<p>I would think that by the time you finish your dissertation, you just might want to be done and out of grad school... apply to both this year and see which one you get in.</p>
<p>I realize that this is off topic, but is anybody else interested in obtaining multiple degrees? I am particularly interested in PhD/MPH but I know that there are a lot of other combos out there. I think somebody interested in specializing across disciplinary boundaries is better served by these programs than by getting multiple PhD's, if that is even possible. I think people who are interested in specializing across multiple related fields just do an extra post doc in the related field.</p>
<p>I knew a professor who had two phDs. One in nuclear engineering at Northwestern University and the other was bioengineering at University of Michigan. Then again he went to MIT as an undergraduate as a physics major so he was basically a genius.</p>
<p>belevitt, I am interested in obtaining a dual professional master's degree. I have no intentions of becoming a professor so I don't need the PhD.</p>
<p>There are plenty of schools that offer MA/PHD type programs (the Univ of Michigan for instance makes dual degrees SO easy and flexible to do here). These are better and more doable than two separate PhDs.</p>
<p>Which Michigan departments facilitate that (in the biosciences), I applied there and this could be a selling point.</p>
<p>I would check out this site and maybe contact the department to see if students have initiated a MPH/PhD.</p>
<p>UM</a> SPH - Academic Departments & Programs - Degrees Offered</p>
<p>If you believe two PhDs is a good idea, reasonable, or advantageous, it's only because you don't yet understand the process and outcomes of getting a PhD (which is understandable- hard to really appreciate it until you do it). I think the answer, however, will become crystal clear once you are pursuing or have obtained your first PhD.</p>
<p>I do not agree with some of the various sentiments expressed in this thread, everyone has the right to express, and then agree or disagree to said expressions. I personally love knowledge, I love information, and I absolute love learning. During study breaks from my foreign language course I watch physics documentaries, one should never limit their own possibilities for the sake of how society may or may not view them.</p>
<p>It is correct that such degrees did not exist at one point in history, instead you would see people referred to as a “Renaissance Man”, sadly, it is a term that has lost its meaning in the modern world because people choose to focus on one field for the sake of money. Do I intend on going for multiple PhD’s? If given the opportunity, yes. Within today’s society, the amount one knows of a given topic is loosely equated to which level of degree you have. People understand that someone with a BA knows more than someone with an AS in the same field, and a PhD has more knowledge (generally speaking) than someone with a Master’s in the same field.</p>
<p>I believe that there is a modicum of jealousy involved, Person A had a hard time getting “1” PhD, yet they see someone who has received 3? Why hinder or limit the capabilities of others? If they choose to go for 6 PhD’s then good for them because they are and/or have added something to the human race. I believe that instead of limiting the standards of others, that perhaps we should instead work towards raising our own. We should inspire and encourage others to expand their horizons. The true intellectual doesn’t care if they have multiple PhD’s but make no more than $50,000 a year, to some of us, knowledge is its own reward.</p>
<p>Someone who has 1 PhD won’t be jealous of someone with more than one. One of the main points of a PhD is to signal your ability to be a self-directed learner. How much would you have really learned from your first five PhDs if you’re getting a sixth?</p>
<p>Heck, to even believe you need a PhD to show intelligence or desire to learn is naive in itself.</p>
<p>CBCase, the reason you are not going to see more than a couple of people with multiple PhD’s is not because anyone is jealous - it is because it is wasteful and selfish. Getting a PhD involves creating new knowledge, but the thesis itself is just supposed to be the start of creating new knowledge. If you turn around and then start a new PhD in another field, you are abandoning the creation of more knowledge just after you started.</p>
<p>Let’s do some math. For convenience sake, let’s assume that you have an undergraduate preparation that is timelessly adequate for admission into 6 distinct PhD programs. Let us assume also that you are able to complete a given PhD 5 years after entering.</p>
<p>In this case, 6 PhD’s will involve 30 years of education, producing around 20-30 papers advancing 6 fields by a small amount each. In the same time, a single PhD will involve 5 years of education and 25 years of dedicated research, mentoring, and teaching, advancing that single field by a large chunk… at the same time that 5 other researchers (and the other PhD’s you advised) are doing the same.</p>
<p>As another PhD, why would I want a dilettante? Why would I want to work with someone who is only there to contribute the minimum amount necessary? And as a professor, why would I want to invest the time in someone who is like that? When I could instead have someone who will make the next big discovery in the field, rather than abandoning it for something else?</p>
