UNISA Phd

Thanks, Scott.

I agree. SA degrees involve independent research. I have found this to mean: you work alone, in isolation, without the input of fellow students and committees. You also don't have the benefits of all the campus resources available to students in class.

SA degrees often require publication of at least one article in a peer-reviewed journal. SA has accredited journals in which the article must appear.

Roscoe

 

I agree that doctoral coursework doesn't necessarily make a doctorate more rigorous. From my experience the only difference between graduate coursework and doctoral coursework is that the doctoral papers were a little longer.

Tom

 

Not easier but longer, the typical PhD length in the UK is 3 years while in the US is 3 to 5 years depending on the school. Some programs require 2 years of course work and 1 to 3 years for the dissertation. I have met few people that finished the dissertation in one year at US schools so it is obvious that some schools are less rigorous than others. The problem for those that finished in the UK, SA and AU and want to teach in the US is that their programs basically have no transcripts, you will have a hard time meeting the 18 graduate credits to teach a specific subject and some schools might have a hard time putting you in a salary scale as you have no transcripts.

 

I'm not convinced that European dissertations are better, stronger or more significant than American dissertations.

The breadth thing probably does add difficulty.

But classes more closely relevant to the subject of one's dissertation might conceivably make things easier.

I remember reading one of those chatty little books in which Richard Feynman cheerfully admitted that during his research he sometimes discovered that his understanding and technique were deficient. He would realize that he was kind of hazy on some necessary mathematics or something. So he would pop into a graduate class and sit in. That electrified the students no doubt, the famous Nobel physicist learning right there alongside them. (Imagine being able to explain something to him.) The professor was probably used to it, since that's how things work at Cal Tech. Feynmann would almost certainly have experienced more difficulty if he hadn't done that.