PhD Choice

I am planning on a PhD in residency. I am working on a Masters in Criminal Justice thru University of Cincinnati. I want to do a PhD but I'm not sure on the subject. I want to teach college but also have opportunities to consult for the government or lobbying groups. I want as many opportunities beyond teaching college as possible. Should I continue on and earn a PhD in Criminal Justice or should I get a PhD in Public Policy or a PhD in something else. Some ideas on degree options and career prospects would be appreciated. Any information on types of jobs associated with a particular degree and salary expectations would be appreciated. Thanks

 

Be sure whatever subject you choose is one you have a passion for, because it will be all you'll think about for the 4-7 years after you start the doctoral program.

 

If you want to do consulting for the government or lobbying groups, you might consider the PhD in Public Policy.

 

My advice is don't do it unless there's nothing else in life that interests you. Getting a PhD truly sucks. Getting an academic job sucks. Getting tenure sucks the most.

If you MUST get a PhD, get it in the area in which you actually want to teach. For many academic jobs in cj, a degree in public policy will not be acceptable. At least check out the ads in the Chronicle to see what requirements are.

Also, in cj, it helps A LOT to have practical experience as a LEO. If you can't work full-time, you might look at reserve or auxiliary jobs. For example, in Los Angeles County there are Reserve Deputy Probation Officers. Sworn officers but no pay so most of the participants are there to improve their chances of regular positions. But one can just be civic-minded.

Lots of paid Reserve police jobs all around California but you need POST academy for that.

 

what sucks about it?

Can you tell me some more details about why it's so bad earning a PhD? Should I skip that and earn an MBA or a J.D. and work in business?

 

I believe they are referring to the time and money involved in undertaking such an endeavor. However, if you are absolutely passionate about an area of CJ, and you would like to contribute original research on the topic, then go for it.


Good luck with whatever path you decide to follow.

Tom

 

why getting a PhD sucks

As I stated, a PhD is right for some. Specifically, those who can't envision themselves doing anything else. Should one pursue a PhD? It's a big question, and one that frequently arises on this board. Consequently, I will give it the dignity of a full answer. Others may disagree strongly.

In my opinion, except in the most unusually circumstances, only a residential PhD from the very best graduate school one can get into should be considered. It's the only PhD you're going to get, might as well make it a marketable one. A distance PhD may be convenient, but for reasons to be explained, is generally not desirable.

The PhD is a bad experience because not only is getting the degree awful but establishing an academic career is also pretty awful. There are other careers for PhDs than academic, but mostly in the sciences. It's impossible, or nearly so, to get a distance PhD in experimental science so we can ignore them. Non-experimental science, like computer science, will be dealt with below.

A real PhD is not like other degrees, like a JD or MBA. For a JD and MBA, you're told what you need to know, or at least guided to where you can find it. For a PhD, one has to find his or her own way. This is not only in the dissertation, which, by the way, HALF of those who start never complete, but throughout the degree-earning process where one has to continuously come up with new ideas in fierce competition with very, very smart peers. The comps are brutal. One of my closest friends, a person certain to sail through his, threw himself down an elevator shaft after his failure. Language exams vary from school to school. The better PhDs require two tough ones. I skated with French and computer skills.

After earning the degree comes the job search. The academic world is very competitive and just having a degree by no means ensures getting a job. In my psychology department, Mediocre State College, we routinely get 200 serious applications for every job. (You know they're serious because applicants must fill out our four page form and submit official transcripts). A hundred and fifty of these are immediately tossed aside: PhD from weak school, one weak reference, dissertation not cutting edge, too old). One applicant was tossed because she "loved psychology". No applicant from a distance PhD would be considered. None has EVER been considered. There is one (out of 3500!) on the entire university's faculty (from Union), but she was a Black woman who earned hers after being hired and politically solidifying her position.

Fifty applications are considered by a committee. Most white males are automatically tossed; only extremely exceptional ones are even considered. Favored minorities are placed in one pile for interviews (Asians are not favored anymore, too successful). Women in another pile for possible interview. The exceptional men (maybe 2 out of 50) in another pile.

Interviews with our faculty for some: all minorities, and women and men with exceptional backgrounds (far better than the present faculty, including myself). Applicants also offer a seminar on current research and teach a class, Both better be very entertaining.

About half the time someone is hired. The other half of the time, no suitable candidate is found and the process beings again the next year. In reality, unless the applicant is truly exceptional, no white male and few white females will be considered. Political correctness is absolutely required.

Then starts the battle for tenure. At my school, about three quarters of the faculty who make it to the tenure decision year get tenure. This is higher than most places. Note, however, that another quarter of the tenure-track are eliminated before the tenure decision year.

