Ph.Ds Versus All Other Doctoral Degrees


Dr. Sweet NUPE

Dr. Sweet NUPE

New Member
I was sitting up thinking while I was working out and I have come to the conclusion that it is much harder to earn a Ph.D. than any other Doctoral degree. The reason I say this is because a Ph.D. program is really not mapped out like Law Degrees and Medical Degrees.

What do you think?
 
I agree. There is a great deal more academic rigor involved in earning a Ph.D than there is in earning a JD or an MD. In fact, some schools (I'm not going to name them) pretty much train their JD's for their respective state Bar exams rather than teaching them various legal issues.

You don't get away with that crap in a PhD program. The benefit of standardization is that we know that every is at least at the same level; however, there is no real incentive to achieve higher.
 

True some don't work as hard as others to get Dr. put in front of thier names.
 
Add to this the unique nature of each Ph. D.'s dissertation and the associated research, and by far it's the toughest to get. In some instances, depending on the school and program, even the qualifier for each candidate is different. I know of no other degree program where a person can be knocked out at three different stages (coursework requirements, qualifier, and dissertation defense (and sometimes a fourth if you have to get your research proposal approved and you have a assinine committee member)).

Regards.
 
Here at Arkansas you can get knocked out 7 ways.

1. If the department feels you are not making satisfactory progress. This means if your GPA goes from 4.0 to 3.0 and you maintain a 3.0. SAD...

2. Course work, which is different from satisfactory progress.

3. Proposal

4. Comprehensive Examination

5. Verbal Defense of Comprehensive Examination

6. Dissertation

7. Verbal defense of Dissertation
 
Good point, Dr. Sweet Nupe. I rolled 6 and 7 into one. But you are correct, if your dissertation does not satisfy your lead advisor you will not get a chance to defend. I'll never forget the moment I knew I had passed and my Ph. D. was a reality. It was when I sat down with my lead advisor and explained how a misunderstood concept in my major (Civil engineering with an emphasis in Structures) actually worked using balanced energy theory. His response was an astonished "you're right!!!!!". Mind you, this is a concept that had, heretofore, been constantly misunderstood and misstated for over a 100 year. I knew then that I had my Ph. D. If I hadn't got passed him, I wouldn't have gotten to my committee.

You're also right about the oral qualifier examination. Fortunately for me, I aced 4 of the 5 parts of my comps, so the fifth examiner said there was no need for him to review his ( the last checker) in any great detail and that there was no need for me to go through orals. I did o.k. in the last area but it was my weakest subject.

There are at least seven areas that can knock you out. You can probably add at least one more if you are required to get part of your research published before defending. Some lead advisors require that also, especially if they are untenured or trying to get a promotion.

And some Profs will pull their funding if they think you have been there long enough and/or are far enough along. That can mess with you also.

Regards.
 
I'll take all the time that y'all are allowed to have to get your Ph.D. over going through the first year of law school, any day. Y'all can take as long as you want. Law students don't have that luxury.

I can't speak to med school, but you can't compare having regular class, taking routine exams, research and writing a paper, to going through semester after semester after semester and your ONLY grade is your final exam. There's no grading scale. Exam scores are curved so that 10% of the class fails the exam (that's how it was at Ole Miss). Sure woulda been nice for many a student to have other test scores to average out that one exam we have per course. And then y'all get grades for homework assignments that factor into your final grades. No such luxury in law school. Just your final exam. What you score on that exam is your grade for that semester. Each and every class, except first year research and writing courses.

And to trivialize the law school experience is a major mistake. It's nothing like any of you have ever gone through, no matter how difficult your experience was.
 
Originally posted by Robber
I'll take all the time that y'all are allowed to have to get your Ph.D. over going through the first year of law school, any day. Y'all can take as long as you want. Law students don't have that luxury.

I can't speak to med school, but you can't compare having regular class, taking routine exams, research and writing a paper, to going through semester after semester after semester and your ONLY grade is your final exam. There's no grading scale. Exam scores are curved so that 10% of the class fails the exam (that's how it was at Ole Miss). Sure woulda been nice for many a student to have other test scores to average out that one exam we have per course. And then y'all get grades for homework assignments that factor into your final grades. No such luxury in law school. Just your final exam. What you score on that exam is your grade for that semester. Each and every class, except first year research and writing courses.

