phd after wgu

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Doctoral programs

This school does not offer any Doctoral programs

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Got accepted to an awesome Nursing PhD program after WGU MSN

Nursing Students Western Governors

• Phd Program

Updated: Mar 11   Published Jun 2, 2017

Wanted to contribute my two cents to this debate...

I finished my MSN at WGU in Education in less than 4 months.

Although I never intended to, the MSN program inspired me to pursue a PhD. I love online learning, but I wanted to attend a somewhat more traditional school for the terminal degree, to help secure my future job possibilities.

I applied to the University of South Florida, which is local to me. I was nervous they may question my flat pass fail 3.0 GPA, or the fact that my student mentor wrote a letter bragging about how I completed my degree "in record time."

No questions asked - I sent my transcript, my personal statement, and I had to take the GRE. A few weeks later, I received an acceptance email!

So don't despair - online degrees are more common, and competency based learning is acceptable. Prior to applying to USF, I had contacted other large universities, even George Washington and Villanova and asked them if my pass fail GPA would be an exclusion. Each school basically replied by saying no, it's not an exclusion, we evaluate the whole package.

More Like This

• + Add a Comment

Exhaustipated, ADN, BSN

Congrats for your success! Thank you so much for sharing your testimony. I'm in the process of applying to the RN -BSN program at WGU , and was wondering how the competency-based learning would affect pursuing advanced degrees.

PricelessRN, MSN

You Go Girl!!

m4howie, ADN, BSN

Have you started in a PHD program? How is it going so far.

can you give me some tips how to finish the MSN in 4-6 months? Thanks

melliemel22936

Congratulations! I am looking into online nursing PhD programs currently. Are there any you could recommend that will accept my WGU MSN?

Western Global University

• [email protected]

Ph.D. Programs

Western Global University is an international teaching institution that offers undergraduate, graduate degrees and PhD programs . Western Global University provides students with access to high-quality education in a variety of formats including full time and part time courses. The PhD, commonly known as the Doctor of Philosophy, is a research degree that is one of the most frequent types of doctoral degrees and is awarded to graduates from a wide range of disciplines. There are many PhD programs to choose from when looking to earn a doctoral degree. The majority of PhD programs are offered by universities, but some are offered by other institutions, like community colleges and PhD programs also. The length of time required to complete a PhD program varies, but most programs typically take four years to complete.

The PhD degree is an option for students who want to pursue a doctoral degree but can’t attend a traditional campus-based program. PhD programs are designed to provide the same level of education and rigor as traditional on-campus programs.

PhD programs offer the same rigorous coursework, faculty mentorship, and opportunities for research and study as campus-based programs. Students enrolled in PhD programs have access to the same resources and support services as on-campus students, such as career counseling, disability services, financial aid advising, library access, and more.

Students in PhD programs typically take one class per semester for three years or less before graduating with a doctorate degree. Some schools offer accelerated options that allow students to complete their degrees more quickly by taking more classes per semester than the standard load of one class per semester.

Course Details

• Time Duration : 3 year
• Study Lecture : 16 Lectures
• Skill Level : Advance Course
• No. Of Students : 20+ Students
• Pass Percentage : 90%
• Certificate : Yes

COURSE DESCRIPTION

A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree from the United States is considered the highest conferred degree at many US colleges and institutions for most subjects of study; for many overseas students, it is a dream course. When applying for high-level management roles, government expert posts, and employment as a university professor, researcher, or scientist in various subjects, a PhD degree is sometimes necessary.

The PhD, often known as the Doctor of Philosophy, is a research degree that is one of the most prevalent forms of doctorate degrees and is granted to graduates from a wide range of subjects. There are several PhD programs from which to pick when pursuing a doctorate.

Students enrolled in PhD programs often complete one course every semester for three years or fewer before earning their degree. Many universities have accelerated programs that enable students to finish their degrees more rapidly by enrolling in more classes per semester than the required one.

CERTIFICATION

Western Global University offers course completion certification.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

• Students will grasp a set of approaches relevant for their dissertation, in depth.
• Students will develop critical thinking and research abilities similar to top research university faculty.
• Gain specialized expertise.
• Communicate their research clearly and effectively.

