My journey to becoming a Liberty Ph.D. student

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by chrisjm18, Dec 15, 2018.

Loading...
  1. Futuredegree

    Futuredegree Well-Known Member

    Hey Chris sorry to bother you but what is your typical work load for each class? Does Liberty use exams or just papers for each class? Is there like online discussion boards and weekly assignments?
    If required to do a paper at the end of the course how long do they typically want them?

    I was considering applying to the Doctorate in Public Administration for 2022. I get the military and law enforcement discount so it would be super cheap tuition. I also hold a degree in public administration and another in urban affairs. From what I read on the website I can transfer 50% of the credits which would be 24 credits (most of my masters courses seem to the similar or the same) only leaving me with 24 more credits. Mostly research methods and Capstones.


    https://www.liberty.edu/registrar/wp-content/uploads/sites/119/2020/03/DPAD-DPA-D.pdf
     
  2. chrisjm18

    chrisjm18 Well-Known Member

    Hey,

    The course assignments vary by course. Few courses had quizzes. They mostly consist of papers and DBs. Except for quantitative methods, all the courses I took I had several papers. This is different from master's coursework where there is typically one major paper.

    I doubt any of your master's credit will transfer. They have to be doctoral level courses, even if you have dual master's degrees. In fact, someone with dual master's degree was just denied transfer credits to the Ph.D. program. Another had 21 credits from a DBA and they denied even his research courses. The bottom line is that you'd have to have doctoral-level courses with similar content to the DPA courses.

    Here's a link to view the course guide for the PADM courses:

    https://liberty.campusconcourse.com/view_syllabus?course_id=40416&public_mode=1

    In the top right-hand corner, you should see a search bar. Just enter each course code on the degree completion plan you shared. That should allow you to view the assignment requirement of each course.
     
  3. Futuredegree

    Futuredegree Well-Known Member

    Interesting, I would of thought like other programs they would accept master's level credits towards the doctoral degree. From the website it states "A maximum of 50% of a post-graduate and doctoral degree may be transferred if approved and allowable, including credit from an earned degree from Liberty University on the same academic level"
     
  4. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

    I read the syllabus for PADM-810. Was this the quant course you took? I'd love to know the names/types of datasets that you were used and the types of questions you needed to answer from them. I've been learning Python for Data Science myself lately, using State of Iowa datasets on education and criminal justice.
     
  5. chrisjm18

    chrisjm18 Well-Known Member

    Nope. I took CJUS745. We used Andy Field's book, Discovering Statistics Using IBM SPSS.

    Each week, we had to do some SPSS exercises. It was a mostly easy course, though I hate stats. However, Andy provides a step by step for most of the things we were required to do. For the ones that he didn't, I watched YouTube videos. The mid-term and final exams were brutal.. honestly, I think it was a trash course. Learning stats in 8 weeks with no synchronous teaching is hard. Idk how I got an "A" in that course. Well, I do know... lol. I knew I was gonna do a qual research, so I just wanted to pass quant. I wasn't keen on retaining anything.

    Here's a break down of the topics we covered.. yes, we did all 21 chapters.

    Screenshot_20201024-211423_OneDrive.jpg
     
    Dustin likes this.
  6. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

    D'oh! I forgot you were a CJ student not a Public Policy student. Thanks for the info on the course!
     
    chrisjm18 likes this.
  7. chrisjm18

    chrisjm18 Well-Known Member

    After a little over 3 months of going through the IRB process, I finally got approved on Monday, February 15th. I have started data collection and hope to be done by the first week of March. I am still trying to meet the defense deadline (April 24th) for the May 15th graduation. Let's see how things go!
     
    LearningAddict, JoshD, Dustin and 3 others like this.
  8. Vonnegut

    Vonnegut Well-Known Member

    Congratulations Chris! I just served on a disquisition committee and it was incredibly worthwhile to see someone cross that milestone!
     
    chrisjm18 and SteveFoerster like this.
  9. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

    Neat! Can you give a sense of what kind of research you're doing? I know you likely can't get into detail but I'd love to know which area of youth CJ you're focusing on. (I think you said you're focusing on youth, right?)
     
    chrisjm18 likes this.
  10. chrisjm18

    chrisjm18 Well-Known Member

    Sure. So, my research is qualitative. At Liberty, you must use at least three data collection methods to achieve triangulation in qualitative research. So, I'm using survey (with open ended questions), interviews, and reflexive memos. My research explores the educational experiences of former juvenile offenders who completed their high school diploma or equivalent (GED, HiSET, CSSD) in a juvenile correctional facility in Pennsylvania. My sample size is 10 participants.
     
    JoshD and Dustin like this.
  11. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

    Cool!
     
    chrisjm18 likes this.
  12. chrisjm18

    chrisjm18 Well-Known Member

    I am officially Dr. Chris!! I defended my dissertation today, becoming the first person to complete a doctorate from the Helms School of Government at Liberty University.
     
  13. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

    Amazing, congratulations Dr. Chris!

    Will your thesis be deposited somewhere we could read? I know you also had some papers in pre-print.
     
    chrisjm18 likes this.
  14. chrisjm18

    chrisjm18 Well-Known Member

    Thank you, Dustin. I will submit my dissertation to Liberty's Theses and Dissertations site. However, it will be in embargo status for a year, while I submit peer-reviewed publications. Not to worry though, once my final manuscript has been edited and copyrighted, I will upload it on Google Drive and share the link here.

    In the meantime, here's the link to my first book review. https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/VWZWBNYWMA8RINWSUGFS/full?target=10.1080/10439463.2020.1855172

    I have two manuscript that are in the "revise and resubmit" phase.
     
    JoshD and Dustin like this.
  15. datby98

    datby98 Active Member

    Congratulations, Dr. Christian!
     
    chrisjm18 likes this.
  16. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Congratulations, Dr. Chris!
     
    chrisjm18 likes this.
  17. JoshD

    JoshD Well-Known Member

    Congratulations Dr. Chris! Huge accomplishment!
     
    chrisjm18 likes this.
  18. felderga

    felderga Active Member

    Congrats Dr. Chris...Well Deserved!!!!
     
    chrisjm18 likes this.
  19. Garp

    Garp Well-Known Member

    Yay! Congratulations Dr. Chris!! Nice to see someone completing that journey.


     
    chrisjm18 likes this.
  20. Futuredegree

    Futuredegree Well-Known Member

    Congrats Dr. Chris!! What an achievement and to become the first person is such an honor! They should hire you
     
    chrisjm18 likes this.

Share This Page