And to trivialize the law school experience is a major mistake. It's nothing like any of you have ever gone through, no matter how difficult your experience was.
Click to expand...

Hmmm... Law school (you can't swing a dead cat around without hitting someone with a law degree these days) versus the rigors of any Ph.D program...

Gee, having known several colleagues whom I've hit with dead cats, etc, and having colleagues who are currently going through Ph.D programs, I can tell you who's having the harder time of it.

Another aspect to consider is what is better for society. ;)
 
Originally posted by sophandros


Hmmm... Law school (you can't swing a dead cat around without hitting someone with a law degree these days) versus the rigors of any Ph.D program...

Gee, having known several colleagues whom I've hit with dead cats, etc, and having colleagues who are currently going through Ph.D programs, I can tell you who's having the harder time of it.

Another aspect to consider is what is better for society. ;)
Click to expand...
For every attorney you see, you can find someone who tried and failed. What you see is a profession that many people want to pursue a career in. Don't mean that obtaining that J.D. was easy. I started school with a coupla Ph.D.'s that flunked out. So, I guess you can't hit them with that dead cat you're swinging.

I stand by my belief that I'll take the way you get your grades towards earning that Ph.D. than the way they are earned at most law schools. That final exam is a 4 hour beyotch, and it's your grade for the semester. No mid-terms, other tests, homework, make-ups. Don't get no difficult and stressful than that.

Think about how differently the justices on the Supreme Court think. Then imagine having to write an essay on a legal issue, trying to think the same way your professor thinks. They have their own beliefs about the law. Intrepretation of law from one person to the next varies greatly, yet we had to explain it the way that particular professor would want to read it.

As for your comment about what's better for society, we don't work for ourselves??? We work for society. Society are the ones that pay us to do what we do. If society wasn't so litigious, we wouldn't have jobs.
 
Originally posted by Robber

For every attorney you see, you can find someone who tried and failed. What you see is a profession that many people want to pursue a career in. Don't mean that obtaining that J.D. was easy. I started school with a coupla Ph.D.'s that flunked out. So, I guess you can't hit them with that dead cat you're swinging.

I stand by my belief that I'll take the way you get your grades towards earning that Ph.D. than the way they are earned at most law schools. That final exam is a 4 hour beyotch, and it's your grade for the semester. No mid-terms, other tests, homework, make-ups. Don't get no difficult and stressful than that.

Think about how differently the justices on the Supreme Court think. Then imagine having to write an essay on a legal issue, trying to think the same way your professor thinks. They have their own beliefs about the law. Intrepretation of law from one person to the next varies greatly, yet we had to explain it the way that particular professor would want to read it.

As for your comment about what's better for society, we don't work for ourselves??? We work for society. Society are the ones that pay us to do what we do. If society wasn't so litigious, we wouldn't have jobs.
Click to expand...

I can name something that hasn't been brought up that attorneys can't claim, and the learning is quite similar to the pursuit of a Ph.D. What is it, you ask? A Fellowship in either the Society of Actuaries or the Casualty Actuarial Society.

If stress and difficulty are the deciding factors, then that has everything else beat.

No one is saying that getting a JD is easy; rather, our argument is that it is not as rigorous as a Ph.D.
 
I've known Ph.D.'s who still actively participate in every walk of life they did before they started. Y'all work your same 9-5 job. You still go to clubs. Life is pretty normal, except you got classes to take and a dissertation to write and defend years down the line. In your first year of law school, you give damn near your life up to studying. You don't work. If you do, you'll probably fail. You don't go out partying regularly. If you do, you'll probably fail. You give up going to games (I didn't though). If you do, you'll probably fail. Is it that way when pursuing a Ph.D.??? I don't think so. Y'all don't know how easy y'all really had it.

As for rigorousness, if law school ain't rigorous, then NOTHING is.

Lemme say this. After the first year of law school, it is pretty much downhill.
 
I can tell you, having attended law school some years ago, that I always envied the medical students and pharmacy students because they always seemed to be very relaxed and happy to be in graduate school and studying in the library while the law students were always learning under pressure, trying not to fall behind, and hating life. I think that all of the disciplines are tough going, but I think that the law school experience is geared toward stressing individuals out as oppose to teaching anyone how to become a lawyer per se. I think that the other professional schools are just the opposite, they are more concerned with ensuring that you know how to practice medicine and that you are adding to the vast knowledge of a subject area. Lawyers are warriors who operate well under pressure in ambigous situations with very little guidance. We are all just different animals. Just my two cents.
 