More Courses For You !

Masters in Commerce and Management

Bachelors in Safety Engineering

Masters in Hotel Management

Bachelors in History

• All qualification Certificates from 10th class to Master Degree,
• ID Proof and Address Proof
• 4 passports Size photographs
• Enrolment Partner Confirmation Letter

What document provide by University in duration & after completion Ph.D Program

• Research Offer Letter
• Topic Approval letter
• Guide Approval letter
• Thesis Approval letter & 1 Attested copy of Thesis
• Research Completion letter
• Final Convocation (Degree) Award
• Verification letter

Eligibility : Master with relevant Stream

Course Duration :  3 Years

• Ph.D. In Educational Studies: Specialization in Educational Leadership and Higher Education
• Ph.D. In Organizational Leadership
• Ph.D. In Learning Technologies
• Ph.D. In Education In Professional Counseling and Supervision
• Ph.D. In Music Education
• Ph.D. In Healthcare Management
• Ph.D. In Health Sciences (Specialization in Psychiatric Rehabilitation)
• Ph.D. In Biomedical Sciences
• Ph.D. In Natural and Physical Sciences
• Ph.D. In Sociology
• Ph.D. In Economics
• Ph.D. In Biomedical Informatics
• Ph.D. In Information Sciences
• Ph.D. In Media and Communication
• Ph.D. In Science
• Ph.D. In Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences
• Ph.D. In Social Science
• Ph.D. In English
• PhD in Occupational Health and Safety
• Ph.D. In Political Science
• Ph.D. In Psychology
• Ph.D. In Public Administration
• Ph.D. In Hotel Management
• Ph.D. In Fine Arts
• Ph.D. In Fashion Design
• Ph.D. In Sport Management
• Ph.D. In Mathematics
• Ph.D. In Computer Application
• Ph.D. In Accountancy
• Ph.D. In Finance Management
• Ph.D. In Education Management
• Ph.D. In Human Resource
• Ph.D. In Foot ware Technology
• Ph.D. In History
• Ph.D. In Insurance & Banking
• Ph.D. In Aviation
• Ph.D. In Logistic & Supply Chain Management
• Ph.D. In Industrial Management
• Ph.D. In Energy Management
• Ph.D In Marine Engineering
• Ph.D. In Marketing
• Ph.D. program in Pharmaceutical Sciences (PHSC)
• Ph.D. Molecular Pharmacology
• Ph.D. In Pharmaceutics
• Ph.D. Pharmacy
• Ph.D. In Corrosion Engineering
• Ph.D. In Metallurgy
• Ph.D. In Civil Engineering

• Member List

By staying organized in their job hunt, both authors received several job offers. Credit: Getty

We met during the last year of our PhD training, after securing placements at the University of Illinois Chicago’s Department of Psychiatry for our predoctoral internships — the final step of our clinical doctoral programmes. V. R. came from the University of Georgia in Athens and was pursuing a PhD in clinical psychology, and Q. L. came from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and was working towards a PhD in clinical science and quantitative methods. It was amid the academic rigour and personal stress of the last year of our programmes that we became friends. We bonded over being immigrants and not speaking English as our first language while navigating the complexities of academia. We both wanted to forgo postdoctoral training and instead immediately become junior professors. Now, we’re assistant professors: V. R. is at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Q. L. is at Boston University in Massachusetts.

The odds we faced in the academic job market had seemed insurmountable, particularly to immigrants, and we had been cautioned by mentors and even junior faculty members about the challenge ahead. But we succeeded: we received a combined total of 27 in-person interviews, leading to 15 tenure-track assistant-professor offers across departments of psychology, paediatrics or psychiatry, schools of education and academic medical centres. (You can check out our hints for nailing job interviews in our other article .)

How to move labs

Despite the positive outcome, the process was stressful, fast and unpredictable. Our friendship became a sanctuary: amid the daunting job market and our own self-doubt, we understood and encouraged each other. We want to offer what our friendship provided us — understanding, support and encouragement — to researchers hoping to stay in academia after earning a PhD, so we are sharing our reflections and insights.

