Online DHA - 12 months - $15k

With that said, these are my personal opinions and I don’t speak for the school! Alpine

 

You nailed it as this is some of the frustration that I'm hearing and yes a dedicated program coordinator would be a great idea. Before VUL I was at Trident and had begun work on my sketching out my research. I had originally planned to work with a certain long-term facility in southern California but COVID hit and of course, my access was going to be challenged during this period late spring/early summer of 2020. Hence I asked my current employer if they would sponsor and of course, this needed to be run by legal who wanted Trident to sign a non-disclosure agreement before I could do anything to proceed further. Trident was a bit wishy-washy with agreeing to sign the NDA and by this point I was tuned out and turned on to VUL with the prospect of attending an HBCU so it no longer was an issue for me. But you are absolutely right especially in this time of COVID for as the university should be aware of the need for allowing students some leeway and heads to work with organizations. Hence this really should have been settled last term so as everyone would have locked in and ready to go on Day 1 for the fall term. Instead, there is a bit of a scramble from what I have gathered for some thus far. You are also 100% correct as students should take this upon themselves as doctoral candidates. Again just more growing pains that I hope program leadership will correct in the future.

 

You bring up a good point about legal issues. Externships behind the scenes with managers and administrators that avoid actual patient contact probably don’t require liability insurance but the NDA is interesting! I would have enjoyed an externship with a hospital’s legal/risk management administrator.

 

The easiest thing to do would be to create more healthcare coursework. It doesn't make sense to require externships based on education. Hardly anyone has two master's degrees or one master's degree and a bunch of extra graduate credits. Someone with two master's degrees and no healthcare experience doesn't need to complete externships while a manager of a hospital department has to complete an externship because they don't have two master's degrees. It's poor program design. Both of the master's degrees don't even have to be related to healthcare.

 

Those are good ideas but to be frank, it is difficult to read your posts when you are so negatively critical towards VUL. Authenticity engenders trust and loyalty of which you appear to be lacking. No offense but your attempt to provide constructive ideas is completely devasted by your vitriol.

My guess is a masters degree takes a minimum of 30 credits to complete with 36 credits for the DHA leading to a maximum of 24 more graduate credits remaining. There seems to be no shortage of qualified applicants in part thanks to you recommending 100s of potential students, as you claim.

I really would like to trust your input but your first impressions and hostility towards VUL and posters in VUL make it difficult to forget and move on.

It also creates an atmosphere of hesitancy in bringing forth constructive dialogue on this forum. My hope is VUL prospers and grows into a great University.

 

Sorry, my texting/fat fingers on the iphone leads to spelling errors. I hope that doesn’t reflect negatively on the caliber of students at VUL that has been inferred earlier. Alpine

PS great news, I got a “keep coming back award” from DI.

 

That is your opinion and your inability to not get personally offended when someone mentions valid criticisms of your school. I did not attack you; you attacked me first. You need to look in the mirror and repeat your comments to yourself. Let's not forget that you apologized because you realized that you made comprehension errors. Your comments were rude and immature.

 

What reflects poorly on you is the fact that I am simply making comments about VUL, and you're still personally attacking me unprovoked like you did a couple of days ago. Grow up! If you can't handle disagreement, then you should have left me on your ignore list.

 

Another great idea!

 

I was told that the 90 required credits have to do with an accreditation thing with TRACS, I believe to run a doctorate they are required to have 90 credits past a bachelor's degree. With a master's degree (typically 30 credits) plus the 36 credits from the program, most people are short 24 credits.

 

Good idea!

 

I think there are a lot of folks with 2 or more masters and even doctoral degree holders. Of course the pool of applicants with multiple graduate degrees may dwindle.

 

I understand the reason behind needing more credits, but it doesn't justify requiring externships. This seems to have been done out of haste and/or cost savings instead of taking the time to create more doctoral courses for those who are short the 90 credits. Typically, programs that want to speed up completion will either transfer in credits that were not already included in a degree or credits earned after the conferral of the first master's degree. There's often the caveat that the credits must be related to the doctoral curriculum or fit into a concentration.

 

Personally, I think people would rather take an externship than pay and have to sit more courses. Now do I agree there should be an option to choose additional courses to fulfill the requirement offered directly from the university but this is a new program so with time hopefully, that becomes an option.

 

How many hours do students have to spend at the externship site? I'm thinking not a lot of people seeking online programs would want to do that for an extended period of time because it could conflict with work and family.

 

Personally, if I were short I would have instead looked for a Graduate Certificate program like in Healthcare Quality, Lean Six Sigma, Data Science, Aging/Long Term Care, Public Health, or Mental/Behavioral Health among others as a way to make up the difference. But that is extra money and the attractive reason most are at VUL is because of its price point.

 

If allowed (and I'm assuming since you're in the program that you think it would be), that's a really cool idea. Especially if they built out a few pathways for students that would allow them to focus on some of those areas that you mentioned - building true specialization via coursework and the research and other components.

 

If you can find an online externship you can do it online as long as it's in the healthcare field. I saw last semester someone worked online with a healthcare finance company. I am not sure about the required hours because I am exempt from the requirement.

 

I would enjoy the experience and look forward to this part of the program.

 

Just got my final grades and I can now call myself a Doctorate holder as I'm done. Happy again to have switched programs when I did as the experience at VUL was awesome. The weekly Zoom sessions allowed me an opportunity to better connect across the cohort which also helped me with networking with a few local Southern California classmates. Graduation will be in May and I hope to make the to Lynchburg to participate.