How many years should be taken for getting a PhD degree?

Answer 1

In what field?

Most people in the sciences finish a PhD with five years of graduate work. Most people in the liberal arts take longer.

Typically, a PhD student takes about two or three years of coursework. A written exam is often taken after the second year and an oral exam is usually taken at the end of the third year -- or at the start of the dissertation process.

Writing the dissertation is the biggest variable. My dissertation took two years to complete -- allowing me to finish in four years. I know people who have done it in three years -- but not very many.

Answer 2

It depends on your field and it depends on whether or not your program requires you to get a Master's degree before being accepted into their PhD program. A lot of places are trying to streamline the PhD process so it doesn't take 10 years. The shortest I've seen for completing a PhD was 4 years plus an additional year of an internship for clinical psychology. The longest I've seen is 14 years in Art History.

Answer 3

About 10.

Answer 4

It depends on the major. You can easily get a PhD in Economics in 4 - 4.5 years - The class work is the first 2 years and then the last 2 years are spent on research and maybe 2-3 classes. However, my husband is getting his PhD in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering and he is going to start his 6th year in June. He has been done with his class work for 2 years now but he is still working on his research and proposal. If I had to average I would say that if you are going full time it should take 4-7 yrs.

Answer 5

On the average these days it's about 12 to 15 years.

UNLESS you are going for a MEDICAL PRACTISE degree.

Clinical Psychology, for example, takes 7-8 years. 6 if you are Mozart.

MOST advanced degrees REQUIRE a dissertation. THAT is the obstacle.

A disseration is you blowing away the minds of your professors at MIT with something they didn't know before.

AND you have to DAMN WELL PROVE IT to those cynnics!

To get a Clinical Psychologist PH D all you have to do is pass the required courses and let ALL your professors take pot shots at your mind for two hours in a VERBAL joust.

To get a research PH D in Psychology means YOU have to write a paper so wonderful they all pat you and the back, publish it and put it in the library for all to see.

My Cinema teacher took close to 20 years to get his PH D

First you have to outline a thesis. A posultate or concept.

He wanted to try and prove that Marshall McLuen's theory "The Message Is the Medium" is true

NEXT you have to get your ALREADY FULL PROFESSOR PH D Advisor to go along with your wonderful idea.

YOu pitch it to them and tell them HOW you inted to go about doing this and if they think you stand a chance they say GO FOR IT.

To do this, MY cinema teacher needed to do the following:

Make the SAME EXACT SHORT FILM in 12" black and white TV, 20" black and white TV, 12" color TV, 20 inch Color TV, 16mm black and whtie movie, 16mm color movie, 35mm Black and white square screen move, then wide screen. 35mm Color square schreen, then wide screen.

65mm black and white square screen. 65mm color wide screen with 5 track stereo sound and Cinerama.

THEN he had to devise a TESTING or QUESTIONARY that he gave to the VIEWERS

THEN he had to show how he'd weed out PLACEBO and other factors since the SAME PEOPLE would NOT necessarily see ALL the different views and if they did would they be BRAIN DEAD by the time they reached 5 track CINERAMA

He had to SHOW how is TESTING or QUETIONING method WORKED based on things like the SAT test, the ACT test, the Stanford Binet test, the Rorshard Test the Luciere Color test.

He had to SHOW his TESTING METHODS were sound.

Do you know how much it costs to make a 70mm 5 track stereso sound Cinemra print of even a 10 minutes film.

Something like $5,000

SO he had to get GRANT MONEY to do all this or FLOAT LOANS

And he HAD to get all the materials up and running

GET and audience.

SHOW them the films

TEST or EVLAUTE THEM

Then he had to SCORE this and SHOW how it all correlates

Then he had to DRAW conclusions

THEN HE HAD TO SHOW how it DID or DIDN'T Prove McLuen's theory

OK. You're DARWIN you think MAN came from apes, you NOW have to CONVIENCE your religoius college professors of this and that it is FACT or AT LEAST good theory.

That is what it takes to get a PHD in most instances.

See, ONCE you ARE darwin witha PH D you don't have to do the proofs. You just have to MAKE THE STATEMENT and BACK IT UP with some evidence.

It's up the COLLEGE STUDENTS trying to get a PHD in Evolution, Bilogy, Genetics to BACK YOU UP or SHOOT YOU DOWN!

A friend of mine wanted to show the DEMISE of ARTISAN crafts in America and she picked BOSTON as being a likely place to prove this and proposed her dissertation to her UCLA advisor and got approval and got a grant and went to Boston and found THERE WASN'T ENOUGH EXTANT EVIDENCE to do what she wanted

SO she had to REVISE her concept, get it approved and then go after that revision!

My cousin did everything EXCEPT his DISSERTATION for a degree in Math.

Years leater he wrote a book on the Slide Rule (an extinct entity akin to the Dinosaur, that existed before the pocket caculator).

He probably should have submitted that as his dissertatioin, but didn't.

It would have been enough to get him a PH D in Math.

He certainly must have SHOWED something NEW

That's why he wrote the book, he didn't like any of the existing books!

So he MUST have shed new NEW light ont he subject!

That's enough for a PH D award!

My Cinema Teacher has since retired and then he wrote a book on the Bible that is considered the most authoritative work in the field.

See, once you have a PH D you can write anything!

Now if you're rich and your family name is Rockefeller, Gates, Kennedy and you have a neat idea and can afford to pay people to do it for you, then you can get your PH D in maybe 9 years.

You have to remember the STAFF AT MIT will want to USE your body to teach undergraduates for FREE or $25 an hour or at least 2 or 3 more years before you get your PH D and they will DRAG reading your dissertation for that period of time to SQUEEZE you dry!

Of course, once they give it to you they'll reward you with a Chair or Assistant Chair or big title positioin and like $40K a year to start full time.

Go for it!

Otherwise ou have to write Grant applications work for a livign and actually PERFORM with REAL RESULTS