Florida Atlantic University Professional PhD in Computer Science $34K

Discussion in 'IT and Computer-Related Degrees' started by Dustin, Dec 13, 2021.

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  1. DrSchmoe

    DrSchmoe Member

    I just want to clear up some misinformation presented here. A DBA is a research doctorate, and not a professional doctorate. According to the National Science Foundation (NSF), a governmental agency, there are 18 "research doctorates". The Ph.D. is the most recognized one, but it is not the only one. You can see the list here. It's straight from the NSF's website:
    https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2018/nsf18304/datatables/taba1.htm
    If you look further on their site, they say that the research doctorates on the list are considered equivalent. So the implied suggestion that a DBA is a Ph.D-lite is completely inconsistent with NSF's classifications (i.e. hogwash). Professional doctorates are practice-related such as PharmD, PsyD, MD, etc.
    The term "scholarly doctorate", by the way, isn't a real classification. The two types of doctorates are "research" and "professional". You can see which is which on Wikipedia. Agreed that Wikipedia is not authoritative, but the info they presented corroborates with the NSF's site.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_doctoral_degrees_in_the_US

    I suppose someone here can trademark "scholarly doctorate" as the term doesn't exist.

    I've now debunked two posts in this room today. Two down, one to go.
     
  2. DrSchmoe

    DrSchmoe Member

    There appears to be a non-understanding of the goals and objectives of a doctoral program. It's not about the accumulation of credits or the completion of courses. The purpose of a Ph.D. program is to teach students how to contribute to the body of knowledge in their field. It's all about conducting research. Actually, the NSF website states it best: "Research doctoral degrees prepare students to make original intellectual contributions in a field of study. Research doctorates require the completion of a dissertation or equivalent project and are not primarily intended for the practice of a profession"
     
  3. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

    The distinction is based on research to advance the theory of the profession (research doctorates) or the application of that theory in the field (professional doctorates.)

    The PharmD, PsyD, MD, etc. used to be called first professional degrees but are now called simply professional degrees. Note the use of degree vs doctorate.

    While the NSF can consider them equivalent as far as research training goes, the type of research and the goals of the degrees are different.

    That distinction matters for potential students and it shows in the hiring patterns of professors, who overwhelmingly have research doctorates (PhD and similar) versus professional doctorates (EdD etc.)
     
    Rich Douglas likes this.
  4. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    This is incorrect. It is both.

    The distinction isn't between "research" and "professional." It's between "scholarly" and "professional." The world teems with books and articles that make this distinction and who are not Wikipedia.
     
  5. DrSchmoe

    DrSchmoe Member

    Got it. I was referring to the US only. For the rest of world (outside of the US), I have zero knowledge about doctoral programs.
     
  6. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Sorry, but these distinctions hold here in the U.S., too.

    The line sometimes gets blurred. For example, some DBA programs really are scholarly doctorates employing an alternate title. A lot of EdD programs are that way, too.

    Scholarly programs advance theory. Professional programs advance practice. The titles sometimes get awry, but that's the basic distinction.
     
  7. TheYeti

    TheYeti New Member

    I just joined this program for Spring 2022. I saw that The Dustin mention that someone from the Eastern MSDS program applied to this program. That would be me. Just to give you my experience so far, I applied in mid-December. The application is very easy to fill out: basic biographical info like name and address, academic history, references email addresses, and resume. Pay the fee and that's it.

    I wasn't that optimistic. I don't have the prerequisite undergraduate computer science courses like discrete math, DSA, or operating systems. So I was pleasantly surprised when I found that I was accepted. I have to say the staff there are excellent. They are very responsive and replied very fast to all emails. Total tuition is 800 x 42 = $33,600. About the prereqs. I won't be able to escape them. Two of the six topics on the qualifying exam are from these subjects, so I'll have to self-study those in time for the qualifying.