We must first make clear: no amount of job-search tips and tricks can substitute for good science and a strong publication record. To gauge our readiness, we looked up the CV of the most recent hire in each department that we applied to. We also made sure we had backup offers of postdoctoral positions. While navigating this process, we learnt that institutions were interested in candidates who planned to pursue external funding.

Qimin Liu is now an assistant professor. Credit: Qimin Liu

We had both obtained federal and private funding before — making us more competitive. We urge aspiring professors to prioritize their research contributions, external fellowship and grant applications and academic achievements above all.

To readers who’ve successfully navigated this process, many of our reflections and insights could seem obvious. However, this kind of advice can be the hardest to follow during a fast-moving job hunt, with several moving pieces involved and new considerations and job offers or advertisements emerging unexpectedly. Treat this as a checklist before beginning to fill out job applications.

Tips and tricks

Start your search early. Allow ample time to prepare for the job hunt; research potential options, such as jobs in academic medical centres, standard department positions or tenure-track jobs in related fields; and submit applications. Plan to reply to job ads long before the first deadline. Starting early gives you time to collect and incorporate feedback from mentors and colleagues.

Training: Free course on peer review

Prepare your networks. The academic job market can be unpredictable, with opportunities emerging unexpectedly. It is important to think about who can write letters for you — sometimes at short notice. Most of our applications required three letters of recommendation from all applicants. Others requested letters from only shortlisted candidates.

Plan ahead. The final drafts of materials took, on average, one to two months in total to prepare and polish. The initial drafts took about 8 hours, and the research statement required a total of 16 hours. (The research statement summarizes your research programme, the work you’ve done so far and what you plan to pursue in future. It can also highlight why a particular institution is well-suited to support your work.) Preparing drafted statements in advance made it easier to adapt them to different positions later — tweaking materials for specific positions took 30–60 minutes per application.

Research potential job opportunities. Don’t just rely on word-of-mouth or googling specific positions to find things you’re interested in applying to. Use online job boards (such as HigherEdJobs or Nature Careers ), and tap into your professional network by sending e-mails or LinkedIn messages to your mentors and colleagues, letting them know you’re on the job market. Scour social media and department websites to find available positions. We both posted on X (formerly Twitter) that we were job hunting, and several people reached out with opportunities.

Develop job application ‘templates’. Create a set of well-crafted templates for your application materials, such as cover letters and statements, on which you can easily fill in your name, relevant details and where you’ve previously worked. Having adaptable documents allowed us to respond quickly to new postings.

Tailor your application materials. Templates can take you only so far. Take the time to customize your application materials, including your CV, cover letter (each of ours was one page long) and research statement, to highlight your relevant skills, experiences and research contributions. Tailoring your materials to each position demonstrates genuine interest and increases your chances of standing out to hiring committees. Generic applications are easy for hiring managers to reject. Mentioning centres or institutes that align with your research; available resources, such as early-career programmes, that you want to take advantage of; and the names of people whom you are interested in working with can help to personalize your application materials.

Stay organized. Maintain a well-organized system to track application deadlines, requirements and submission statuses. Be ready to remind your letter writers to submit their recommendations. Keep a calendar or spreadsheet to ensure that all required materials are submitted on time and to track when to follow up. An example spreadsheet is provided below.

Practise for interviews and job talks. Run mock interviews with your peers or mentors. Practise answering common interview questions and develop concise, compelling responses that highlight your expertise, teaching abilities and fit. Treat these seriously — you’re likely to be nervous in the real interview, so try to recreate that while rehearsing, perhaps by inviting a relatively unknown colleague or professor to join the practice runs. V. R. recorded her job talk on Zoom and sent it to others for feedback.

Practising your job talk — a presentation of your academic research that is often a spoken version of your research statement — until you know it backwards and forwards will prepare you for the unexpected. In addition, rehearsing how you plan to respond to different questions, and practising saying that you want people to hold their questions until the end, can be helpful.

Prepare a start-up budget to get your lab running. Many academic positions include a start-up fund for incoming faculty members. It is typically used for summer salary and staffing or research costs. You might be asked for an estimated budget before, during or after the interview stage — so you should have one ready in advance. When preparing your budget, keep in mind the spending norms at the institution and for your discipline. Ask for more than you think you need, because this amount will often be reduced during negotiations.

