The Case for the NA Doctorate

Neuhaus, you have great potential like Steve and Rich. However, I think you can get full mileage if you use your full name. I think if you do you will find it a bit more challenging but rewarding. Mortals like myself have to try to remain sort of anonymous.

 

As I've pointed out elsewhere, there's no reason to suggest that the displaced 50 year old with an NA bachelors is at a significant disadvantage solely because of his degree. I'd say the biggest disadvantage that that individual would have is that he's 50 years old likely has only one prior employer.

Again, we have to examine this from the point of view of a hiring manager or HR professional. Very few of either are sitting there looking a school they've never heard of and saying "OK, I'm either going to ask the applicant about the accreditation of this degree or I'm going to go online and research it myself." It just doesn't happen that way. If it did then people with unaccredited degrees would likely never find work. Yet, they do. Because they go in, the interviewer sees the degree on the resume, checks the box and if they initiate a background check the service typically contacts the school which, of course, confirms graduation. Done.

Now, there are employers who use the National Student Clearinghouse (or services that use that database to verify degrees) but many (most?) employers simply don't care to go into that level of detail.

Accreditation just isn't a topic for most private employers unless licensing or other regulatory guidelines are an issue.

Well, here it depends upon what we mean by "mid-career." For a bachelors degree to qualify for the CPA exam in New York, it has to have 150 Semester Hours. Alternatively, you can earn a 120 Semester Hour bachelors degree and then earn a Masters degree. But you also need to prove your program is substantially equivalent if it isn't AACSB accredited. So, yeah, an NA degree wouldn't meet those requirements but neither would a whole lot of other RA programs.

But a CPA is usually earned fairly soon out of the gate by someone who has a goal of being a professional accountant. At my own company you can get hired as an Accountant I without a CPA. However, if you ever hope to advance beyond the lowest of level, you need the CPA. So, you're not talking about something that it would take you 10 - 15 years into your career to hit a ceiling for.

It's also a specific requirement. If you want to be a CPA then you go out and find whichever program will bring you closer to that goal.

Again, you're bringing up a lot of licensure issues which are actually irrelevant to the discussion of a Masters degree's actual utility. Obviously if a degree is licensure qualifying that is a consideration if licensure is your ultimate goal. That isn't an NA versus RA issue. As stated earlier, there are plenty of RA degrees from reputable institutions that simply don't meet licensure requirements for one reason or another.

You can graduate from the Florida Institute of Technology, which is certainly reputable and absolutely regionally accredited, with a B.S. in Accounting and an MBA. And a bachelors and masters from FIT might serve you very well to get your CPA in a variety of places. But if you decide to move to NYS with those degrees, the onus is on you to prove to the satisfaction of the state that the program is equivalent. So, if you're attending FIT and intend to one day work in NYS (or at least have that option) as a CPA then it probably isn't the best option for you.

 

We really don't disagree about this. The biggest difference I am proposing comes in when we start talking about utility and career choices. If Bob is 35, has previously graduated from Ashworth with a BS in Business Administration(I have no idea if Ashworth offers this degree and is for illustration purposes only) and realizes his calling is to be a CPA. Bob is going to have a painful choice go back to school for 6 years or keep doing what he is doing. If Bob was to have gotten an RA degree, his choices would be different. The point here is NA vs RA has for utility in undergraduate programs can be limiting even if you can obtain gainful employment, moving on from there may be challenging( notice I did not say impossible).

I bring licensure into the picture only because, It becomes an issue for degree utility. This includes teachers, who in some states must obtain a master's degree to maintain their teaching certificate( I am not sure how many, if any will accept an NA degree for that purpose). Perhaps, the biggest point I am trying to make(and probably poorly) is that, in many cases the master degree is not just an academic degree but a form of a professional degree. It affords them at least entry to get a license or keep a license in some cases and is a motivator for people to continue their education. Licensure is not an NA vs RA issue, if the NA does not afford you the ability to get the license(the same would apply to an RA school, however if that were the case). Though then it begs the question why get the degree(if a license is required professionally and you can't sit for it), if not for personal satisfaction? If it is for a promotion or raise well good on you, as you may not need to worry about the NA/RA stuff or licensure. If you are looking for maximum utility then it may be an issue at some point in your career. Which is my main point but has nothing to do with an NA Doctorate as I think we all agree the utility would be limited anyhow(as well as the market).