Originally posted by Robber

I can't speak to med school, but you can't compare having regular class, taking routine exams, research and writing a paper, to going through semester after semester after semester and your ONLY grade is your final exam. There's no grading scale. Exam scores are curved so that 10% of the class fails the exam (that's how it was at Ole Miss). Sure woulda been nice for many a student to have other test scores to average out that one exam we have per course. And then y'all get grades for homework assignments that factor into your final grades. No such luxury in law school. Just your final exam. What you score on that exam is your grade for that semester. Each and every class, except first year research and writing courses.
Click to expand...


I think all doctorate degrees are hard to come by. All are tough in their own right. But all things considered, I'd rank them this way:

1. Doctor of Medicine
2. Ph.D.s in SMET - Science, Mathematics, Engineering, or Technology, & maybe some more.
3. J.D.

The thing about the J.D. is, you don't need a law background to get into law school. You can have a B.S. in any discipline, make a good score on the LSAT, and if your G.P.A. is straight, then you've got a great chance of getting into a law school somewhere. You can't do that if you want a Ph.D. in an Engineering or Computer Science program. You would need at least a master's level of knowledge in that area before you get to where you can actually go for the Ph.D. (or a B.S. in that area to go straight into a Ph.D. program). Now, you can get into some master's programs without a B.S. specifically in Engineering or C.S., but you'd better at least have had that as a minor or have taken some junior-senior level courses along the way.

I understand what you're saying about how you all get your grades. It is more stressful to have your only grade be your final rather than having numerous grades throughout the semester. But A Ph.D. general exam, or a master's comprehensive exam, envokes that same type of stress. It doesn't matter what grades you got in your classes, because if you can't pass that exam, you're gone. When you take the test, it's not material from one course. It encompasses everything you've had in all your courses, and can easily contain material that you never covered in your classes. I can say that, for my master's exam, it's six hours on 12 different subjects, and I have to prepare for each section I will attempt as if I'm preparing for a final exam in that class, covering everything. A black professor in the LSU History Dept. told me his Ph.D. general exam lasted about 16 hours over two days. So it's basically similar to when you all have your final exams, except ours happen all at once. Then you would still have your master's project, Ph.D. dissertation, etc., to pass. You graduate when "they" - meaning your committee - want you to.

But I don't want you to think I'm trying to trivialize the J.D. in any way. That's definitely not the case. I've heard the stories of that first year of law school. Law school is definitely very challenging and rigorous. But Ph.D.s are stressful all the way around, just under different circumstances.
 
Okay... Now I'm not knocking the Doctor of Philosphy (Ph.D.) degree. But let me tell yall, we (the professional doctoral degree holders) work just as hard if not harder for our titles. FYI, I just received my Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) degree this past May.

(shakes head) Yall, it's absolutely no joke! It was 3 years of professional coursework and research and 1 year of clinical experience (in hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, and etc.)..total 4 long dreaded years. Yall, you have to really sacrifice and work to get that. You are evaluated semester by semester. If you aren't handling up, you're outta there...bottom line. Not only must we be familiar with every drug (like thousands of them) by name....but we must know how it works in the body (from metabolism to excretion), side effects, chemical structures, diagnosing and accessing disease states, and proper therapeutic regimens (knowing what to prescribe).....basically a physician's job. I could go on and on. Once we graduate with our degrees, we have to sit for that dreaded board exam(s) just like you hear about with lawyers (J.D), physicians(M.D.) and dentists (D.D.S). We have to sit for 2 exams after graduation. Medical school requires that you take 1 after your 2nd year and the final one after graduation. Dentistry is after graduation. To my understanding, law school's board is after graduation. A Ph.D. has that dissertation to get thru right before graduation, then they are pretty much done to my knowledge.

Medical school requires 2 years of cousework and 2 years of clinical experience (total 4). Dental school is set up the same as pharmacy school (total 4). I think law school is 3 years.


We work hard yall.

Dr. Truthteller
 
It's like I said earlier, a Ph.D. is hard to come by. The head Football Coach of San Jose State did his dissertation on the numbers of minorities who have their Ph.D. versus the numbers who have Law Degrees and MD's.

His findings were that something like .00005 of the nations population has a Ph.D. Mathematicians help me out. If you open any phone book in any city whether it's rural America and especially metro areas you will find pages and pages upon pages of attorneys in the yellow pages. Unless you are in a college town does the number of Ph.D.s outnumber the attorneys.

