Recent Graduate of NCU

<<It is typical for many people to spend up to 7 years in a PhD at a top University. My MBA took me 5 years part time and 20 -30 hours a week of work. As I said, there is huge difference between some Universities when it comes to rigour>>

I am in Capellas' PhD program in General Psychlogy. This is a 125 unit degree. I came in with a 72 unit masters in clinical psychology for which I was given credit for 50 units. At least in theory I can complete Capella coursework/comps/ dissertation in 3 years. That works out to a 5 year span - beginning of grad work to doctorate (and assumes I can somehow complete a dissertation in a single year).

When finished I will have done 147 units of grad work (including the 22 units for which I did not receive transfer credit). This is a respectable amount of work but, of course, does not address rigor, or lack thereof.

In my experience Capella demands good, solid work. It does not, however, come close to matching the rigor and effort that I understand is demanded by the top tier B&M schools. Of course, most B&M schools don't come close to that either.

One thing that I have noticed and would invite others to comment on: in my master's program there were folk who were doing excellent to outstanding work. There were also a good number of folk who were merely coasting thru (doing the bare minimum to receive credit and frankly some did not even apper to be doing that). In fact, in my opinion there were a number there who should not have been in graduate school at all. Yet they were able to complete the program and receive a degree. Mostly because they could lay back in the classroom and let the bright bulbs of the group carry the load.

Is that anyone else's experience at a B&M grad school?

One of the (perhaps unsung) advantages of online education is that this kind of hiding in the foliage is (or should be ) impossible to do, at least in programs (like Capella) that require regular postings into the classroom.

Also, just to add more input on workload at dl doc programs: At Capella, there is, like all grad programs, an impressive amount of assigned reading. Capella requires two postings each week in response to a question/topic submitted by the instructor. Postings are supposed to be substantive and be at min 250 words in length. Mine typicall range from 250-500. Learners are also responsible for replying to at least two classmates each week. One is graded on the quality of these posts. Courses end with a 'course paper' the body of which must be at min 15 pages, at max 25 (exclusive of cover, abstract, reference page, etc.).

Regards,
GME

 

<<From my experiences in earning a D.B.A. at California Pacific University and now in the dissertation phase of the Ph.D. at Touro University International, I don't think that short residencies are that meaningful for a doctoral program. What makes more sense than onsite residencies is to encourage students to meet with their professors and cohort at appropriate academic conferences. The context of these conferences for generating publications and building the c.v. is much more meaningful than requiring students to come to campus>>

Think I generally agree with you, at least as far as academic content goes. Have found Capella's residencies to be so-so. However they are wonderful for making person-t-person contacts with fellow students and faculty.

Regards,
GME

 

It would be great if they go ahead with their B&M campus, but don't expect the DL bias to ever go away (unless, of course, most of the tenured fossils at traditional schools retire soon). UoP started as a B&M school and still has many B&M campuses all over the country, still you will not see their reputation being much better, if any, than some of the most common distance learning institutions discussed in this forum. UoP is still regarded as an easy DL university by many. But on the positive side, as NCU grows so will its reputation in the DL community, and I do think that it will be better regarded than UoP.

S

 

Dave,
That is a really excellent idea. I know from nearly 15 years in research and from attending many of the Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Assn, American College of Cardiology, and smaller focused research meetings how valuable are. The opportunity to meet a professor at a professional conference either during coursework or during the doctoral dissertation phase (or both) would be an excellent addition to the PhD program at NCU.
My husband and I are visiting Arizona in April and I was actually hoping to set up an appointment to meet with staff there to discuss the possibility of elective residencies once they have some space, but I like your idea much better and it could be implemented immediately. Thanks for mentioning it.

 

DebTormey's comments

I've been accepted and will decide whether to start the PhD at NCU very soon. I've been in a B & M PhD program for 1.5 years and have been to 4-5 academic conferences around the US.

I discussed with Dr. Harman at NCU (B School chair) about me naming an outside member for my dissertation committee and he encouraged that. My angle is simply to utilize this relationship to facilitate presentation at a conference. Then, I'd go ahead and publish the paper after edits, etc..

Although PhD in name, I'd think these DL doctoral degrees (and I'm referring to my field of business for an anology here) are more like D.B.A's in that they are designed to be more substantially more applied than a theoretical B & M PhD. I personally appreciate this, as I like to spend time learning things I can make money with. But to the extend a "learner" want's to make an impact in academic more generally, I'd take this initiative on yourself. It's not immediatly apparent that even NCU's faculty, or many of the other DLs, have a particularly productive research agenda ongoing. This is the nature of DL.

I lived in Midtown in 2001 and I know there are about 50 universities in Manhattan. I'd have to think that you could procure a local PhD that would be a part of your committee.

 

Messagewriter,

Did you find out whether or not you have been accepted into the NSU program yet?

 

And this is the positive side???

 

Phd2b

I haven't heard anything from NSU yet. I'm afraid the residency requirements may be too much for me to work around.

 

Re: DebTormey's comments

Messagewriter,
Although it doesn't show in this quote, it sounds like most of this message was directed to me...so I will respond as follows - I know a great many professionals in my field in NYC (and elsewhere). I also met with a great many professionals in searching for the perfect PhD program, however, it is notable that none of the doctoral programs in NYC could meet my needs. When the time comes to choose my dissertation committee (2 1/2 yrs away), I hope I shall have made the acquaintance of a few choice individuals on my list - in particular, Linda H. Aiken, University of Pennsylvania. (She has her own folder in my file) and I believe I have yet to meet some of the choice individuals for my dissertation team - I remain open in this regard. I'm sure I will know them when I meet them... My experience in clinical research trials with monitoring lets me know that the tougher they are, the better for me, in the long run.

