It's done: Successfully defended my DBA dissertation

I completed my DBA at Swiss Management Center (SMC) university, earlier this month. I would like to take this opportunity to appreciate the content provided by this forum that helped me immensely when I was researching various schools and programs back in 2010. Special thanks to Steve Foerster who exchanged a few mails as he was enrolled in this school at that time and gave some helpful tips that clarified my decision.

The purpose of this post is to also prod those of you who are sitting on the fence about committing the time and resources on higher education and those who have embarked on this journey but are now struggling to complete it. I am a busy professional with an active young family and it took time management and a lot of personal motivation, especially in the dissertation phase to accomplish this. However, the end results were totally worth it.

Finally, the utility of this forum and it's members in providing a wealth of information and advice is so much apparent to me, now that I have gone through this journey. Kudos to all of you and keep learning...

 

Very nice, congrats!

 

A great accomplishment! Congrats!

 

Congratulations.

 

I dunno, maybe he'll freakout? :haha:


Seriously though, congratulations!!

 

Outstanding accomplishment! :smokin:

 

Thanks, guys.

Steve - I plan to start teaching part-time in community colleges and possibly as an on-line adjunct. The long term plan is to start my own consulting business (based on the ideas generated in my dissertation) and supplementing via teaching.

 

Congratulations!!

What was your dissertation talking about? May be it can be interesting to have a look!

 

That sounds so badass!

 

In all seriousness, congratulations.

Dr. Freakoutguy, I never really looked very closely at SMC but I was very pleasantly surprised to see the reasonable price tag: 9900 Euro - $13,656 On-Time or 10930 Euro - $15,065 with a deposit and by course payment.

I attempted the UNISA route once in the past but was turned down due to the nature of my Masters (MPA) not being "researchy" enough.

SMC seems very interesting. They seem to also have a Doctorate of Management.

 

Congrats, Dr. Freakoutguy!

Do you think you will be criticized on your Doctor of Business Administration degree from Swiss Management Center (SMC) University because of lacking regional accreditation? I mean the school is legit and is accredited by ACSBP, but it does not have recognition by any regional or national accreditation agency in the United States.

 

That's awesome news! If I remember corrrectly you were able to get a really good deal on the tuition since it was a new program at the time. Did you have to go to Switzerland to defend? I bet your family is happy you are PHinally Done!

 

Well done freakoutguy, that's a beautiful accomplishment!
Thanks for the encouragements too - just joined Degree Info and it's good to know how much people get out of it All the best in the future!
Ada

 

Thanks for all the congratulatory messages. It's very much appreciated. I would like to respond to the points and queries raised by in the posts above.

I live and work in Canada, so am not really concerned about the degree being regionally accredited in the U.S. My purpose in acquiring a doctorate was to satisfy my academic goals but also to continue working. As stated previously, the purpose was not to teach at the university level but focus on part-time opportunities in the on-line adjunct and community college areas. I know a couple of instructors who have the SMC DBA and are teaching at the local community college level, so the degree does seem to have enough cache.

My dissertation was in the area of strategic decision making and the use of strategic and competitive intelligence tools as an input for this process. The price tag when I joined in 2010 was 2000 Euros annually. Ideally, I would like to have finished the program within 3 years when I started in September 2010 but work and personal commitments pushed this over by six months to March 2014, so total tuition came to 8000 Euros. The oral defense is held in 3 locations - March session is in Columbus, OH, June session is in Ghana or some other African nation and the September session is held in Zurich, Switzerland. The tuition tab was picked by my employer, so my spending was limited to travel and stay in Columbus, OH for the oral defense.

Overall, I am very happy with my decision. People in the workplace definitely view you with more professional respect when they learn that you picked up a doctorate and it can only add to your qualifications. The other interesting thing I noticed is that nobody questioned or probed me on the "quality" of the degree. In fact, people automatically imparted a degree of credibility since the doctorate was from Switzerland, which has a good reputation ("Swiss Quality") as a country. Of course, the responses to my degree have so far been limited to the business/professional sphere and I have to still test the feedback in an academic setting.

 

This is very great stuff. I work in the software industry as a Sales Engineer for Business Intelligence software, I have long contemplated a Doctorate focused on practical applications of BI and related technologies. Perhaps SMC might be a good fit.

I may reach out to you via PM for additional details if that is acceptable.

 

Awesome A big congrats to you doctor!:dance::dance:

 

US accreditation applies, with some exceptions, only to US based institutions. If we follow the line of thought that US accreditation is the only way to go then we are dismissing the rest of the world. You forget that each country accredits their respected institutions. Does this mean, following your thinking, that degrees from UK, Australia, and Canadian based institutions are invalid?:no:

 

Good job!!!

Congrats. All that hard work paid off.

Abner :smile: