Colleagues with "fake" advanced degrees? Ordered to address someone as "Doctor" (online doctorate)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Like others have said, there's a big difference between for-profit schools and less selective, but fully legitimate, schools. Stop being elitist.

What do you mean by big difference, especially as it relates to the "doctor" mentioned in OP? The professional peer says what they have *is* on par with any other doctorate program. Walden University appears to be accredited. How would you treat or interact with this Walden "doctor"?

An institution can be accredited, but if it's for-profit, the incentives are still to seek profit as opposed to educating students. You can read for yourself about why that's problematic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A person who has a Ph.D. and demands to be addressed as Dr. is a jerk regardless of where they earned or bought their degree (the exception is an academic context where all Ph.D. are referred to as Dr.).

I'm the OP. The specific person I mentioned does not have an (online) PhD, it's another type of doctorate.

I think the same holds true for an Ed.D. or D.C.J. or whatever.

[Anonymous]

OP, let it go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Like others have said, there's a big difference between for-profit schools and less selective, but fully legitimate, schools. Stop being elitist.

What do you mean by big difference, especially as it relates to the "doctor" mentioned in OP? The professional peer says what they have *is* on par with any other doctorate program. Walden University appears to be accredited. How would you treat or interact with this Walden "doctor"?

An institution can be accredited, but if it's for-profit, the incentives are still to seek profit as opposed to educating students. You can read for yourself about why that's problematic.

The for-profits have a different accreditation system.

I posted about my nephew. So if he was one of the 20% or so who actually finish the program, possibly the employers only see that small percentage who do actually complete the degrees.

[Anonymous]

It's one more sign that we're becoming a banana republic. The suckers who pay for the bullshit online degrees are basically people who have realized that there are lots of jobs in America where it's damned near impossible to advance to the next level and so they're desperately trying everything they can to get a few more bucks, a living wage for their families.

There are in many fields too many educated people chasing the same few jobs and so people think that having the MA online or whatever will let them stand out among the masses. That's why you need a BA in telephone answering to work at our local veterinarian's office.

IT's going to get worse as the robots take more and more jobs. I live in a shitty urban area in the south and everyone on our city council has a phd.

(And in the US, advancement is often blocked because the GS-14 or whatever is NEVER going to retire. Last four guys in my husband's office literally died in their chairs in front of their computer screens. ANd no, it's not their fault either -- it's because of jobs with bad retirement plans, etc).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A person who has a Ph.D. and demands to be addressed as Dr. is a jerk regardless of where they earned or bought their degree (the exception is an academic context where all Ph.D. are referred to as Dr.).

I'm the OP. The specific person I mentioned does not have an (online) PhD, it's another type of doctorate.

I think the same holds true for an Ed.D. or D.C.J. or whatever.

I had a 5th grade teacher who got an Ed.D. and insisted on being called Dr. Cxxx. I thought it was ridiculous even then.

[Anonymous]

An EdD can be a difficult degree to get. I watched my mom earn one. She had to change thesis advisors so that she didn't have to write a 'fourth' thesis to complete the degree, due to the many changes of course her advisor proposed. This was at a well known private university graduate program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was out of the workforce for about 15 years, then finished my bachelor's and master's at the end of my SAHM tenure, so I'm not sure if this a recent phenom or I'm just more perceptive of it after a run-in with one of these types.

It began with a professional peer my age randomly adding "Dr." to their internal email. I got wind folks directly under this person were ordered (and corrected) to address them as "Dr. so-and-so" moving forward. "Dr." was added to their desk, board meeting and office door name plates. According to LinkedIn, the "doctorate" was picked up from Walden University, which I had never heard of:

Walden University is an online for-profit university and Public Benefit Corporation headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

I was suddenly a credential skeptic. Now I notice so many folks have shaky credentials picked up online (often from cyber for-profit schools) or from hybrid online/weekend pay-as-you-go non-selective programs at good universities that could pass as solid to masses. The persons (who are often dumb as bricks) use these credentials for end-all-be-all superiority. I noticed a correlation between lettered credentials after their name in their email signatures to lack of selectivity of the program they were in.

Does it just not matter where you get degrees anymore, it's just become a box-checking exercise for promotions and raises? I'm not being a snob, my degrees are from a barely top 100 university we lived near.

