush money story until after election

by RITEBET, in

Attorney Michael Avenatti on Tuesday accused The Wall Street Journal of waiting until long after the 2016 election to publish a story about a pre-election hush money deal struck between President Donald Trump's personal lawyer and porn star Stormy Daniels.

The Journal's publisher hit back almost immediately, calling Avenatti's accusation "false and outrageous."

Avenatti, who is now representing Daniels in multiple lawsuits against Trump and his lawyer, Michael Cohen, accused the newspaper of having "sat on" the story he says could have been published "in the closing days" of the 2016 presidential election.

Michael Avenatti

✔@MichaelAvenatti

See below. 1) the WSJ had the story in the closing days of the campaign but sat on it and 2) Mr. Davidson lied to them and conspired with Mr. Cohen in 2016. This is why we have demanded to see all of Davidson's docs for mos and will sue if need be. #Basta https://www.dropbox.com/s/mzu5nxn457qzw28/Correspondence.pdf?dl=0 …

4:14 PM - May 29, 2018

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Avenatti, who has become one of the most prominent voices of opposition against Trump and Cohen, also accused Keith Davidson, Daniels' lawyer at the time of the October 2016 hush agreement, of lying to the Journal.

Daniels was in talks with ABC to discuss her story in the Fall of 2016 before suddenly cutting off contact with the network, the Journal previously reported.

The newspaper was the first to report that Cohen had set up a company in October 2016, which he then used to pay Daniels $130,000 as part of a deal for her silence about an alleged affair with Trump from years earlier. That report was published Jan. 18, 2018, more than a year after the presidential election.

"The claim we held any reporting regarding Stormy Daniels is false and outrageous," said Steve Severinghaus, the senior communications director of Dow Jones, the company that publishes the Journal. Dow Jones is owned by News Corp, the global media conglomerate headed by Rupert Murdoch.

"In fact, the Journal broke the news of the $130k payout to her, arranged by Michael Cohen," Severinghaus added.

Additionally, the Journal did publish a story before the election detailing a $150,000 payment made to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who was represented by Davidson at the time she signed a deal barring her from discussing her own alleged affair with Trump.

McDougal, who later sued American Media to be released from the deal, alleged in a court filing that Davidson was in contact with Cohen during that negotiation process.

That story came on Nov. 4, one day after Dow Jones responded to Davidson.

As evidence for his accusation, Avenatti linked an attachment to his tweet showing email correspondence from before the 2016 election that appeared to be between Davidson and a Wall Street Journal reporter, as well an email purportedly from Dow Jones to Davidson.

Avenatti said the emails show the Journal failed to report the story before the election. "The documents are clear as day as to what happened. The WSJ had the story and sat on it until 14 months after the election, when they finally broke it."

While the Journal's story on Cohen's payment to Daniels was not published until 2018, there is no evidence in the emails Avenatti published that the newspaper "sat on" the report.

Avenatti told CNBC the documents he published "come directly from Mr. Davidson's files. They are accurate and complete." Asked for more details on how he obtained the emails, Avenatti said he "demanded" them and they were provided through "the rules of professional conduct."

The attachment shows that a Journal reporter reached out to Davidson on Oct. 21, 2016, asking to speak with him for a story. On Nov. 2 — less than a week before the 2016 election — Davidson responded by demanding that the newspaper "refrain from publishing, distributing or disseminating any factually untrue and unsubstantiated information regarding me or my firm" or face legal action.

The attachment also shows that the following day, Dow Jones' Associate General Counsel Craig Linder told Davidson that the reporters would continue to investigate despite the legal threat.

Linder did not respond to CNBC's request for comment. Dave Wedge, a spokesman for Davidson, said Davidson is "unable at this time to respond point-by-point to each one of the numerous false and misleading accusations made by him over the last several months."

Wedge added: "Again today, Mr. Avenatti used Twitter to launch a defamatory charge against Attorney Davidson, who has been and shall continue to be a zealous advocate for the best interests of his clients. Attorney Davidson looks forward to responding to these scurrilous accusations in an appropriate manner, which does not include Twitter."

Avenatti is currently vying to be able to represent Daniels in court proceedings regarding a raft of materials seized from Cohen's properties in April by federal agents. Some of the seized materials may be related to Avenatti's client, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford. The judge in those proceedings could make a decision on Avenatti's request as early as Wednesday.

A lawyer for Cohen did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment on Avenatti's disclosure.

Avenatti's attack on the Journal comes a day after the newspaper reported that he has "slowed prosecutors' efforts to discuss the nondisclosure agreement with Ms. Clifford's former lawyer," citing people familiar with the matter.