Just an FYI about FITNYS Public Accountancy - States with Significantly Comparable Licensure Requirements. Once you are licensed in one state it is quite easy to move around without proving your education meets scrutiny(at least for accountants). This means you could get your CPA in Massachusetts(which is similar but does not require AACSB accreditation) and then reciprocate in to NYS.

 

My full name isn't a state secret. I've revealed it in at least one thread and I use it in my sign off for any private message on the forum. My full name is Joseph Neuhaus. I don't use it here because I'm not particularly attached to my first name.

In the Navy I grew accustomed to just being referred to as "Neuhaus" by everyone and it's actually my preferred style. My wife calls me "Jed" because her father's name is also "Joseph" and she thinks it's kind of creepy for us to both have the same name (how she settled on Jed is kind of a funny story for another time). At work, my coworkers tend to call me "Jay" because my email signature simply says "J. Neuhaus." Only two people refer to me as "Joseph;" my mother and my boss.

So, I don't omit my first name here because of privacy reasons, it's just a matter of preference.

 

Jay, you do put a lots of effort and substance in each post. I think that has value. Also, it gave you some street cred to go up against the DI big guns and not just an anonymous.

 

Who are these "big guns"? And why "against"?

 

Those DIers we know by full names are pretty good at their stuff. Jay seems eurudite and articulate so it makes for more interesting discussions. DI is my evening edutainment. There should be a DI survey to decide which between you and and Steve L is more sarcastic. No issue with sarcasm, it is one of the side effects of earning a doctorate. It is defect well earned.

 

Why, Rich, that must mean you. I am but merely a humble ensemble player and, having retired from this field several years ago to do something I far prefer (yes, driving a tractor-trailer around the country and playing paid professional tourist), am satisfied to make a minimal contribution on occasion.

I can't help it if my minimal contributions have more impact than your being, um, a big gun. Granted, you outnumber me by one doctorate, but all that has seemed to do is make you a bigger whiner.

Oh, for what it's worth, I'll throw in my two cents: NA doctorates are bullshit. So are many (though not all) professional doctorates. The world is full of people who want a title. Chief seats in the synagogue, and all that. Which, perhaps, is why I rarely bothered using one. I don't have to use my title - I am comfortable in my greatness and don't have to shove it down people's throats, o' twodocdoug.

I probably wouldn't have contributed to this thread at all, except that I had to wonder (1) why you first posted your O.P. at DLT, of all places; (2) why you reposted it here (without specifically stating that the previous posting was at DLT); and (3) why, despite having two doctorates, you had to write such tripe in the first place. Seriously, it reads like a high school term paper.

Keep trying, Rich - one day, your output will be worthy of your title. Now, be a good boy, and go sulk as usual.

 

Honestly, no sarcasm. This stuff is great.

 

I am about 200 miles north of the arctic circle. The current temperature is minus 40 C however with the windchill it is - 48 C. DI is the best.

 

I first learned it from Edward Snowden. After that there was no point in continuing the cover up.rivateeye:

 

We don't disagree but I feel like I need to clarify my intent a bit. The person you are talking about (Bob) is NOT a mid career professional (the person I am talking about).

I could make up a fake person, but I'm going to use myself as an example because it's just easier.

For starters, I'm roughly the same age as "Bob." Bob wants to become an accountant. But I've been an HR professional for just shy of 15 years (yes, I count my time as a PN in the Navy as time spent as an HR professional as I used that time to qualify for my PHR). At the time I decided to pursue my MSM, I was solidly in the HR field. There was no need for me to find a credential to "break into" it because I was already "in." I earned my MSM because the position above me was looming above me, teasing me with its pay bump and promise of an office that didn't have a massive water stain on the wall. But, it was a job for which a Masters was "strongly preferred." My MSM helped me get the job but it didn't get me the job. That was done by 15 years of ass busting, kissing and kicking and putting in many more than my 40 hours per week.

