2 year phd

Discussion in 'Business and MBA degrees' started by maverick3934, May 25, 2014.

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  1. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    in 2000, most tenure track positions at research universities in Canada only required a PhD. Now, we are seeing more positions that require previous full time teaching experience and at least 3 publications in top journals on top of the PhD.

    It is without doubt that things are getting more difficult with the time.
     
  2. foobar

    foobar Member

    True for smaller schools, but any newly-minted AACSB-accredited PhD in accounting is not going to have much of a problem finding a high-paying job, with experience or not, unless something is dreadfully and obviously wrong with him or her.
     
  3. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    I agree, just last week we were joking about this. We found out that one of the recently hired PhDs in accounting in our faculty was hiring a CPA to do his taxes and and a financial adviser. The guy has articles in sustainable accounting, ethics, etc but cannot fill an income tax form. Needless to say, that this type of professors can only teach accounting 101 and become research chairs. Most of the real accounting professors only have a CPA and maybe an MBA.

    I
     
  4. AV8R

    AV8R Active Member

    I wouldn't knock the poor guy. I have an undergrad degree in accounting and I struggle to fill out my own taxes, too. The U.S. tax code is a byzantine morass of confusion. It is now over 70,000 pages long and is constantly amended. No human being on this planet can possibly keep up with it. At that length, the U.S. tax code is more than four times longer than Shakespeare's complete works (and not nearly as good).
     
  5. me again

    me again Well-Known Member

    If it didn't change so much, I could have kept up with it, but the constant changes are simply too much to follow.
     
  6. Jonathan Whatley

    Jonathan Whatley Well-Known Member

    What do they say about the lawyer who represents themselves? Couldn't a reasonable accountant think something similar?
     
  7. me again

    me again Well-Known Member

    It's amazing that software programs are designed to find every conceivable tax benefit and tax deduction for the common man. However, the trickier tax deductions are probably not going to be found in those mass-sold software programs, but the good tax attorneys know exact what they are.
     
  8. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    One thing I am noticing is few people with two doctorates. Some people get a DBA, EdD, etc on top of a PhD or vice versa. As there are few doctorates out there that can be finished real quick (e.g. 3 year part time DBA at Walden), I wonder if we will start seeing ads that call for a DBA with a PhD in Math or a PhD in CS with a EdD.

    The education business is like any other business, as schools are dropping the requirements in order to increase access of education to increase profits, people are getting more degrees but the work available is the same or even less now. The result is asking more for the same (e.g. an MBA to become a sales person, a CPA to be an accounting clerk, a PhD in Business to teach an online course in Accounting 101, etc).

    Even our old friend Rich Douglas has two doctorates, I wonder if this will become the new way to differentiate.
     
  9. me again

    me again Well-Known Member

    For the average Joe, getting two doctorates is ridiculous. There are exceptions, of course, but not many! I went back to college for another Masters degree -- and that was bad enough!
     
  10. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    I agree completely. The very notion of getting two doctorates is ridiculous on its face! :eek5:
     
  11. me again

    me again Well-Known Member

    Pray tell, why did you?
     
  12. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    Not so much anymore, the dean of management at Walden has two doctorates (one in education and other in business), this probably helped him to get the job over other candidates as he has background in two areas.

    I also notice that many adjuncts have multiple master's degrees, this helps to teach in multiple areas and keep yourself more employable.

    Rich couldn't resist to get a doctorate from a top British school for a reduced tuition fee. He is already an expert in his field so I assume that writing a second doctoral thesis was not as hard as the first one.

    Some British schools are putting some good deals for PhDs and doctorates, I found few ones that charge as little as 2 thousand pounds for a research PhD based on existing publications.

    It is a very different world now, credential inflation is here to stay. Some schools are struggling to survive so they produce fast paced doctorates, master's, etc just to stay alive. My MBA took two years full time and now most new programs are one year. My MSEE took me two years because the research, most new MSEEs are one year programs. PhDs are now being repackaged as DBAs, DMS, EdD, etc and sold as fast paced doctorates for professionals, people are buying them mainly because they feel that the need them to stay competitive in this shrinking economy.

    The thing is that if hundred people apply for a dean position with a PhD in management, maybe the one with a second doctorate gets it.
     
  13. AV8R

    AV8R Active Member

    It took me 2 1/2 years working 20+ hours a week on my MBA (on top of working full time) to earn my MBA. Now there are accelerated online MBA's from AACSB accredited schools that can be completed in only one year (while working full time, no less). :thinking:
     
  14. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Not the reason...at all.
    Harder. Way harder. Different subject (HRD vs. Nontraditional Higher Ed), different methodology (inductive and qualitative instead of deductive and quantitative), foreign school (you'd be surprised), professional vs. academic doctorate (they struggle with this distinction), cultural barriers, and a subject absolutely unknown to Brits. Way, way harder.
     