<p>Now if you can and will contribute X times as much as an ordinary PhD, then I have no problem with you taking X PhD’s. Provided you are contributing, and your statement was all about consumption, and I have no time for that. But show me someone who has PhD’s in (for example) engineering, psychology, and economics, and pulls their weight in each one, three times the output of a single researcher, and I have no problem with that. But that is something I have not yet seen.</p>
<p>Oh, and the money? I have yet to see the field where a PhD is the best route to wealth, usually it is the opposite. And “no more than $50,000 a year” is where a lot of PhD’s already are. Heck, a lot of PhD’s in the humanities would be THRILLED to make that much after twenty years!</p>
<p>First of all, this thread is 5 years old. Why not just start a new one.</p>
<p>Second of ll, the thing that undergraduates often do not understand is that there are a lot of other ways to learn things besides studying towards degrees. If you want to learn more about physics or philosophy, get a library card. A PhD, like all graduate school, is not solely for personal edification - it exists to prepare you for a research career. Taxpayers do not want to pay the doctoral stipends of a bunch of people who want to study something for the sake of studying it but who don’t plan to use it.</p>
<p>the amount one knows of a given topic is loosely equated to which level of degree you have. People understand that someone with a BA knows more than someone with an AS in the same field, and a PhD has more knowledge (generally speaking) than someone with a Master’s in the same field.</p>
<p>No they don’t. A nurse with an associate’s degree and 20 years of nursing experience knows more about nursing than a brand-new BSN graduate. I don’t presume to think that I know more about public health than a BA holder who has been working in the field longer than I’ve been alive.</p>
<p>Again, the mistake that many undergraduates make is that the best way to learn something is in a classroom. That’s wrong. The best way to learn something is to do it. There are some things you can’t even learn by sitting in the classroom; you hve to do them. And you only need enough education and preparation to get started. From there, you learn on your own.</p>
<p>I believe that there is a modicum of jealousy involved, Person A had a hard time getting “1” PhD, yet they see someone who has received 3? Why hinder or limit the capabilities of others? If they choose to go for 6 PhD’s then good for them because they are and/or have added something to the human race. I believe that instead of limiting the standards of others, that perhaps we should instead work towards raising our own. We should inspire and encourage others to expand their horizons. The true intellectual doesn’t care if they have multiple PhD’s but make no more than $50,000 a year, to some of us, knowledge is its own reward.</p>
<p>Spoken like someone who has never even started a PhD.</p>
<p>I am one year away from my PhD - at this point I have completed all requirements but my dissertation. So I think I’m qualified to speak on this. A person with one PhD is by no means jealous of a person with 3. From a practical standpoint, there are very few universities (at least in the U.S.) that will allow you to earn a second PhD. Mine doesn’t. Once you already have one, they don’t want to admit you for another. They don’t want to pay someone $30,000 to use up all their resources and just leave and not contribute to the field. If you want personal edification, go get a library card.</p>
<p>A true intellectual wouldn’t care about having 6 PhDs or even one. They’d care about studying and furthering their field, and would take whatever the best route to that was. A person who craves more than 1 PhD (especially 3 in closely related fields) is doing it more so for show and some imagined notion of prestige than for actual intellectual development.</p>
<p>But secondly, any person who has or wishes to earn 3+ PhDs who thinks people with 1 envy him is crazy and foolish. Quite the contrary, we’re likely to think they’re stupid and posturing. It won’t earn you any great love from academics, and a person who somehow manages to do it is still very unlikely to get hired. First of all, that second PhD is likely to be from a diploma mill or a disreputable institution, since most universities won’t allow you to study for a second PhD. And secondly, the department will question your commitment to your field and your understanding of how academia works. They may think you a degree collector and wonder when you will jump ship to go collect another (or worse, if you’ll try to do it while teaching).</p>
<p>Getting 6 PhDs doesn’t add anything to the human race.</p>
<p>It is possible to expand your horizons so much that you can no longer tell which direction you are going.</p>
<p>What a strange thread this was! PhD programs are really just training programs, they’re not the be all end all of knowledge acquisition. My PI is a really great example of this, he got his BS in stats, PhD in physics, did his early research in bioinformatic modeling of cellular systems and is now moving into experimental immunology and genetics. That’s a lot of different fields and different specialties, and he’s contributed quite a lot to all of them, but he only has that one measly PhD in physics. A doctoral degree is about training you to think, research, pose important questions and find ways of answering and interpreting them. It’s not about getting a lot of facts in your brain.</p>