Great Falls teen earns Doctorate degree

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Dustin, Mar 19, 2021.

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  1. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

    Since she no longer needs to plan out years of formal education I think she can now pursue internships in her area of interest and then use those to earn a full-time position, and then just keep moving around. Although a company like McKinsey tends to recruit from only the top schools, I think she might be able to find a niche with some kind of analytics or consulting, especially if she does internships.
     
  2. TEKMAN

    TEKMAN Semper Fi!

    Her parents have a good idea for her to graduate from college early; however, they also have bad judgment. At the age of 17 years old, receiving a DBA from California InterContential University does not provide her a fast track to her career. She might end up being a K-12 teacher. If she is going to the business world, her DBA does not serve her well as they require experience.

    This is exactly the path I wanted my kids to go through, but after taking into consideration of college experiences, professional networking, friendship, and social networking. I choose to have them earning a Bachelor's from a decent college likes, the University of Florida. Have them continue to attend medical school or getting a master's degree in the field they are interested in on-campus at the top school; then start looking for an internship.
     
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  3. Steve Levicoff

    Steve Levicoff Well-Known Member

    Yet another news story on our young "Hey, I'm a doctor now!" celebrity:

    Montana girl gets doctorate at 17, ends her ‘long journey’ - New York Daily News (nydailynews.com)

    This one covers the for-profit nature of her alma mater and gives a better indication of her, um, legal issues.

    My take: It will be interesting to see where she is at in, say, five years. My take is that most companies won't want to touch her - she has an inflated ego without the maturity that is supposed to come along with being a doctor.
     
  4. TEKMAN

    TEKMAN Semper Fi!

    "Dr. Strable will remain in Great Falls a little while longer and plans on pursuing a career in executive management." Interesting enough that who is going to hire her to be an executive-level at 17 years old? But hey, it is good marketing for California InterContental University.
     
  5. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

    She could start her own company, especially if she wants to work from home and have clients across the US.

    I'm no stranger to age discrimination. I look very young, so sometimes I would have great conversations over email and even be invited to speak on my areas of expertise, only for the person to be shocked when we met at how young I looked.
     
  6. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    Assuming there isn't more to it than her age, suing wasn't the move to make. At that age, it's pretty much a given that you're going to get counted out because of a lack of experience, because companies don't want to take the chance on someone with a lot of maturing and learning left to do, a lot of companies don't even like hiring people with no experience for jobs that really don't even require experience. I don't think lawsuits are the way to handle this situation. Just being humble and being willing to start from the bottom and work is the better move.

    I do see a related issue though. The way college is presented to young kids, it gets them sold on the idea that a degree is a golden ticket. She probably believed that going this far was going to guarantee her a payoff at the end, but it doesn't necessarily work that way, at least not so soon.
     
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  7. Vonnegut

    Vonnegut Well-Known Member

    Wish the kid well and cheers to her great accomplishment. Sounds like the family greatly values education and provides an atmosphere to support this endeavor. Hopefully it’s in a positive manner where true learning thrived.

    The notion of starting lawsuits over age discrimination and transitioning to executive management... has me concerned that she may be in for a rude awakening. Hope that’s not the case and she thrives on her own abilities and productive accomplishments. As for whether this was a good idea, I’ll reserve my reservations and leave it at that.
     
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  8. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

    If I'm an HR department in this women's town I'm not even going to look at her resume when it comes in if I know that she's liable to sue companies that don't hire her.

    I believe I am safer from a liability perspective to not even try, rather than make a good-faith attempt to assess her credentials and find out that someone else has more relevant experience before I get sued.
     
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  9. Maniac Craniac

    Maniac Craniac Moderator Staff Member

    Sounds familiar...
     
  10. Thorne

    Thorne Active Member

    At least on the last sentence, we agree. Seems like we should prepare for the four horsemen and the trumpets next.

    Anecdotally, I split my time in public school and homeschool (K-6 Public, 7-12 Home) and have no issues working with (most) other people. The people I do manage to struggle with happen to be the people no one likes, so it doesn't seem like its related to social skills, lol. Now, I didn't do what Kimberly did at all. Instead of focusing only on academics, I started working as soon as possible (started working at age 12 as a soccer ref, then moved to fast food at 16 and was working nearly full-time hours while studying and trying to get clients for my landscaping and car detailing businesses). For me, homeschooling really didn't mess anything up, it just gave me an opportunity to study at my pace while bringing in money and gaining life experience.
    Plus, not having to take part in the Fast Times at [Local] High probably spared me a lot of trouble. In primary school, I was already running a business to sell "contraband" (gum, soda/pop, candy, annoying trinkets like laser pointers) and school supplies at ridiculous markups while pretending to be the model student and making friends with all the teachers I knew. Loopholes have always been my friend... :D
    Anyway, I probably dodged a bullet by not going to HS and doing more of my shenanigans.

