The Importance of the Second (Master's) Level of Higher Education for Students and Employers in the Field of Information Technology and Sociology

Abstract

One of today’s problems is the lag of education from the development of society's demands for specialists. This problem is studied from the standpoint of two stra­tegies – quantitative gives an idea of the shortage and oversaturation of the market by certain groups of professionals, quantitative assessments of the quality of educational services, the relationship of educational programs and levels of education etc. Qualitative help to understand the reasons and mechanisms of formation of these estimations.

The purpose of the article is to analyze the attitude of employers (on the example of IT, sociology and marketing) to the quality of education in universities and the importance of potential employees with a bachelor's or master's degree, as well as students' attitude to master's degree in these areas and motives to reach the master's degree. It will allow us to understand the importance of the master's degree to the bachelor's degree in the fields of sociology, marke­ting or IT.

The article analyzes a set of focused interviews of students of the faculties of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and employers in appropriate  fields, clarifies employers` instructions for graduates of the master's degree. 

Employers generally rate the level of employees` training as sufficient. The difference between the master's and bachelor's degrees of employees for them is not significant in the process of hiring employees in these areas. When giving the requirements for employees, in addition to a set of appropriate Hard Skills, basic communication skills, knowledge of English and Ukrainian, responsibility, and other Soft Skills are in great importance.

Students attach more importance to narrow disciplines. At the same time, their desire to enter the master's program is mainly related either to the need to improve their professional skills, or to the desire to obtain a second higher education in another related specialty.