Now I am not in any way stating that Law School is not hard but take this into consideration, the State of Arkansas has 2 law schools, which graduate at least 60 lawyers a year. In the past year, the State of Arkansas has graduated some 20 Ph.D.s, if that many.

As far as the curve system in Law School, you're trying to out do the next person. Which does not give you an active way of testing whether or not the individual needs help in certain fields of study or not. In a Ph.D. program, you're taught (at least in my program) to work on many different aspects of life. RESEARCH, EDUCATION, GOVERNMENT (Local, State, & Federal). You're able to concentrate on your weakness and excell in strengths.

Furthermore, a person who is working on their Ph.D. is not in it for the money, but for the passion to educate youth. Check my signature.
 

Y'all are failing to consider that not many people want to get a Ph.D. That's why there are more lawyers and doctors. Those are careers that people want to pursue.

I say again. Y'all take regular courses. Get regular grades. That's all the difference in the world to me. And as for the numbers getting in, don't concern yourself with that. It's getting out that's important. Kci pointed out how you can major in anything and get into law school. That's true, but I fail to see the relevance. Law is not defined as other areas of study. Laws vary from state to state, city to city, county to county, country to country. Nothing you study in college will help you in law school. Not a damn thing. You start from scratch. What you guys do is continue your studies from the lower level. What you learned in undergrad and master's level preps you for that Ph.D.

I started law school with 21 blacks in my first year class. Only 9 graduated. The other 12 didn't make it past the first year. One who flunked out was a Ph.D. Ask her which one was harder. Another who flunked out was a medical doctor. 2 white folk commited suicide while I was there. One left a wife and child rather than flunk out of law school. Everything you say your professors are, law professors are as well. But then, they make the process a helluva lot different to get through.

And as for board exams, I'll gladly take a pharmacy exam any day over that damn bar exam. How many days did the pharmacy exams last??? That bar exam was 3 days, 6 hours a day in Mississippi. If I had to take more than one of those, I wouldn't be a lawyer today.
 
Originally posted by Robber


I started law school with 21 blacks in my first year class. Only 9 graduated. The other 12 didn't make it past the first year.
Click to expand...

Robber there are only 5 blacks total in my program. In my 1.5 years of working on Ph.D., none of the blacks have flunked out, we back each other up. Now as far as the whites, they drop like flys.
 
Originally posted by Dr. Sweet NUPE


Robber there are only 5 blacks total in my program. In my 1.5 years of working on Ph.D., none of the blacks have flunked out, we back each other up. Now as far as the whites, they drop like flys.
Click to expand...
If 5 blacks started out in law school, 3 would be gone by end of that first year. At least at Ole Miss. There are some law schools that are difficult to get into and difficult to flunk out of. Once you're in, a J.D. is pretty much guaranteed. At Ole Miss, at orientation they were still saying "look to your left and look to your right. One of you will not be here after this year." That was 1994.

Were any of you told that crap when you enrolled in your graduate program???
 
Originally posted by Robber
Kci pointed out how you can major in anything and get into law school. That's true, but I fail to see the relevance.
....
What you guys do is continue your studies from the lower level. What you learned in undergrad and master's level preps you for that Ph.D.
Click to expand...

What I mean is, when you look at the overall process of obtaining a Ph.D., you also have to take that into consideration. Because the ball has been rolling well before you enter the graduate program.

By the way, I think it's great to see this dialogue among black men who have obtained such high and varied levels of educational experience. You can't find that everywhere...
 
lol...

Robber...if you say so. Hey, if you think you have what it takes, then go for it! The pharmacy board exam can last from 2-3 days depending on your state. I am licensed in the State of Texas. It was a two day ordeal here. Now, in Georgia it is 3 days. California's way of licensing is entirely too rigorous. The pharmacy boards comprise mainly of 1) The Practice of Pharmacy and 2) The Law of Pharmacy. And of course some states require that you practice right there in front of them. Now, I'm not speculating that my board is harder than yours...and I'm definitely not saying that yours was harder than mine.