    My closest friend from the homeschooling period is a different story. Brilliant IT guy who can solve virtually any problem but cannot stand talking to or working with anyone. He's the SysAdmin and everything except T1 helpdesk for his company, who puts up with him because he's hyper-efficient and, well, he comes cheap.

    That being said, I think you underestimate the value of a silver tongue, a winning smile, and reframing. She could probably get a job working for a small company doing, essentially, low-to-mid level work with a pathway to management and a flattering title (i.e., "Assistant Operations Manager") from a small company where titles are irrelevant and therefore fungible. I worked in a company like that, and it wasn't hard to find one. One of my colleagues was called "Senior IT Project Manager" despite being the only project manager in the company, not being given full autonomy over projects, and not even being senior level, used that title and a connection to get a much higher paying job at another company. He only landed the first job because he put "Alumnus of The University of Texas at Austin" on his resume and the owner (who claimed never to hire someone without a university degree) never actually asked the question, "When did you graduate?" or, "What degree do you have?"
     
  11. Kimberly Strable

    Kimberly Strable New Member

    As you all seem to know so much about me, can you please tell me what my work history is? It is ignorant to assume that I lack work experience because of my age. I do not. Each person is entitled to their opinion, however it is foolish to speak without understanding. If someone wants to know something, ask me. For the record I went to Montana State University Northern and graduated with my BS in Business Administration with a 4.0 at 15.
     
  12. datby98

    datby98 Active Member

    The courses I took pertain to management and leadership would always ask you to share your real life case experience and respond to your peers' posts. I assume the DBA courses at CIU would be something similar. Just being curious how she completed her weekly assignments. I would be embarrassed if my sharing on conflict resolution, client service, or negotiations is about the teenage tension among the cheerleaders or how to resolve the candy quota issue with my neighbor kids.

    In recent years, lots of similar 'genius' kids are identified in China too. During their elementary school time, they either 'solely' completed graduate-level biological studies, or licensed impressive patents, or published brilliant articles on reputable magazines, etc. Eventually, people found all those so-called achievements were attributed to the under table leverages by their parents.
     
  13. Thorne

    Thorne Active Member

    Speaking only for myself, I was referring to your LinkedIn profile's stark lack of work history when I thought you had focused only on academics. There's also the simple calculus that studying for a doctorate in two years, thus requiring full-time postgraduate work, typically prevents someone from working in-industry during that time, though does not preclude someone working as a teaching assistant or lab professor.

    To illustrate, CIU's DBA program requires 60 semester hours of work. To do this in two years, since you finished from age 15 (2019) to 17 (2021), you would need to do 15 credits per semester. For traditional semester hours, each credit requires 3 hours of time investment each week. To complete 15 credits per term, this is a sustained workload of 45 hours per week during those two years. Perhaps you could have worked during this time, but you can imagine why it would seem unlikely for you to have significant industry experience, given both your LinkedIn profile and the numbers.

    In Montana, children can start working at the age of 14, meaning that you only had from 2018 to 2021 to even try to gain significant work experience. The first year of this timeframe, 2018, you were enrolled in your BSc program, then from 2019 to 2021 you were enrolled in the CIU DBA. Since the last two years are effectively a wash, we can only expect some kind of significant work history in 2018. In any case, three years of industry experience, which is your legal maximum in Montana, is not significant experience that most people here would expect a DBA holder to possess.

    All the experience helps, but it still seems out of place for a holder of a professional doctorate (which is what many DBA programs claim to be) with less than 6+ years of experience, much in the same way that it seems out of place for a network technician with 6 months of experience to hold a CCIE.

    In any case, congrats on the doctorate! Don't mind certain pompous lunatics, most of us are rooting for you either way :)
     
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  14. datby98

    datby98 Active Member

    Wow, I did not notice you are on the forum. Nevertheless, congrats Dr. Strable! :)
     
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  15. Kimberly Strable

    Kimberly Strable New Member

    Good evening. First, my profile on LinkedIn has been changed recently. With how much negativity there has been, it seemed unwise to subject my past/current employer to the backlash. To address the second comment, Montana child labor laws do not apply if you graduate high school. Therefore, I could and did legally work at 12 not 14. I am very aware of the work it takes to make my own dreams a reality. As I mentioned in the interview, I believe that if you are dedicated you can achieve anything. My goals have always been the biggest priority in my life and I will work towards them each and every day. I have always known that work experience was critical. A degree without any work experience would not have be very helpful and thankfully I’m certainly not without experience. Thank you for talking to me personally! I hope you have a great night!
     
