Pretoria faculty says no to DE.

In response to my inquiry about their PhD program, a U Pretoria psychology faculty member informed me that "we do not offer distance education programmes. PhD students should have regular personal contact with their supervisors." She then referred me to UNISA...

Interestingly, I did not mention anything about DE in my original email... only that I am living outside of SA and am interested in applying to UP's Doctoral program in Psychology.

Regardless of why she automatically assumed DE, I am curious as to how Roscoe and others on this board were able to gain the school's approval to correspond with their supervisors at a distance.

Please post your thoughts if you have any.

 

I assume that the DE policy varies by faculty. The religious studies department allows (or at least used to allow) DE PhD studies, since Dr Michael Licona (a fav author of line) did his PhD there a few years ago. There may of course be exceptions to the rules; ex, it's certainly possible that Licona had connections with his supervisor who pushed him through the application process.

 

Not sure. Maybe it depends on the department. My girlfriend is currently working on a D.Phil. in Linguistics through Pretoria. She's in her second year. I had also planned to do an M.A. in Journalism/Communications through Pretoria. One of the professors there agreed to supervise my research, but I pulled out until a later date.

Roscoe