  15. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    Some schools offer a week or two MBA certificate. You could put in your resume "MBA Certified, X University".

    Reduced times just lead to credential inflation and to question the value of the degrees. Why would I need to take a PhD to teach a canned online course? Is it because is really needed or because I get hundreds of resumes to teach a class and if I ask for a PhD the pile goes down to 50 and just looks good for the catalogs.

    The OP post is the perfect example of a prospect customer for a fast track little value doctorate. "I lost my job so I need to make money on the side as a teacher but need a quickie doctorate, I don't care if the program is going to help me to develop research skills or add value to my knowledge, I just need something fast to please the requirements of a school so I can make the extra money".

    There are some schools offering 3 years part time doctorate, I wouldn't be surprised if some schools start offering the 2 or 1 year doctorate. At the end of the day, there is no need to get a doctorate just to babysit web sites with canned courses or to teach accounting 101.
     
  16. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    I agree completely! I've argued elsewhere that the true core function of an academic is research, not teaching. Most teaching can be done with people possessing lesser credentials. This distinction mirrors the essential differences between a doctorate and a master's degree, too. The master's is about learning the field. The doctorate is about changing it. Sure, most doctoral dissertations pass with hardly a ripple, but some have tremendous impacts and all of them prepare graduates to do continued research and to advance their academic disciplines. I worry that some of these doctoral programs aimed at working people don't live up to that, especially when they award the PhD.
     
  17. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    Well, schools have discovered a gold mine in these programs. I know few adjuncts working at UoP and the University of Liverpool for DBA programs and are telling that these programs are packed.

    The selling point is the time, a full time doctorate is 5 years that is really the time that it takes to develop research skills, publish few good papers and get some teaching experience. The new programs are not geared towards research but more like super MBA programs that are mainly aiming at people that want to make the money on the side as adjuncts and look good in a resume. The programs are making money so who cares if the graduates are really getting value added, graduates are happy with the diploma that can make them extra money as adjuncts and look good for an executive job and schools are happy because the cash is coming in.

    The argument is that these are not PhDs but professional doctorates, the problem with this is that the proliferation of fast paced DBAs have devalued the DBA designation. Boston College changed the name of its doctorate from a DBA to a PhD and so others schools like Indiana, they seem to think that the acronym DBA is now worth less and for this reason the name change.

    Same thing can be said about MBAs, as MBAs are geared towards managers, the real skill is not developed in the class room but in the workplace so most MBAs just need the designation but have already the skills so the 1 year part time seems to be doing the job of just giving you a degree for reading some books and writing some essays. Some mew MBAs are highly diluted when it comes to quantitative skills like statistics, accounting, finance and operations. I do a lot work in risk management and finance, I cannot hire MBAs for this as they seem totally useless at quantitative analysis so I prefer to hire a BS in Math or Finance for this, this just shows the little value of the one year programs to areas that require hard core skills and not just learning to write essays from book readings.
     
  18. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    At the University of Leicester, the minimum for a full-time PhD is 3 years; 6 years part-time. The DSoSci, a part-time distance program, has a minimum of 4 years (maximum 6), but it is a professional degree not designed to prepare one for teaching and academic research. (It still requires an original contribution to scholarship, though. Go figure.)

    The Union Institute, where I earned a PhD, has a 3-year minimum, but very few learners get it done that fast. Five or six would be more like it.
     
  19. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    British and Australian programs are a bit faster due to the lack of course requirements for which I agree, if you have already a strong masters, why do I need to take more courses?

    The professional doctorates seem to rely heavily on course requirements (so the school can make the money) and justify the short dissertation by mentioning that is not meant to contribute to the field but to show that the student can apply the theory to practice (wasn't this the purpose of the professional MSc?).

    In few words, the academia is producing a new product that doesn't really add much value but it creates a need for it by requiring adjuncts to hold a doctorate instead of a masters. The business model seems to be working for the school but not for the adjunct, the adjunct now needs to spend more money and effort for the same job but the school is getting the benefit of the extra cash by selling the "professional doctorate". Industry doesn't seem to be buying this product, I don't see many ads calling for DBAs in the job market but people are still buying thinking that at some point industry will use it as a differentiator so they want to stay ahead of the game.

    I found the video below quite interesting, it talks about the decreasing value of higher education and the business model of nobody fails in this University and everyone is entitled to a degree, the business model is meant to keep schools alive but the video questions the value of the degree to the student.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcxDVYo2wH8
     
  20. me again

    me again Well-Known Member

    Degree inflation happens when there are too many degree holders for a limited number of employment opportunities that require a degree.

    Example:
    -- 1960: About 6% of the population had a Bachelors degree
    -- Today: About 38% (more or less) of the population has a Bachelors degree.

    Clearly the value of a Bachelors degree in 1960 was greater than what it is today because so few people had one. Now the topic has moved to too many doctorates (or the dumbing down of doctorates). It is what it is and the trend is not going to stop.

    What's next?
     

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