PhD Program Description

For many people, a Ph.D. is a not-so-distant goal. After all, today those with professional or terminal degrees stand to make substantially more money over a lifetime than those with merely a high school education or even a college degree. A Ph.D. is considered the terminal degree for most career paths, meaning that it is the highest level of education that can be obtained in a given field. Though Ph.D. programs can differ dramatically depending on the school and the field, most have similar requirements, and the majority of students proceed through a similar educational process.

Coursework

Just like high school or college, Ph.D. candidates must complete a certain number of credits before they can receive a degree. These credits only consist of those taken in graduate school and cannot be carried over from a bachelor's program. However, most graduate credits transfer, so if someone chooses to transfer schools or completes a master's degree before entering a Ph.D. program, these classes will count. Though requirements differ substantially between schools, around 60 credit hours is the average.

Required Courses

Coursework can be divided up into departmental and program requirements and electives. Though almost all courses taken by a Ph.D. candidate will be in the area in which she is getting her degree, these courses are broken up into specialties. For example, someone getting his Ph.D in English literature may choose to concentrate on a particular author or time period, like the Victorian era, while a physics student may do the majority of her work on lasers or chaos theory. While most of the classes they take will be in this specialty, many schools have requirements that all graduate students in a certain department must take. Almost all Ph.D. programs make students to pass a foreign language competency exam to prove they are familiar with at least one additional tongue. Other popular Ph.D. program requirements are courses such as scholarly writing and statistical analysis.

Electives

Electives are those classes that do not fulfill specific requirements or are outside the student's specialty. Just about every Ph.D. program has several elective credits built into it in an effort to produce more well-rounded students. Most also encourage students to take a few classes outside their department; for example, frequently education students take graduate classes in their subject areas of interest like English or math. A typical Ph.D. program requires a certain number of different types of specialty classes so that someone interested in childhood education must still take classes geared towards teaching high school and even college. Any classes that the student takes that do not fit into the standard curriculum requirements are called electives, but for most Ph.D. candidates, electives are simply additional classes within their department.

Candidacy Exam

In addition to his coursework, a Ph.D. candidate must also pass a departmental exam. Generally this test is taken after the student completes all of his credits and tests knowledge in several different areas related to the student's field of study. Every student must pass a competency exam in her specialty, but she is also usually tested in two or three other areas. For example, a candidate for a Ph.D. in English literature may specialize in Shakespeare but should also expect to be tested in related areas like drama and poetry. Many schools allow students pick the subjects on which they are to be tested, while the department as a whole makes up the actual exam. It is possible to retake sections of this test, but doing so will result in a graduation delay of at least a semester.

Dissertation

Perhaps the most well-known of all Ph.D. program requirements is the dissertation, or book-length paper of original thought and research. Once a student has completed course work and passed his candidacy exam, he is considered ABD, or all but dissertation. The dissertation is considered so challenging not only because of its length but, more importantly, because of the level of original thought expected. This research must contribute to the field in a new and important way and is generally a culmination of most of the individual research he has been doing throughout his graduate careers. Most Ph.D. candidates hope to publish their dissertation, effectively introducing themselves into the critical conversation.

References

• Ph.D Requirements
• Ph.D in English