I'm a mid career professional because, at the time I decided to earn my MSM, I was (and am) literally in the middle of my career. "Bob" is still hoping to be something and hoping to break into a profession. Bob is pre-career. And at 35, even with an RA degree, Bob is going to need to get that CPA fast otherwise he is hitting the job market as an almost 40 year old CPA who has no experience. Peers his same age (who went into accounting directly) will have close to 25 years of post-CPA experience on him. Bob might be a career changer. He might be "mid career" in the sense that he is halfway through his working years. But he isn't midway through a career. Bob's degree needs and my degree needs are very, very different (unless, of course, I decided tomorrow I wanted to be something else).

My point is that licensure is not an RA a versus NA issue because there exist numerous caveats with licensure even within RA? Also, while licensed professions are an important discussion, the vast majority of professions are not regulated. If you're in a regulated profession (or intend to get into one) you need to do what qualifies you for that license.

In Naprapathy (to tie in another thread I hijacked) that means graduating from an unaccredited college in either Illinois or New Mexico. There is no accredited (by a USDOE recognized accreditor) in the field. So to get a state LICENSE you need to go to an unaccredited school to be a Naprapath.

As for the NYS CPA thing it isn't that easy. NYS is notoriously difficult for out of state licensees getting licensed here. If there is a reciprocal agreement in place then fine, easy day. But convincing NYS that your experience is "substantially equivalent" isn't an easy task all the time and the burden of proof is on you. we fought the battle with a staff accountant who was refused by the state accountancy board to be allowed to take the CPA exam. Reason? Her degree (an MBA) from Wilkes University (a private, non-profit liberal arts college that is RA and very well established with fully respectable degrees in Pharmacy, Engineering and 6 year study arrangements with two Philadelphia based medical schools) wasn't "substantially equivalent." And she moved to NYS to take the job with us. So, she wasn't planning to move out of state and become a CPA there and come back. And she couldn't take the exam in Pennsylvania because the requirement there (at least at the time) was that an accountant with a Masters had to work for one year full time under a PA CPA before being exam eligible. We eventually got her squared away but it was by no means automatic and I doubt she would have overcome the challenge all on her own (she had extensive support from her department and our legal team even sat down with her to try to overcome this issue).

But the majority of professionals are not licesned in any way. You don't need a license to work in HR, marketing, operations, logistics, purchasing, sales, IT, software development and many, many other roles. So I'm not saying Na degrees work for everyone at all times. Quite the contrary, I'm saying that for workers in these unregulated fields, who have been in their field for a number of years, MAY benefit from an NA degree. Would the benefit from an RA degree as well? Of course. Would their future options be more open with an RA a degree? It depends. If I go up against a candidate and we are neck and neck but he has an MSM from UofP, do you think and employer is going to start digging into the accreditation of our degrees and give him the job? Maybe. But unlikely in most situations.

If that happened then I might also be concerned that I earned my BS from CTU before they were ACBSP. So if I went up against a candidate who earned the same degree from the same school but a few years later, I might be in trouble. However, most employers don't know or care about ACBSP and very few know or care about the nuances of accreditation. YMMV, but if you apply for a job at a company that spends an inordinate amount of time scrutinizing the accreditation of applicant degrees then I can show you a company that has some wildly misplaced priorities.

 

Thank you for the feedback

Why?

Again, why?

That's fine, but that's about people. Why are NA doctorates in particular, and professional doctorates in general, b.s.?

Again, thank you.

I'm confident you know--or can figure out--the answers to these.

Yet again, thank you.

Okay! Sulking now! :smile:

 

I feel I've made my point re masters degrees. So let me just say this about professional doctorates:

In many fields, doctorates have very little workplace applicability. Let's talk DBAs for a second. Can a doctorate help you get a non-academic job? Sure. It probably won't hurt you. But neither is it going to make employers look at you and say "Wow, this guys has a doctorate! We better bring him in for an interview immediately."

They may very well be impressed by the applicant. And the doctorate may play into that overall first impression. But no one is going to be impressed solely because of the doctorate. A doctorate is unlikely to help you overcome a lack of certifications, if they are important to your field. If Rich Douglas came to my company for a job interview in HR his SPHR would matter more to us than either doctorate. Would they impress? They'd be a discussion piece, for sure. But it would depend upon the job, largely.

