Decisions, Decisions, Decisions...

I am almost at the end of my graduate legal studies program (M.S. in Legal Studies: Law and Public Policy) with California University of Pennsylvania. It is hard to believe that time has gone by so quickly. The program is tough, extremely vigorous, and time consuming, make no mistake. However, worth every second of stress, every pound of excess skin gained under my racoon eyes and my retreat from life as I knew it. Never again will I underestimate an online program and mistake it for a potentially easier way out.

Now that I am nearly done I plan on going directly into a PhD program. I have searched diligently for something in the legal field, specifically a SJD or LL.D or something of that nature. I am limited by the fact that I do not hold a J.D. degree, further most of the SJD programs I have seen is in taxation. However, I have absolutely not even the slightest interest in tax laws. My hands are tied, here in Orlando, Florida because the few schools that offer post graduate degrees tend to lean toward PhDs in Humanities. There is only one University within driving distance that offers beyond graduate degrees.
Therefore, I feel I am left no alternative than to make application to Nova Southeastern University School of Social Science's Ph.D in Alternative Dispute Resolution. The online program looks appealing. I have visited their website and havent been able to detect that they require graduate examination scores to determine acceptance.

I havent asked any questions, but I would like any comment, questions, suggestions, or directions regarding any portion of my post.

Kind Regards and thanks for helping in the past.

 

I guess it depends what you call commuting distance. Here on the west coast it is generally about 1 hour +/- whihc would inlcude quite a few major schools from Tampa to Ocala and Melbourne. Plus this program: http://www.cohpa.ucf.edu/pubaffphd/index.cfm

 

I've known people to commute from Orlando to Gainesville for classes..that's about 2 hours

Although none of the major Florida universities have an entire PhD online (dont know if Nova is considered state or not), you might want to look into the state's Travelling Scholars Program. I think it works where you have one school as your host university, then you can take classes at any of the state schools. Maybe if you take the DL offereings from FIT, FIU, FAU, USF, UF, FSU, and the on-campus support of UCF where you live, you can put together an interdisicpinary PhD in just about anything you want.

From the UF graduate catalog:

"Traveling Scholar Program.—A traveling scholar is a graduate student who, by mutual agreement of the appropriate academic authorities in both the sponsoring and hosting institutions, receives a waiver of admission requirements and a guarantee of acceptance of earned resident credits by the sponsoring institutions. The program will enable a graduate student to take advantage of the special resources available on another campus but not available on his/her own campus. The student must obtain prior approval by the graduate coordinator from the supervisory committee chair and the Dean of the Graduate School. Traveling scholars are normally limited to one term on the campus of the host university. Participation cannot be scheduled for the final term. Interested students should contact the Graduate Student Records Office, 106 Grinter Hall. "