In a tweet earlier on Tuesday, Avenatti shot down the accusation as being "completely false and without basis."

Avenatti said the disclosure did not come in response to the Journal's earlier story, "but it certainly undercuts the credibility of the WSJ and their reporting relating to our case and Mr. Davidson," he added.

May 29, 2018

Morgan Freeman's lawyer demands that CNN retract its sexual-harassment story on the actor

by RITEBET, in

A lawyer for Morgan Freeman is demanding the retraction of a CNN report published last week in which eight women accused the actor of inappropriate behavior, including sexual harassment.

Freeman's attorney, Robert M. Schwartz, sent a 10-page letter to CNN's president, Jeff Zucker, saying that CNN's report "defamed" and "inflicted serious injury" on Freeman and his career. The letter was obtained by multiple outlets on Tuesday, including Varietyand Deadline.

"At a minimum, CNN immediately needs to issue a retraction and apologize to Mr. Freeman through the same channels, and with the same level of attention, that it used to unjustly attack him on May 24," Schwartz wrote.

Schwartz wrote that his law firm had begun an investigation into the report, which he called a "product of malicious intent, falsehoods, slight-of-hand, an absence of editorial control, and journalistic malpractice."

The attorney wrote that Chloe Melas, a CNN reporter who cowrote the report and accused Freeman of making inappropriate comments about her appearance at a press junket last year, had "no reasonable basis" to interpret what Freeman said to her as harassment.

Melas said Freeman told her during a 2017 interview when she was six months pregnant, among other comments, that "you are ripe."

"The videotape confirms that his statement had nothing to do with her and was not harassing," Schwartz wrote, according to Deadline. "And an independent third party, the Warner Bros. Human Resources Department, investigated her claim and concluded that it was not supported by the facts."

Among the seven other accusers in the report, an unnamed production assistant who worked on the set of the 2017 movie "Going in Style" said she experienced several months of sexual harassment from Freeman on the film's set, including unwanted touching and comments. The woman said Freeman "kept trying to lift up my skirt and asking if I was wearing underwear."

"Ms. Melas baited and prodded supposed 'witnesses' to say bad things about Mr. Freeman and tried to get them to confirm her bias against him," Schwartz continued. "Thus, no reader of the article can have any confidence that any of the anonymous sources, which make up the balance of CNN's article, can be relied upon at all."

Freeman responded to the CNN report in a statement on Thursday, saying, "I apologize to anyone who felt uncomfortable or disrespected — that was never my intent." He followed up with another statement on Friday, adding: "I did not create unsafe work environments. I did not assault women. I did not offer employment or advancement in exchange for sex. Any suggestion that I did so is completely false."

A CNN representative sent the following statement to Business Insider on Tuesday in response to the letter from Freeman's lawyer:

"The unfounded accusations made by Mr. Freeman's lawyer are disappointing and are difficult to reconcile with Mr. Freeman's own public statements in the aftermath of the story. CNN stands by its reporting and will respond forcefully to any attempt by Mr. Freeman or his representatives to intimidate us from covering this important public issue."

Read the attorney's full letter at Deadline.

May 29, 2018

Robbie Williams helps fan propose

by RITEBET, in

Robbie Williams helped a fan propose to his girlfriend over Instagram.

The 44-year-old musician and his wife Adya Field, 39, managed to convince a reluctant boyfriend to pop the question to his unsuspecting lady after Jetske Cox, 38, commented asking for advice about her partner of 10 years who was hesitant to marry her.

After seeing the comment on his own Instagram account, the 'She's the One' hitmaker decided to video call Jetske before urging her to fetch her partner, Chris Van Der Linden, also 38, so the pair could grill him about his commitment phobia.

Being watched by a live audience, a caught-off-guard Chris says, ''Hi who is this?'' before Robbie replies, ''It's Robbie Williams,'' and gets straight to the point to confront Chris about his choices.

He teased: ''A little birdie told me that you have been together for 10 years with your girlfriend. And he has not proposed? My wife wants to have a word with you...''

Ayda then added: ''No! Ten years and you haven't proposed, that's downright rude man!''

And after being persuaded by the playful pair's coercing, Chris dropped to one knee and popped the question before Ayda reminded him that he can't go back on his word because she and Robbie, along with the thousands of viewers around the world, witnessed the spectacle.

She said: ''Yes but you can't go back on it we were witnesses!''

To top it all off, an overjoyed Robbie then promised to record a ''special song'' for the couple's nuptials and send it to them as a gift on their big day.

He said: ''I will sing you a special wedding song and send you a video of it.''