Doctor of Science - The Americas - United States

United States

In the United States, the formally recognized traditional Doctor of Science is an academic research doctoral degree awarded by research universities. The academic research Sc.D. (or D.Sc.) is considered by both the United States Department of Education and the National Science Foundation to be equivalent to the more commonly awarded Ph.D.

The first North American Sc.D. was inaugurated by Harvard University in 1872, when graduate studies first began at Harvard, and where the Ph.D. and Sc.D. degrees were introduced in the same year. The Doctor of Science research degree is earned with the formal dissertation defense and approval of a committee on the basis of original research and publications, and it is awarded predominantly in doctoral-level science programs, such as engineering, medical and health sciences, and health economics.

Although rarer than the Doctor of Philosophy, the Doctor of Science research degree has been awarded by institutions such as Columbia University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Robert Morris University and Tulane University.

A few university doctoral research programs offer both the Sc.D. and Ph.D. degrees in the same academic field, such as Johns Hopkins University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with identical requirements for obtaining either. Currently, research programs that offer the formal research Sc.D. but not the Ph.D. degree for a given field include several doctoral programs at Harvard University, Boston University, Capitol College, and Dakota State University.

There are programs where the Sc.D. and Ph.D. have different degree requirements, though the two degrees are officially considered equivalent. The Engineering school at Washington University in St. Louis, for example, requires four graduate courses in the D.Sc. program not required for the Ph.D. degree, while the Ph.D requires teaching assistance services. The Johns Hopkins University also offers both Ph.D. and Sc.D. in certain programs, with only minor differences in university administration of the degrees. In some institutions, the Sc.D. has been converted to the Ph.D. For instance, the doctoral degree in biostatistics at Harvard recently converted from Sc.D. to Ph.D., even though the doctoral degree structure and requirements have remained identical.

Read more about this topic:  Doctor Of Science, The Americas

Famous quotes related to united states:

    The Federated Republic of Europe—the United States of Europe—that is what must be. National autonomy no longer suffices. Economic evolution demands the abolition of national frontiers. If Europe is to remain split into national groups, then Imperialism will recommence its work. Only a Federated Republic of Europe can give peace to the world.
    Leon Trotsky (1879–1940)

    What chiefly distinguishes the daily press of the United States from the press of all other countries is not its lack of truthfulness or even its lack of dignity and honor, for these deficiencies are common to the newspapers everywhere, but its incurable fear of ideas, its constant effort to evade the discussion of fundamentals by translating all issues into a few elemental fears, its incessant reduction of all reflection to mere emotion. It is, in the true sense, never well-informed.
    —H.L. (Henry Lewis)

    ... while one-half of the people of the United States are robbed of their inherent right of personal representation in this freest country on the face of the globe, it is idle for us to expect that the men who thus rob women will not rob each other as individuals, corporations and Government.
    Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)

    The United States is not a nation to which peace is a necessity.
    Grover Cleveland (1837–1908)

    In one notable instance, where the United States Army and a hundred years of persuasion failed, a highway has succeeded. The Seminole Indians surrendered to the Tamiami Trail. From the Everglades the remnants of this race emerged, soon after the trail was built, to set up their palm-thatched villages along the road and to hoist tribal flags as a lure to passing motorists.
    —For the State of Florida, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)