Have you been thinking of finding a real specialism in the professional world? Carving out your niche in a crowded and competitive marketplace can seem like a pretty hard task. Once you have gained a fair degree of knowledge and experience, it can feel a bit like you have hit a brick wall. Professional doctorates are postgraduate programs that are aimed towards giving people specialist knowledge within an industry. Unlike traditional PhD courses, professional doctorates are less research-focused and more of a deep dive into an industry and its surrounding issues.
Of course, you must be willing to conduct some in-depth research, but the course will be far more geared towards eventual career goals than exploring abstracted concepts.
Although the very first professional doctorates were offered in 12th century Paris, the first recognizable professional doctoral degrees were issued by American universities in the early 20th century. Universities such as Harvard began running courses in business administration – focusing on the vocational side of business as opposed to the research-led programs previously offered.
Here are some of the most popular career-orientated doctorate-level degrees offered today. There are a great many degrees at this level that are not mentioned in this article. If you have a career path that you are dreaming of, the chances are that there is a doctorate in your chosen field.
Doctorate in Education
Education is a 1.4 trillion dollar industry in the United States alone. The education industry is extremely broad and extremely complex. If you see yourself as a future superintendent, educational consultant, or senior teacher, then a professional doctorate in education might be very beneficial.
Doctorates in education are extremely field-dependent. You’ll get very few benefits from a doctorate if you study a subject outside of your field.
Studying to become an advanced educational practitioner is a multifaceted learning journey. You’ll need to become versed in group psychology, social studies, safeguarding, modern teaching practices, and all sorts of other areas of knowledge. A doctorate will give you a chance to delve much more deeply into the reasons why education is so complex and fascinating. You’ll hopefully find yourself more enraptured than ever before in the challenges facing educators.
Doctorate in Nursing Practice
Nursing is an ever-evolving and ever-expanding career path. Although registered nurses can find wonderful careers without postgraduate qualifications, there are many senior nursing roles that require very rigorous studies indeed. Senior nurses are taking on far more responsibilities in the medical field than ever before. In some ways, this is due to a self-fulfilling cycle. As more is demanded of nurses, they tend to become more qualified. As nurses become more qualified, they tend to have more demanded of them. Regardless of the cause, nursing doctorates have become highly worthwhile affairs for people wanting to make a really long-lasting career out of pediatric, public, critical care, or mental health nursing. Doctorates in Nursing Practice – or DNPs – are popular ways of taking nursing to its highest possible potential once adequate experience has been gained in the field.
It can sometimes seem like a hard slog trying to fit all of your research into the very strict word limits demanded by online DNP programs 30 Credits. 30 credits are usually earned through research into modern nursing theory, as well as the learning of new medical practices in a clinical setting. The tough editorial standards that are imposed upon a doctoral student are really good training for the world of clinical quality reports, public health audits, and informatic improvement studies that await a senior nurse with a doctorate level degree.
Doctorate in Data Engineering
We live in the age of the data deluge, and data engineers are more in demand than ever before. Although some people argued that the petabyte age would make scientific methods of data analysis and organization obsolete in the early 21st century, the opposite has turned out to be true.
Instead, the development of practical machine learning algorithms that can sort through massive amounts of information has made complex data engineering a hot topic – and hugely powerful when used by companies and governments.
Doctorates in data engineering prepare advanced data scientists for careers in the practical implementation of information collection and analysis strategies. These strategies are absolutely crucial in the creation of marketing, public relations, healthcare, and just about any other major creative, strategic environment you can imagine. A career in data engineering can be immensely profitable and can do good in ways that might not have been imaginable last century.