As we look back on our job-hunting experiences, we are reminded of how much we grew in this process, in ways that are not related to just our jobs — and this growth continued in our interviews .

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01044-1

This is an article from the Nature Careers Community, a place for Nature readers to share their professional experiences and advice. Guest posts are encouraged .

Supplementary Information

• Example spreadsheet

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Gu named to inaugural distinguished professorship

Professor and Mechanical, Materials and Aerospace Engineering Academy of Distinguished Professorship inaugural recipient Yu Gu with the robot, Cataglyphis. (WVU Photo)

Professor, Yu Gu with the Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources at West Virginia University has been named to a distinguished professorship to elevate research and academic excellence.

Story by J. Paige Nesbit, Director of Marketing and Communications Photos by West Virginia University

Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources

The Department of Mechanical, Materials and Aerospace Engineering Academy members recently established the MMAE Academy of Distinguished Alumni Professorship and appointed Gu as the inaugural holder.

“We as an academy see the dedication and ingenuity of this exceptional individual ... how he started as an assistant professor and built a legacy of robotics excellence at WVU,” explained W. Garth Smith , academy member and co-founder of MVRSimulation. “It’s difficult to envision where WVU robotics would be without Dr. Gu’s talents, history of groundbreaking research and success of our robotics teams.”

As the faculty advisor for several robotics teams, Gu has led the NASA Sample Return Robot Centennial Challenge Championship Team to first place in 2015 winning the $100,000 Prize, and in 2016 winning the $750,000 prize with the most recent success of the 2023 University Rover Challenge team clinching first place on the global stage.

Over a dozen academy members and department leadership acknowledged the need to recognize and support highly productive faculty in the department and raised funds to establish a newly named professorship.

“Gu is highly deserving of this recognition and support,” said Jason Gross , associate professor and chair of the MMAE department. “His strong track record of leading a high-impact research program in robotics and leading students in world-class experiential learning through winning international robotics competitions made him the ideal candidate for this recognition.”

After obtaining his BS in Controls from Shanghai University in 1996, MS in Controls from Shanghai Jio Tong University in 1999, and PhD in Aerospace Engineering from WVU in 2004, Gu joined the department as a research assistant professor in March 2005. He then rose through the tenure-track to become a full professor in August 2023.

“The resources provided by the professorship will allow students and I to explore forward-thinking ideas in robotics,” explained Gu. “I am very thankful for this recognition and opportunity to work on interesting research directions with students.”

During his tenure, Gu has conducted research spanning areas including improving robots’ ability to function in increasingly complex environments and situations. As the director of the Interactive Robotics Laboratory, his team is currently working on precision robotic pollinators, autonomous planetary rovers, teams of robots for exploring underground environments, and swarms of ground and space robots.

“Dr. Gu is a talented faculty member in the College who has established an impeccable reputation in the area of robotics research,” said Pedro Mago , Glen H. Hiner Dean of the Statler College. “He has not only been instrumental in the success of our robotics teams but an essential collaborator in the development of the new robotics engineering program in the college. I am extremely thankful to the MMAE Academy members for their continued support of the MMAE department and the college.”

Gu was named Statler College Outstanding Researcher (2014-2015) and Excellence in Research Senior Level (2017-2018), WVU Big XII Faculty Fellow (2018-2019), NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Fellow (2019), and Statler College Researcher of the Year (2021-2022).

“The establishment of this professorship is very important for the department as it represents the first professorship established specifically to recognize the contributions of faculty in the MMAE department at WVU,” Gross stated. "I am so grateful to W. Garth Smith and the many members of our distinguished alumni academy who recognized the value of this initiative and offered their strong support in making it happen.”

The academy, established in 1990 has inducted 101 members, including individuals in industry, government agencies and private businesses. The establishment of the professorship was created through their collaboration with Gross and Smith.

jpn/04/10/24

Contact: Paige Nesbit Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources 304.293.4135, Paige Nesbit

For more information on news and events in the West Virginia University Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources, contact our Marketing and Communications office:

Email: [email protected] Phone: 304-293-4135

Statler College Marketing and Communications

J. Paige Nesbit, Director Phone:   304.293.4135 |  Email:   [email protected]

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