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Depends. University of Phoenix awards doctorates that take 3-4 years (HUGE red flag -- the best and brightest phd students might get out in 4 years if everythin
by throwawaygh 5y ago
Depends. University of Phoenix awards doctorates that take 3-4 years (HUGE red flag -- the best and brightest phd students might get out in 4 years if everything goes perfectly; an "expected time to graduation" of anything less than 5 years is almost certainly a worthless degree).
Those doctorates don't require much more than taking some coursework and paying a boatload in tuition. Basically an expensive and length online masters program. Not worth the paper they're printed on, unless you're employed by the government or in a union job that mandates raises for education attainment.
As a general rule of thumb, PhDs from R01 universities that are paid for by the university through research assistantships or teaching assistantships are generally a good signal of at least minimal training in research skills.
Another good general rule of thumb is that paying for a PhD -- beyond perhaps some MD/PhDs or maybe nursing phds, stuff like that -- is always a good sign of someone who has both a meaningless degree and also poor reasoning/research skills.
But anyways, real doctorates outside of a few fields (e.g., pure math) usually come with a non-trivial publication record that speaks for itself. You don't even need to know that the person has a doctorate; you can just read their papers and a rec letter from an advisor describing the student's role in each paper.
(I'm excluding discussion of professional degrees like JDs, PharmDs, etc. which are technically doctorates but sort of their own class.)
- thebooktocome 5y agoNB: I'm only speaking about the math doctorate as it currently stands in the United States. Due to the current market saturation of math doctorates, any pure mathematics PhD worth the paper its printed on will also probably come with a non-trivial publication record. The exceptions I can think of are high-risk high-reward areas like cutting-edge number theory (I had a friend go eight years without publishing, which, yikes, but his thesis was semi-revolutionary (or so I'm told)) or, I guess, suitably abstract category theory (though the people I follow in this area seem to publish lots of interesting papers, like the Baez school or the homotopy type theory people; your mileage may vary). It's really too bad. One wonders why we can't simply ax the entire advisor-candidate system (with all its myriad opportunities for physical, emotional, and even sexual abuse) and certify new candidates by saying: "You're a doctor of mathematics when you get five professors to sign off on 3-5 papers you've had published."
- derefr 5y ago> certify new candidates by saying: "You're a doctor of mathematics when you get five professors to sign off on 3-5 papers you've had published." Or one big one. Basically, take the "honorary doctorates" some Universities give out to people retrospectively to people who have made major contributions to their fields; do it more often; and then make it the only path to getting a doctorate, such that they're no longer "honorary" at all.
- lyaa 5y agoLength of PhD programs is an indicator that should be considered in context. UK Universities, for example, often have research PhD programs that take 3 years to complete and they are legitimate.
- throwawaygh 5y agoYes, my comment is specific to US (where, additionally, it's somewhat uncommon to have a masters degree prior to starting the phd).
- hellbannedguy 5y agoWow---you are right. University of Phoenix does offer Ph.D's. I would have never guessed.