HR can be a very diverse field. A benefits specialist with many years of experience may not be able to easily transfer into a role as a recruiter and vice versa. Different skill sets are needed and different personality traits make the incumbent more successful (generally). So, it also depends how zeroed in that applicant's doctoral research is. If someone has a DBA with a focus in HR and considers him or herself an expert in the field of retirement plans, that's great! But it's not so great if they are applying for a mid-level job (where now we have to worry that this individual might get bored by the mundane routine of benefit enrollments) where retirement plans constitute 30% of their time. So, you're an industry expert in 30% of your job. You still have 70% to worry about. Are you going to pay a disproportionate amount of attention to the 30% you clearly care about? These are all concerns and all things that need to get hashed out in an interview.

My company's tuition assistance policy specifically does not mention doctorates at all. I asked my VP about it once to see if it might be an option for me down the road (if I went that route). His response: "You'd have to make a pretty good case as to how it would help you in your role or in future roles here. That. Might be tough because no position above you requires a doctorate and tuition assistance isn't designed to make you more marketable as a professor."

Are there industries and professions where a professional doctorate might actually help you? I'm sure. But the crux of Rich's argument touches upon a few realities; the most important being that private employers, in a large number of professions, simply don't care about professional doctorates. A marketing professional with a doctorate isn't necessarily more qualified for a role than a marketing professional with a bachelors degree. An IT professional with a doctorate is not necessarily more qualified than an IT professional with a Masters or a even just a bachelors. More importantly, it's actually Union prevention 101 that you don't hire people who are ridiculously "overqualified" for a relatively low level job as they tend to fester discontent ("I can't believe I'm a Marketing Specialist I making $40k a year when I have a doctorate in marketing!").

And lastly, and this might sting a bit, if you are above the lower level of employment and sitting comfortably in the mid-level range, wasting your time on a doctorate is likely to cause you to miss out on a lot of opportunities to advance. Putting that time and energy into projects, initiatives and proactive work is going to get you noticed and enable you to fill your resume with useful, relevant and quantifiable boosters. Retreating into a doctorate at this point in your career is like being told you need to work on your social skills so you take an online course in interpersonal relationships.

If you're an executive and you want to be called "Doctor" then sure, go ahead. You've already "made it" and it's likely more of s vanity move. Just make sure it's accredited to avoid scandal.

 

I'm called "mister" far more frequently than "doctor." The most frequent is "Rich," though.

There are many ways to advance one's practice beyond impressing an employer. But that's a typical HR-driven, organization-bound perspective. In fact, your quote from your supervisor demonstrates this limited thinking. So go beyond it.

Lower-level? Mid-level? I wonder what level I am? (Hint: I'm not at any "level," except as defined by people who think in those terms. But they don't affect my practice, so who cares about them?)

 

Steve/Rich, bring in all of your toys, put them up, and stand in the corner. You're both in "time out" for 30 minutes. I don't know why you 6th graders can't get along.

 

It isn't limited thinking. It's doing what HR does. Employees continuing their education is good for an organization (typically). It means that the smart and capable person who comes to us as a welder can become a smart and capable engineer. For us to pay for that associates and bachelor degree is an investment in our workforce. Professional doctorates do not qualify a person to do anything special within the organization. They eat up significantly more time than any other degree. They are also incredibly expensive (if RA) compared to the lower degrees. There's no reason for a company to pay for a professional doctorate. It serves the employee's interest with absolutely no benefit to the organization.

You can't have it both ways, Rich. You can't start off a post saying that an NA doctorate is going to be "accepted" (potentially) by many employers and then say that an organization centric focus is irrelevant to the point you're making. The professionals earning these degrees are either self-employed (in which case the degrees are really more for vanity. Research can be conducted without a doctorate and the NA doctorate isn't going to "qualify" you to do something moreso than not having the degree) or they are working within the sort of organizations that have corporate drones like me sitting there pushing our "limited thoughts" upon an unsuspecting proletariat.

