University of Leicester Doctor of Social Science--What Happens?

I'm writing this in part to blow off steam, in part to de-mystify a program that gets mentioned once in a while, and to disabuse two (minor) myths about it.

The UoL DSocSci degree is a "taught" degree in the British system. That is, it contains a couple of years of "coursework" (more on that in a minute) followed by a doctoral thesis of not more than 60K words. (The limit is really hard to stay within.)

But it is not an "online" program. It doesn't simulate classes online, you don't have classmates. You're on your own.

The degree has an overt emphasis on the field of human resource development. But it isn't about education and training. It's about the labour market. In fact, the program originated in something called the Centre for Labour Market Studies (CLMS), which was a "skunkworks" kind of operation: within the University but unaffiliated with any particular school. They were on their own.

CLMS focused on just that: the labour market. It's what we might call human capital management, except they looked at it not from a business-level standpoint, but a national one. Because it is a social science degree, because they looked at human resources as a "labour market", the approach was a macroeconomic one. If you don't want to learn about macroeconomics, stay away!

The first year is about studying and researching in the social sciences. This bedrock is what you use going forward. At first I was bugged: what was this stuff? I'm a trainer, man! But what I didn't know--and they certainly did--is that scholarly study of social sciences--particularly sociology and economics--would be the way I would get at my research subject. The year also involved studying qualitative and quantitative research methods, which would obviously prove handy. (I had done a deductive, quantitative dissertation for my first doctorate.) I passed the quantitative course by pointing out an error in their computations!

But what is a "course." It ain't what you think. When you go through this program, you write. And write. And write. Oh, and you read, read, read as well. You don't have online classes, you don't interact with faculty or your peers. (You can contact the faculty if you have a question, which I did on occasion.) You get a set of scholarly articles about the subject, along with connective materials written by the school. Then you read. A lot. Near the end of the term they send you a set of research questions. You get to pick one, research it, and write a scholarly paper on it. Each of the four first-year modules require a 4K-word paper. The second and third year modules require 5K-word papers. Thus, you write approximately 32K of words before you get to your thesis.

The second and third years are made up of four modules you select from a list. You can choose them in any order and none are prerequisites for others. Same drill: bunch of papers (I mean, a lot!), connective material, research questions, and write. You're graded on your papers alone. (They're brutal, and the feedback is decidedly not friendly.)

Nearing the end of your third year, you're required to write a 5K-word thesis proposal. This is critical. You wrote a 500-word essay at admission, and you wrote more in one of your first-year modules, but the proposal is what you're going to do--and what they'll approve you to do. And there's the rub.

I wanted to study the Chief Learning Officer (CLO). I wanted to do an inductive study using a qualitative method called "grounded theory" to understand and explain this emergent phenomenon in the field of human resource development. They said no. Not only did they not think the CLO was a thing to research, they sure weren't going to let a doctoral student do something as arcane and difficult as a grounded theory--an open-ended process you cannot predict. (They didn't think the CLO would be a scholarly subject and would advance the scholarship in the field of HRD.)

The degree, despite the non-PhD title, is very much a scholarly degree.

I went back-and-forth with them for almost a year and was about to give up. I flew to Leicester and took a meeting with a faculty member, Johnny Sung, who was well-grounded in the practice of the field. He got me, but it was up in the air if I could proceed. I offered to let them broom me out of the degree program with a master's--I didn't need the doctorate anyway. That's when he jumped on my side. If I would write a paper that demonstrated the scholarly nature of the CLO phenomenon, he would convince the school I could proceed. (At that point, the CLMS had been absorbed into the School of Management, and those folks were the ones giving me a bad time.) I did. He did. And I used that paper--about 6K words--in my thesis. I was off.

The rest of the program went well. I did a good job describing the CLO phenomenon and the CLO's career path, but they wanted more. At my defense, my external examiner (from the University of Limerick--I had cited him in my thesis before knowing he would be the one at the defense!) listened to me explain what I'd done. Then he asked a simple question: "Rich, what's really happening with the CLO?" I said that the CLO role was new and those that filled it--or aspired to--were defining it as they go. I said it was like running a train while also laying down the track. He said, "Then write that!" Boom. Defense over. I passed, but it cost me another year of research and writing to put it all into a new theoretical paradigm that I developed--a real grounded theory! I became a Doctor of Social Science to go along with my Doctor of Philosophy.

So what does this all mean? First, this wasn't an "online" degree even though it was done almost entirely by distance. Second, it's damn hard to do a doctorate, even if you've done one before. And third, it will define the rest of my professional life, which ain't bad.

 

Congratulations !

What was the total cost for the program? Since you had to extend it an extra year.

 

Rich, a couple questions and a comment. Why did you choose a second doctorate? What was your first in and from where? Did you find Leicester generally more rigorous or just different?

I am working through a masters program from the UK and my experience is similar. Definitely more interactive but a tremendous about of reading, writing (~48K word course work of formal papers, ~12K dissertation plus probably ~10K of graded exercises and a range of non-graded exercises which are intended to help prepare you to write the papers). As you note, grading / comments are very inhospitable. They also hate it if you deviate from their accepted fairway for a course. They will tolerate a certain amount, if you are willing to accept the penalty on your grade.

I was thinking about the Leicester program at some point... you definitely talked me out of it.

 

The cost was less than $20K. They let you pay it in a few installments. (It's £23,855 these days.)

The additional cost of extending the thesis was less than $1K.

The UofL participates in the US Federal Financial Aid system. However, distance learning students are not eligible. But if you have existing student loans, you can defer them while enrolled.

 

The degree was not relevant. I wanted to do scholarly research in my field (human resource development) and this program provided the structure.

I'm a PhD from Union Institute and University. I specialized in nontraditional higher education. I'm one of two Union graduates who post here.

More rigorous for two reasons. One, the scholarship aspect was more exacting. They call it a professional doctorate, but it's really a scholarly one in disguise. Second, the word limit severely truncated what I could present in the thesis.

That happened to me in one course. I asked if I could take a decidedly non-economics approach to the research question. The faculty advisor I queried said yes, but the grader failed the paper explicitly for that reason. I had to re-submit--the only time that occurred.

I was thinking about the Leicester program at some point... you definitely talked me out of it.[/QUOTE]

The program is very narrow--for HRD practitioners. My intent was not to talk anyone into or out of it, but to describe it in detail. (Very little of that--describing the experience--goes on here.)

 

You're right about that and it would be a better place if more people did it. As programs proliferate this becomes one of the important factors in deciding between programs.

 

And you're right about that.

When one decides to pursue a degree, one gives two forms of capital and receives two. The two you give are your money and your academic effort. In return, you get a degree and an education. That education involves not only the content, but also the learning methodology(ies) employed. So much of that is ignored, which it can be critical to one's success. Yes, the degree is important; the issuing school is important, too. But beyond having a degree, it is the education that has the potential to change your life. Don't miss out on it.

 

I want to come back to this in greater detail in another thread someday soon. I said earlier in this one that Leicester was more rigorous, and that is true when it comes to pure scholarship. But the Union doctorate was way harder. It wasn't even close. And I'm not talking about just my experience--I'm talking about the two programs in general. Union had less rigor and more flexibility, but it was a much more difficult degree to do.

Regarding the schools, Union is unranked; the University of Leicester is ranked around 167th in the world. But that is a distinction without a difference. No one has ever cared where either degree was from. Ever.