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  16. Kimberly Strable

    Kimberly Strable New Member

    Thank you so much!
     
  17. Thorne

    Thorne Active Member

    Likewise! I'll admit that I was not aware of that caveat with Montana labor laws, thanks for the insight

    I had a bit of an ulterior motive in presenting the information in this way -- I wanted to see how you would react. I'm pleasantly surprised to find that at least one doctor who has posted multiple times on this thread doesn't have "an inflated ego" and does have "the maturity that is supposed to come along with being a doctor." I, on the other hand, am not yet a Doctor, so I don't need to worry about meeting that particular ideal just yet :D

    This little spat with my fellow forumites aside, congrats again, Dr. Strable. I did have a few questions, if I might pick your brain...
    First, given that your DBA only has DEAC accreditation and is not accredited by a regional agency, do you ever plan to go back to academe and pursue a regionally accredited doctorate? Do you have any interest in staying in academe or would you prefer to keep driving forward in the professional realm? Do you think you would ever want to go back at any level (secondary/tertiary) to teach?

    Other than that, if you're open to suggestions, most homeschool co-ops or homeschool study groups are lacking the perspective of someone who has actually had the successes you've already had. Do you have any interest in speaking with kids in those groups to provide insight to navigate this journey (acceleration, higher ed, thesis writing, etc)? There is a market for it, albeit a small one, that may bring in some extra income on the side if you sold a Udemy course or something along those lines.
     
  18. Kimberly Strable

    Kimberly Strable New Member

    Thank you! I try to be a good person and I hope to never come off as arrogant. I know that no matter how much I learn or how old I am there will always be room for improvement. Now let me try and answer your questions in order.
    As for the accreditation I’m pleased with my choice of school. However, I am currently working on getting a research paper published in a very credible peer reviewed journal. If I ever go back to school I will likely study something outside of business. For now I don’t see a point in continuing school. Maybe one day but right now I’m going to focus on my career. I haven’t officially decided about teaching but I think it’s unlikely.

    If I had opportunity I would like to help others with their goals. That being said, I would not want to turn that into a source of income. I would help others because they may need support or advice but it would personally feel wrong to charge for something like that. I’m also interested in helping people in adverse situations regardless of their education background (public school, Homeschhol, or private school). If you have any other questions just let me know. Thank you again!
     
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  19. Steve Levicoff

    Steve Levicoff Well-Known Member

    Welcome to DegreeInfo, Kimberly - or whoever you are. I'm not saying that you're not Kimberly, but I am observing that it's convenient for you to show up at this juncture. I suspect bullshit, but for the moment we'll allow that you might, indeed, be Kimberly Strable.

    That said, it's time you got your act together. To wit:

    Here you claim to have a "B.S. in Business Administration." On LinkedIn, you claim to have a "Bachelor of Business Administration - BBA."

    Elsewhere you claim to have a "Doctor of Business Administration with an emmphasis in Global Leadership." On LinkedIn, you claim to have a "Doctor's Degree, Business Administration and Management, General."

    You can't have it both ways and, if you indeed have a doctorate, you should know how to represent it accurately and consistently. It's all in the details, and someone with a legitimate doctorate would know that.

    A correction is in order about an earlier statement I made: The article that elaborates on CIU's accreditation is actually the one that was cited in Dustin's original post: "California Intercontinental University is accredited by the Distance Education Accrediting Commission, and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. It is not accredited by a regional accreditation organization. Click here to read about the difference between national and regional accreditation." As I observed in another recent thread, CHEA does not accredit schools. The misstatement here is not Kimberly's fault, but is an error on the part of the reporter. A typical error, since reporters generally don't have a clue about accreditation issues.

    Anyway, welcome to the internet, everyone - like I said, I suspect bulllshit. And after 30-something years at this game, my nose has learned to be pretty accurate. Especially when one allegedly defends a dissertation "on Thursday" and claims to have a doctorate the next day. At a legitimate university, one does not actually have the doctorate at the end of a dissertation defense - there is normally a process in which the doctoral committee makes a recommendation to the dean and the doctorate is actually awarded at a later date.

    Meanwhile, Kimberly is getting her 15 minutes of fame and she will soon be forgotten (ditto her mickey-mouse alma mater). What we have here is a non-story. And did I mention bullshit?

    Yep, that'd be me. Always proud to be a pompous lunatic. :D
     
  20. Mac Juli

    Mac Juli Well-Known Member

    Hello!

    There is a good lesson to be learned here for the real business world: you will be begrudged for success. But why please everyone... or even try?

    Best regards,
    Mac Juli
     
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