Publications is a relatively new arena for me. I have worked on research papers for many, many years - but I never cared about "being published" and, since I have always been surrounded by doctors who wanted, so desperately, to be listed as an author, I easily gave up my authorship position to them - but not any more. I am starting to have my name listed where it belongs and I expect the publications will start to build rapidly because I work on a great many papers.

My hope for NCU is that personal contact can be incorporated into the program because it energizes any endeavor. That's why private industry is so willing to pay good money to sponsor it! Because I know the value, I would be happy to pay my way to conferences related to my degree, especially in those areas I know little about...like law. In my upcoming coursework in legal aspects of healthcare administration I would love to have real-world contact at a professional conference or some other appropriate professional on-site meeting to learn more about this arena. I have already written to Dr. Hecht and others at NCU to discuss this aspect of our NCU program.
(I am a little jealous about cnovick and the description he gave of the tough criminal justice course requiring all that legal research).

I wish you good luck with your upcoming choice...I'm sure you will choose the right program for you. I'm sure wherever you go it will be alot of work, so I can only say...I'm at the beginning of my program and I'll be here for many years so let's keep in touch.

 

Yup.

S

 

Re: DebTormey's comments

DebTormey,

Yes the message was for you. I've got to be more careful with this thing, because sometimes I seemed to have quoted myself.

Yes, great comments and I'd like to keep in touch. At this point, I'm pretty close to pulling the trigger on a NCU start. The timing is terrible because I took an offer that I couldn't refuse and am moving firms effective March 1, 2005, but may just go ahead with just that first research course. I have until the 21 to say yea or nay or I'd have to reapply down the road.

My NYU program has an annual weekend party that launches with a chartered blowout on the Circle Line. I think it's in July, so I'll let you know if I'm going to come up to the city. I'm in Tampa, FL now.

Yes, your research experience and opportunities sound outstanding. Getting professors to include you as a co-author is really a great thing for aspiring PhDs. I had a full graduate assistantship, so I'm very familiar with how nice it is to be recognized on a paper, rather than simply used as a simple tool to do the work without getting credit.

I don't remember if an academic appointment is your degree purpose, but publication is the key. I do believe that aligning your work with a more "mainstream" academic practitioner will facilitate this process. The whole process of thesis development, research production, journal submission, working through peer comments and most importantly, presenting a draft at relevant conferences is really not encapsulated in a DL program, because of the applied emphasis. The DL peer group is what it is, and is generally not mainstream in the academy by any means.

I've been electronically corresponding with another fellow who is an executive engineer in the aerospace industry and who is applying to the NCU PhD BA program. He and I have been chatting about including academic publication in our NCU programs by our own initiative. Being in NYC and given the enormous medical community there, you hopefully can present your work without much travel. I also have a PhD Finance acquaintance up the river at Marist College in Poughkeepsie that I'm going to approach about co-publishing and/or being on my committee. He also is a co-editor of a journal.

In generalizing to all DL programs, I don't believe that anyone who produces research of a publishable quality should feel excessively constrained because they are a DL student. It will take more work and initiative but ultimately, research publication will be the vehicle through which the DL community stature is improved with the academy over what I'd guess will be at least a decade, in my opinion.

MW

 

I strongly prefer short residency. In my NSU experience I had some 75 days on-campus (or at a cluster site). These sessions were very motivational and allowed for sharing with peers and faculty.

One aspect of the NSU DBA program is that they require attendance at a professional conference with peers. This a great approach.

Regards - Andy

 

Re: Re: DebTormey's comments

Deborah,

I think this would be a terrific addition to the NCU PhD program. I don't believe conducting residencies for the sake of having one is very beneficial; however, a conference or another professional on-site meeting would be valuable. I don't think that NCU should make it mandatory, but I would like to see the option available.

 

Residency

I'd think doing something like Capella or Walden, can't remember which, where the meetings are held in various places in the US to get students together with professors would work. This is contrary to NCU's marketing strategy, so I'd guess this would be by student initiative.

What would really be helpful is if like in academia, Dr. Hecht financially supported some publication among key faculty members in each field offered as specializations. Then, students with an interest could align themselves, co-publish and present at the conferences preselected and participated in by the specialization "scholar". It's entirely a apprentice model, thus we'd have to have faculty who were more in the mainstream. Someone or some entity would have to carry their payrolls during their publication, and that will likely be the biggest issue when dealing with a private company (NCU).

Especially if I do NCU gig, I'm very interested in taking the initiative, including the money necessary to publish. With loss of income, travel, research suppport, journal submission, reveiw and publication of a typical two year cycle, getting a paper into a journal and presenting same at a conference could easily run in the thousands. For me, it would be worth it.

 

I just spoke with Learners' Affairs at NCU.

They told me that when they build their Campus, it will be for Administration purposes only. However, Dr. Hecht has been talking witht he local community (which has a high number of retirees) and is interested in setting up local classes on sight that would be for "enlightenment purposes" only. In other words, classes on sight will most likely be made available locally, on a lower level, and would be non-degree seeking purposes.

As far as residencies, the NCU staff seemed emphasized emphatically that they would NEVER require residencies, as their non-residency requirements is what attracts the majority of their students.