    I'm registered for two courses this Spring. Introduction to Data Science and Deep Learning. You have to be careful about which introductory courses you choose. A maximum of two can be applied to the degree, so for me, this will be one of them. They use Canvas here, and the course syllabus for the Data Science course which starts Feb 5 is already available. All assignments, no exams. The lectures are on Saturdays which you can attend in-person, participate on Zoom, or watch the recording later.

    Pretty excited about the program, there are a plethora of research opportunities. In fact, the professor teaching the DS course received more than $2 million in funding from the NIH and NSF recently.
     
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  8. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

    Welcome! I was wondering if you were going to join, I really look forward to hearing your experiences as you proceed through the program.

    Edit: Also, what did you think about the syllabus for the Intro DS course - how does it compare or map onto the courses you've done at Eastern?
     
    TheYeti likes this.
  9. TheYeti

    TheYeti New Member

    I just completed the first course! Intro to DS. The final grade was A. I was so impressed with the first course, I just tacked on another course onto my Spring semester schedule, "Cloud Computing". The course I just finished was similar in content to the Statistical Computing course at Eastern. We learned R/ggplot, tidyverse/dplyr data manipulation, linear/logistic regression, and then finally regularization and feature selection.
     
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  10. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    I think the distinction is more so theoretical research vs applied research. There are professional doctorates that train you for a specific occupation, which is often licensed, highly-regulated, and requires hands-on training. Sometimes, they require theoretical or applied research, and sometimes they require no research. There are research doctorates that train you to become a researcher, but the research could mostly be done in a laboratory or academic environment, or it can be done with an organization using real world data. I think the psychology field is a good one to demonstrate the differences.

    Clinical psychology - theoretical research and professional training
    Experimental psychology - theoretical research
    I/O psychology - applied research

    A clinical psychologist who isn't treating patients might end up working for a research hospital or university conducting experiments and publishing peer-reviewed articles. An I/O psychologist might end up doing consulting or conducting personnel research, designing pre-employment assessments, overseeing HR staff, and designing training programs for an HR department. I/O psychologists and experimental psychologists have inherently research-based occupations even though one is more applied and the other is theoretical. Of course, there are exceptions. An experimental psychologist can be hired by the government and do human factors work, and an I/O psychologist can choose to become a professor and publish papers on theory. A clinical or counseling psychologist can go without conducting studies and crunching numbers for the rest of their lives after graduation.
     
  11. JoshD

    JoshD Well-Known Member

    I love tidyverse. Makes my life so much more easy when coding in R.
     
    Dustin likes this.
  12. danders

    danders New Member

  13. danders

    danders New Member

    "they're essentially sanctioning" oh please x2

     
  14. danders

    danders New Member

    "it's the whole place, that has condemned itself through its own inaction" oh please x3

     
  15. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

    From the article, "Cole’s Twitter feed is a firehose of vitriol and coronavirus claims, many of them debunked or disputed by scientists."

    What do you call spreading debunked coronavirus claims, if not misinformation?
     
    Rachel83az likes this.
  16. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Florida man, yells at clouds.

    It's a major research university. A tenured crackpot working in a Business department doesn't have much bearing on a degree program out of Computer Science. I don't think it'll even affect Business students; they'll still get degrees from a school that's both SACS and AACSB. As much as Florida goes down the drains recently, universities there are still decent to good.
     
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  17. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    I must say: $34K for a program like this? May be the best value I've seen.
     
    JoshD likes this.
  18. JoshD

    JoshD Well-Known Member

    I avoid politics in forums, social media, etc. Having said that, I would not let a professors personal beliefs prevent me from attending a university. I have had many professors that I did not agree with their personal beliefs but we had a phenomenal relationship and wound up providing strong LORs for graduate school applications.

    Sometimes, those differences in beliefs can be a great tool for identifying areas of similarities.
     
  19. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    How about the entire institution's beliefs?
     
  20. JoshD

    JoshD Well-Known Member

    Generally does not bother me. I think I just keep my head low.
     

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