Now, I can believe what you said about medical doctors. Honestly, their programs aren't as bad as people think they are. Their first year is make-you/break-you year. They don't really learn how to be a physician until they go off into their specialty residencies. I have worked side by side with "licensed" physicians while I was rotating as a Pharm.D. candidate. When I say.....a significant amount of them don't know what they are doing --I mean it. So, to see them failing law school isn't surprising. I know of a Ph.D. person that was in the class behind me that failed out of pharmacy school. With pharmacy school, every year is a weed out year. When you get to your final year, 1 rotation (out of 10) will stop you. Very, very, very stressful.. We started out with 150 in my class. By the time I graduated, only 75 of that original remained. The voided slots were filled by people who had failed like 1 course from the classes ahead of me.
(wipes forehead) I'm just glad it's over...
 
I will not talk about getting a JD or an MD. But I can say that getting a Ph.D is no joke. Preparing the dissertation, getting the ideas for it, and going through my oral exam was the easier part. (Note that it was not easy at all but easier.) Getting past two qualifiers was the nastiest part for me. My credit card bills did not take me through a huge range of emotions that my qualifiers did. Yes, I had to pass two qualifiers. My department required it. I had to pass an oral part for one of the qualifiers.

I will add more. But Dr. Mac basically stated it. And DSN's second post stated the basics.
 
Originally posted by Robber

For every attorney you see, you can find someone who tried and failed. What you see is a profession that many people want to pursue a career in. Don't mean that obtaining that J.D. was easy. I started school with a coupla Ph.D.'s that flunked out. So, I guess you can't hit them with that dead cat you're swinging.

I stand by my belief that I'll take the way you get your grades towards earning that Ph.D. than the way they are earned at most law schools. That final exam is a 4 hour beyotch, and it's your grade for the semester. No mid-terms, other tests, homework, make-ups. Don't get no difficult and stressful than that.

Think about how differently the justices on the Supreme Court think. Then imagine having to write an essay on a legal issue, trying to think the same way your professor thinks. They have their own beliefs about the law. Intrepretation of law from one person to the next varies greatly, yet we had to explain it the way that particular professor would want to read it.

As for your comment about what's better for society, we don't work for ourselves??? We work for society. Society are the ones that pay us to do what we do. If society wasn't so litigious, we wouldn't have jobs.
Click to expand...

Robber,
I must say that you are absolutely correct seeing as how I just finished my final exams for the first semester of my senior year. Southern Law has taught that the average person on the outside just does not understand what we endure. I am glad to see a lawyer such as yourself did not forget how hard you worked to get where you are. Keep defending the profession we love.:cool:
 
Ph.D. is just like pledging

It's the most fun that I'll never want to have again. I'm a 3rd-year Ph.D. student (Public Administration) at Rutgers University and the first year was extremely easy (probably because I was so highly motivated.). However, the level of redundancy built into this program (research methods, blah, blah, blah), my energy started to flag last year. Well, I've gotten over that hump and I'm back on top of it.

The best way to stay mentally healthy is to look at the big picture and not get caught up in the day to day. Frankly, I am EXTREMELY lucky to have a very supportive faculty and good cohort mates. Our cohort only has one person that's hyper-competitive (they can ruin the atmosphere), but the rest our quite communal. I know I still have the better part of a year and a half to go, but this journey has really been a joy. Don't get your Ph.D. for ego or money (those motivators won't keep you around long enough to finish.) Get your Ph.D. because you truly love the discipline you're joining.

LaMont
 
Ph.D. is just like pledging

Excellent analogy!!!!!! My first year was cool...I was motivated to do the work, now with six classes left before my dissertation I'm like when will this BS end. I'm just ready to earn the degree and go back to Grambling and give back to the community that gave me so much!!!!

Originally posted by LaMont
It's the most fun that I'll never want to have again. I'm a 3rd-year Ph.D. student (Public Administration) at Rutgers University and the first year was extremely easy (probably because I was so highly motivated.). However, the level of redundancy built into this program (research methods, blah, blah, blah), my energy started to flag last year. Well, I've gotten over that hump and I'm back on top of it.

The best way to stay mentally healthy is to look at the big picture and not get caught up in the day to day. Frankly, I am EXTREMELY lucky to have a very supportive faculty and good cohort mates. Our cohort only has one person that's hyper-competitive (they can ruin the atmosphere), but the rest our quite communal. I know I still have the better part of a year and a half to go, but this journey has really been a joy. Don't get your Ph.D. for ego or money (those motivators won't keep you around long enough to finish.) Get your Ph.D. because you truly love the discipline you're joining.

LaMont
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top