Many aspiring faculty make the mistake of believing that good teaching will help them earn tenure. This is untrue. The lack of dreadful reaching is sufficient, or at least, no student complaints. The later can be achieved by low standards and high grades.

Tenure requires publication standards far higher than the present faculty met. For white males and females, one referred article in at least a second-rate journal PER YEAR, one referred presentation per year, and a book published by a university press or a first-rate commercial publisher. Re-worked dissertations don't count. These accomplishments must be done while teaching 12 hours a week. Minorities are entitled to whole semesters, even years, with pay off to improve their tenure "package". White males and most white females not.

Once you have tenure. You can relax unless you violate the rules of political correctness. One of our old-time faculty who couldn't keep his mouth shut recently retired. He was accused of snapping the bra-strap on a female student and threatened with disciplinary action in which he could lose the pension he acquired our his thirty years of service. He voluntarily retired rather than face the rigged tribunal. In fact the offended student was lying. She was put up to it by an ardent feminist professor who plots to eliminate hetrosexual, dead white male faculty.

Some new PhDs will take the more competitive route to research universities or quality liberal arts colleges. Most of these will not even get onto the tenure-track. The majority on the tenure-track will not get tenure. I was at a research university (a third-rate one) previous to my present job at Mediocre State. After my second year, the Chair kindly took me aside and told me frankly that while my teaching was excellent, everyone loved me, and my research was good (but not cutting-edge), I was wasting my time and should look for another job. I would never get tenure.)

Other PhDs take the route to junior colleges or bad four-year colleges. Teaching may be considered more important for tenure there. On the other hand, you teach the same thing OVER AND OVER, usually to not very bright and often unwilling students, AT LEAST 15, sometimes 18 hours a week. You spend all your time grading papers or faculty committees, or preparing class. You never do any more original research.

The above doesn't apply to the truly gifted and the truly driven.

I'm bright, Probably the reader is also. The truly gifted are a world away from people like me. I was curious and had original thoughts when I was 12. They had them at 7. They have ideas so original that they stager and stun high grade mediocrities like myself (ordinary mediocrities aren't smart enough to be stunned). I accumulate information. I can hold several conflicting ideas in my head at once. The truly gifted think of new kinds of information and new ways to think about information. They can juggle conflicting ORIGINAL ideas in their head at once.

Sometimes high grade mediocrity like my own can be overcome by being truly driven and productive (never at a high grade research university or liberal arts college but at the third rate ones). I publish one good paper a year. A book every eight or ten years. The driven publish three cutting edge papers a year, every God-damn year. A book every two years. Nothing else matters in their life. They steal ideas and research from students and colleagues. Their teaching is dreadful. They neglect their spouses and children. They never see a movie or watch TV or take vacations.

All of the above varies by discipline. Psychology is in the middle for unemployed and underemployed PhDs. Philosophy, literature, history, politics, anthropology are at the bottom. Maybe 1 in 4 finds a tenure-track academic job.

Business, computer science, and engineering, are at the other extreme. Most of these can make so much more money in "the real world" that good faculty are hard to find. A solid mediocrity like myself could get a job at my mediocre school in one of these fields with a PhD from a solid b&m university. Distance PhD still not acceptable. With a distance PhD one might get a job at a less-than-mediocre school in one of these fields.

As I stated in the beginning. Maybe you're one of the truly gifted. Maybe you're a driven mediocrity. Maybe you're a solid mediocrity or a less than solid who loves teaching enough to teach a lot of the same thing to the mostly unwilling. Maybe you're in a field where the competition is not so great. Maybe you're content to be a freeware flier and commute to several adjunct positions to make a living (I know 60 year old PhDs still doing this)

There will always be interested and deserving students at any institution, even the most backwater junior college. Also even dumb and uninterested students benefit from good teaching.

BTW, most people on this board have not gone through the application process for an academic position, much less gotten one and then tenure. So advice from them, as well as advice from me, should be valued for what you paid for it. In my opinion, distance education is suitable for a BA, maybe for a terminal Masters - - a distance PhD is unemployable except in a few fields or at institutions of a certain level.

Distance PhD programs often posts lists of where their graduates supposedly work. Find out how many are tenure-track and tenured. Also find out how many got their PhDs after they got their job usually through connections, as window-dressing or so they could move up.

None of the above applies to favored minorities: African-Americans, some Latinos, and Native Americans (be prepared with the evidence since Colorado).

Of course, if you disagree with any of the above and are pursuing distance PhDs, or intend to, a sincere good luck to you.

 

Warguns makes a good argument for anyone who desires a typical academic career (e.g., the fulltime philosopher-professor working at a respected university who occasionally writes a book or two). However, I suspect that AdamJLaw is interested in a more diverse career than that. For someone who wants to “also have opportunities to consult for the government or lobbying groups,” it is likely that a JD or Public Policy doctorate from an average school would suffice.

