Online Universities, Colleges and the Degrees They

If you are considering taking your postsecondary education as far as it will go, you are no doubt looking at Ph.D.’s. Ph.D. stands for “doctor of philosophy” and if you don’t know that by this point you might as well stop right there. The Ph.D. is the most common academic doctoral degree and merits its holders a special place in our society. The Ph.D. says that you have gone as far as you can with your field and you are among the most educated people in the world. However, not all doctoral degrees are Ph.D.’s; other doctoral degrees, like the jurist doctoral or the doctor of the arts degree, are also doctorates and state that the bearer has taken their studying and education as far as it will go in the given fields.

Doctoral degrees used to be reserved for the very wealthy and, even then, the very smart and well mannered. Today, however, anybody can get a doctoral degree; there are no social requirements you have to meet but it will still require lots of time, money, and hard work.

The money aspect of obtaining a doctoral degree is what keeps most people from attaining one. Sometimes getting a graduate degree is often triple the cost of the undergraduate degree. Certain grants, like the TAPP and PELL, are not available for graduate students and this is also another of the many factors that keeps students out of doctoral studies. There are, however, many different ways to financially succeed in getting your doctorate. Although some grants aren’t available, there are certain grants that are only available for doctoral studies. Employers willing to invest in employees for the future are also a great source of potential financing. The bottom line is that if you are going to prevent money from letting you get your doctoral degree, then you probably don’t want it bad enough.

When distance education for Ph.D.’s first started, instructors would often sit in front of a closed circuit television camera and lecture to the students at home. Students would just be required to tune in to a certain channel to experience the lecture. This was a revelation because students no longer had to travel to school to attend a lecture and they could also tape it and re-watch it for future use. In some cases, the postsecondary institution would purchase time on a specific channel and the students would simply tune in and watch it as if it were the evening news. These methods, however archaic they may seem, were actually quite revolutionary at the time and susceptible only to things like storms and VCR’s eating tapes.

It was a beneficial method for the schools as well as the professors. The teachers would still be paid for teaching one class but their lectures might reach hundreds more students than normally possible. This would save costs for the school and ensure a place for the professor to work for years to come. The problem with this method was the lack of attention each student would get. If you needed to speak to the professor regarding the class, you would only get a couple minutes each semester. Back in the early days of distance learning communication with the professor was almost unheard of. The distance-learning television system is still in use in some schools and is a testament to just how good an idea it was.

Obviously, the Internet has been a great addition to the distance-learning arsenal and has all but taken over the niche. Doctoral degrees are now being offered, at least in part, online in most postsecondary institutions. This is lending a great degree of flexibility to all doctoral studies students using the Internet to get in touch with their teachers and go to classes. Although you may have achieved your master’s degree entirely online, doctoral degrees are ones that often involve practical applications of your knowledge. This means that you will probably have to spend some time either on campus, at a hospital, or another place of work so that you can put your knowledge to the test and get some real world experience.

Depending on what type of doctoral degree you are looking into, you may have to spend some time on campus. Handing out Ph.D.’s is not something that is done every day so for a college or university to remain a reputable place, they tend to keep a close eye on everybody that is pining for the prestigious degree. While showing up to actual classes and lectures might not be a requirement, an accredited professor often supervises things like labs and dissertations. No matter what it is you decide to study, make sure that you research the program and the institution before you apply. You should also try to familiarize yourself with all of the on and off campus requirements of the program.

Don’t think that this is going to be a walk in the park. Obtaining your Ph.D. can take more than four years of study beyond a bachelor’s degree. Getting this education online, however, allows you much more flexibility in your schedule and you can obtain the degree as fast or as slow as you like. Obviously, the program will be laid out with the average student in mind but there are a lot of people that just aren’t the average student.

You are going to have to be ready for the most difficult exams you have ever written. Some of these exams last as long as six or eight hours and require hundreds of hours of studying just to get through. This type of pressure and stress not only tests you for real world situations, but it also gives the committee overseeing your education a basis of your knowledge so that they can work with you on your dissertation.

Your dissertation might even be more stressful than all of the exams put together. To obtain your Ph.D., you’ll be required to write a novel on the area of study you are now an expert in. What’s more is that the information in this book has to be new to your field of study. You need to be making contributions to whatever it is you plan to be a doctor in before they will let you earn the prestigious degree. You will be given several years to finish this dissertation but you will not be a doctor until you have finished. Some institutions even have an upper time limit on this dissertation so the pressure really does come down on you.

The online Ph.D. programs that are available today emerged naturally when online students graduated from fair undergraduate studies and wanted to move on to the advanced degrees. Obviously, having enjoyed the online experience, the students pushed for further online education options and eventually got them. Nowadays, you’d be hard-pressed to find any institution that didn’t offer some doctoral programs or courses online. The online only institutions tend to have more options for doctoral studies than traditional ones and, over time, have really built a name for themselves in becoming widely respected.

Capella University is one such institution that offers doctoral degrees in organization and management, human services, psychology and education.
The famous University of Phoenix offers doctoral degrees in business administration, education, health administration and management.

Walden University is another online institution that offers doctoral degrees in the form of applied management and decision sciences, education, psychology, public health, human services, education, health services and many other areas.

It is not only the well known online institutions that offer doctoral programs; if you do some research you will find that doctoral degrees are also available from institutions like the Indiana State University and Columbia Southern University. If your area of study is not stated above, don’t lose hope because it just means you might have to dig a little deeper. There are Doctor of musical arts in musical education degrees available from Boston University, the doctor of philosophy in educational leadership is a doctoral degree that is available from Touro University international and many other universities offer doctoral degrees in health care administration.

If the doctoral degree you want is not available online at the institution you want to go to, odds are that they have at least some courses you can take online. You may have to go to some lectures on campus but there will probably be a version of some of the courses available online. Even though this might not be ideal for you, it is certainly much better than having to go to every single class. You might as well study in your pajamas two days of the week if it’s possible. It is also a great help for students who also have to work because they need all the free time they can get.

Make sure that you check out the accreditation of any institution you’re planning on earning your doctoral degree from. The US Department of education maintains a database of accredited institutions and should be consulted before any decisions are made. If your studying and eventual career is something that requires a license, make sure that the institution you are attending is capable of giving you that license.

If you do manage to get all the way through your online courses, your on campus requirements, oral presentations, rigorous testing and finally your dissertation, you will have achieved the highest degree presented to somebody in your field. You will then be an authority on whatever it is you chose to study and you will be expected to be making contributions to that base of knowledge until you die. To get this far you really have to be passionate about what it is you’re studying. Here’s to you finally getting that education you deserve.