So, either the degrees are meant to impress people like me or to hell with the corporate suits and beat your own drum, but both isn't really a viable sales pitch.

Ever been to Ithaca, Rich? It's a great little college town. I go there frequently. If you're ever in Upstate New York and want to do some amazing hiking, I recommend it.

It's also the home of Cornell and Ithaca College. And if you go there with any frequency you will observe a sub-culture of Cornell PhDs who haven't so much published in the white pages since defending their dissertations. They've had no academic appointments either. Some of them find non-profit work. Some can be found lining up outside the Fishes and Loaves food pantry on a weekly basis. A good many of them are now elderly and rely on the smoke billowing from their bombastic asses to keep them warm at night. I don't judge anyone's lifestyle. I recognize that there are people who manage to make a living doing some absolutely surprising things.

I don't believe people should define themselves by the levels and hierarchies of corporate America. Eventually it all comes to an end. A retired CEO who alienated his entire family is going to live miserably those final years. But, in terms of setting career benchmarks, the levels are just fine. Only an individual can determine whether he or she is a "success" but determining if you fit into the lower, middle or upper tier of an organization isn't an existential thought exercise, it's a quick glance at an org chart. This isn't a measure of personal worth. It isn't a value of worth at all, really. It's just a realistic appraisal of where you fit into an organization. People in that lower tier do some amazing work but they generally don't focus on strategy. And, as you move further up, the shift from operational labor to strategic planning and visioning usually shifts as well. These aren't levels to be reviled. This is a spectrum. There's no "good" or "bad" place here, but it is good to find the right space for your personality, desires and goals.

I am imagining that the reason youR musings are seemingly so much more emotional than logical (because you are kind of jumping all over the place with your defense of NA doctorates and the rationale thereof) probably has something to do with WISR. Nothing wrong with that, if I'm right. WISR is one of the few unaccredited schools that has a positive reputation on these boards. When they receive ACICS accreditation they will likely be one of the few NA doctoral programs with such a positive reputation on these boards. And an individual may very well find great personal and academic enrichment going through these programs. But that isn't going to help them necessarily in their "career" in any appreciable fashion. And if the only way to measure their success is to disregard the organizational view of virtually every corporation in this country, then I think that speaks volumes as to the supposed utility you are trying to establish for NA doctorates.

 

The WISR connection is interesting. I hadn't even thought of that. They're a long way from accreditation, if it ever happens.

I'm not trying to "establish" anything. I put a point of view out there. That's all. I'm not surprised that you don't get it. Not one little bit.

 

Well, maybe there is no connection. Even if there is there's certainly no shame in having an opinion that supports the activities of an organization you stand behind.

I refuse to believe that you earned two doctorates and just never learned about the concept of dialogos. I'm not arguing with you, Rich, I agree with many of the points you made in your original post.

Yeah, you put s point of view "out there" and "out here" it gets reviewed, scrutinized, criticized and commented on. If you didn't want that to happen you could have either not shared it at all or posted it someplace where comments are not allowed (we would still comment on it, but not in front of you). Perhaps such an avenue of publication is more appropriate since p, apparently any discussion of your opinions, no matter how benign cause you to retreat into this Warhol routine where you say the academic equivalent of "it's not my fault you don't get my art."

Besides, you previously said you didn't care what I posted here because you were ignoring me. So if you think I'm just an imbecile who doesn't understand your grand schemes on the higher plane of understanding you occupy then why argue with me? Why argue with the dullard who just doesn't get how brilliant you are?

In the meantime, as long as the overall conversation is going, I'm going to continue to participate regardless of how little you are surprised by my utter lack of comprehension.

 

I really don't care if you get it and what you get. Truly.

You're not even addressing the issue I presented. You're just ranting for no good reason. I don't care to parse it anymore. It's really narrow-minded, despite its verbosity.

I'm not arguing with a dullard (your term, not mine). I'm avoiding it. But the dullard doesn't make that distinction.

Talk all you want. I'll look forward to hearing from informed others instead. Oh, and one other thing:

I never mentioned that in this thread, even though you wrongly accused me of it. But you keep bringing it up. I wonder why? (No, I don't. Not really.)