Another option might be any of the many executive doctorate programs sprouting up. Northeastern University’s Executive Doctorate in Law & Policy seems particularly germane to AdamJLaw’s career goals. These executive doctorates do not offer the academic prestige of a traditional PhD, but that might be just fine for someone not pursuing a traditional academic career.

Steve

 

Anyone who gets a wierd doctorate, has to spend the whole rest of his life explaining it.

"I am Dr Simpson".
"Where's your PhD from?".
"I don't have a PhD; I have an LPD".
"What?"
"An LPD, a doctor of law and policy".
"Buy that off the internet did you?".
"No! it's from Northeastern".
"Where?"
"Northeastern!"
"Isn't that the school who's football team never wins?"
"No that's NorthWESTERN. My LPD is from NorthEASTERN!"
"What did you say LPD stands for again?"

 

Meat-n-Taters

It's a misnomer to think that anything other than a PhD is a weird doctorate. The PhD was only recently invented (in the 1800s). Isn't that when the steam engine started to gain steam?

With the way regionally accredited doctoral programs are set-up, we won't be having a deluge of doctoral holders in the near or far future. It simply isn't going to happen because the attrition rate remains remarkably high.

In reference to the "executive doctorates," I've never heard of them, but if they are regionally accredited, then I speculate that the attrition rate will remain high once people get to the dissertation (aka the meat-n-taters of the program).

 

So, are you saying that if someone earned PhD or DBA primarily at a distance from one of the very well respected AACSB institutions like the University of Florida, Grenoble, Aston, or Manchester, the degree will still be unacceptable?

 

Executive Doctorates

Regionally accredited executive doctorate programs are gaining in popularity. I have not seen any that lead to a Ph.D. Most offer something like Tulane's Executive Doctor of Science (D.Sc.), Case Western Reserve University's Executive Doctor of Management (DM), Seton Hall's Executive Doctor of Education (Ed.D.), or something original like Northeastern’s Doctorate in Law & Policy (DLP).

These programs cater to mid-career working adults and, unlike traditional PhD programs, they boast much, much higher graduation rates. Robert Morris University’s executive D.Sc. in Information Systems and Communication program claims a greater than 90% graduation rate for their three year program.

Many executive doctorate degree programs incorporate the dissertation into the coursework. Typical Ph.D. programs require a few years of classes, the qualifying exam, followed by a couple of years of dissertation writing and all that goes along with it (i.e., forming a committee, repeated drafts and revisions to your dissertation per your chair’s comments, a public defense). Many executive doctorate programs ensure that students complete their dissertation at the same time they complete their two or three years of course work. Classes are usually held one weekend a month or some other schedule convenient for working adults.

Steve

 

The jury is still out on how UF dl graduates will be treated - they haven't graduated anyone yet. As far as the other schools are concerned, the answer to your question is likely yes.

First, your assumption that Grenoble, Aston or Manchester are very well respected is a little off. AACSB accreditation of a candidate's doctoral program is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for acceptability of the degree. Degrees from these schools probably fare better when compared to those from places like NCU, Capella, Argosy and even Nova, but would likely not be considered equivalent to the lowest tier US AACSB-accredited B&M doctoral degree. I could not see the B&M institutions I have attended, nor the one at which I currently teach hiring someone for a tenure-track line with a European dl degree - AACSB-accredited or not.

Warguns is pretty much on point as to what really goes on in academia and in particular, where and how individuals with dl degrees get teaching jobs.

 

You are correct. You are spot on. Right now, you are 100 percent correct. What will the landscape be in 10 years? 20 years? What will happen when the generation doing the hiring retires? What happens when the next generation doing the hiring earned their degrees online? Look at library science. Find one 15 years ago that was totally online. Find the dozens now. Find out how many librarians earned their degree face to face versus online. It is changing.

 

Wow, that was a good read! Thank goodness that I have no desire (or ability) to pursue a full-time tenure track position in academia!

 

unbelievable!!

There was a time when i wanted to do PhD. May be i should think again. I don't think i am super brilliant. So well....

Thanks, warguns for the inside scoop.

Sathya

 

Salary

My assumption is that professors at 1st tier schools make more in salary then lower tier schools am I right? What do professors make at 1st tier schools?

 

Not every single school is represented, but still a good database;

http://chronicle.com/stats/aaup/

 

Would Argosy University and Nova Southeastern at a remote campus be considered "online" schools by your definitions?

 

For UF's other online PhD programs, they tell you from the start that their online programs are meant for practitioners, high school, or community college instructors. They don't recommend their online programs for people seeking tenure at a research institution.