I think in a lot of cases, yes. I think that many people go to graduate school in order to achieve some promotion or raise that would be off the table if they only had the undergraduate degree.

I think that in terms of online education, it does make a difference whether the school in question offers a brick-and-mortar program, but as someone who has an online master's degree from an institution that also has a brick-and-mortar program, what I can tell you was that the actual education I received in no way compared with peers who went to the brick-and-mortar program. They had more course options, better instructors, more interesting material, etc. For me, it really was a box-checking exercise in that in order to switch from what I was doing (nonprofit admin) to what I do now (social work), I needed a master's degree and a professional license. That is obviously not true for everyone in every field, but I will say that if not for the field work that was a required part of my degree and the first two years I spent earning clinical hours, I would worry about my own competence based on the education I received. One of my closest professional friends went to the same university in person and I have no such concerns about her competence based on our conversations about work matters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:An EdD can be a difficult degree to get. I watched my mom earn one. She had to change thesis advisors so that she didn't have to write a 'fourth' thesis to complete the degree, due to the many changes of course her advisor proposed. This was at a well known private university graduate program.

Oh come on. I have a PhD in organic chemistry that took 5.5 years of 60+ hour weeks and I don't ask people to call me Dr.

[Anonymous]

I bet these Dr. pretenders also have all sorts of random awards plastered all over their office walls and desks. Probably from the "little league" days as well

I am vary of them because of their energy for self promotion and lack of self awareness. Their ideas are mediocre as well. Usually they are more about what is good for them vs the project/team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:An EdD can be a difficult degree to get. I watched my mom earn one. She had to change thesis advisors so that she didn't have to write a 'fourth' thesis to complete the degree, due to the many changes of course her advisor proposed. This was at a well known private university graduate program.

Oh come on. I have a PhD in organic chemistry that took 5.5 years of 60+ hour weeks and I don't ask people to call me Dr.

You think somebody with an EdD degree that studies and advances education for women in 3rd world countries should not be called Dr.? But because you can apparently make sure beer in 1 brewery is exactly the same as beer at the 2nd brewery, you are better?

[Anonymous]

Just because you are the same age as this person ... it does not make you a "professional peer"... you have never had a job... you are same as a 20 something straight out of school.

[Anonymous]

Am I the only one who looks up where their medical professionals attended med school?

I want a doctor from a top program, not one who went to KP School of Medicine (Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine).

Same with hiring. That's fantastic that you shelled out $$ for your doctorate, but when I see you next to an applicant with a doctorate from a not-for-profit university, they are getting picked over you.

My niece just completed her psychology degree at Shenandoah University. The level of work she was doing there was no more difficult than AP Psychology. Her practicum for graduation was the level of research you'd see at a HS science fair. Look, it's a perfectly great university, but the degree she earned from there is not on the same level as my B.S. in Psychology from Duke. She's now prepping for grad school and if she gets accepted at some of the programs to which she's applying, she's going to struggle.

I know that it isn't fair, but where you obtained the degree from does matter in the real world. Yes, having one gives you an advantage over someone without, but a UVA degree is no match for a CNU degree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:An EdD can be a difficult degree to get. I watched my mom earn one. She had to change thesis advisors so that she didn't have to write a 'fourth' thesis to complete the degree, due to the many changes of course her advisor proposed. This was at a well known private university graduate program.

Oh come on. I have a PhD in organic chemistry that took 5.5 years of 60+ hour weeks and I don't ask people to call me Dr.

You think somebody with an EdD degree that studies and advances education for women in 3rd world countries should not be called Dr.? But because you can apparently make sure beer in 1 brewery is exactly the same as beer at the 2nd brewery, you are better?

No, he's saying it's pretentious to ask people to call you Dr. when you have a doctorate, no matter how hard won. I think most of us on this thread with doctorates would agree.

[Anonymous]

In the federal government and federal contracting world degrees from diploma mills are increasingly common. Fed position have education requirements.
Veterans can use their benefits for-profit schools, combined with hiring preference,making it a no-brainer: why would you go to a school where you'd have to actually study, when you can get a "diploma" that checks the box without doing much work?
There may have been a stigma associated with for-profit colleges, but it seems to be gone now. People proudly announce graduations and "doctorates" from schools like Phoenix and Capella on LinkedIn and list them in online bios on federal web pages. It's sad.