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:

    “I have ever deemed it fundamental for the United States never to take active part in the quarrels of Europe. Their political interests are entirely distinct from ours. Their mutual jealousies, their balance of power, their complicated alliances, their forms and principles of government, are all foreign to us. They are nations of eternal war.”
    —Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

    “And hereby hangs a moral highly applicable to our own trustee-ridden universities, if to nothing else. If we really wanted liberty of speech and thought, we could probably get it—Spain fifty years ago certainly had a longer tradition of despotism than has the United States—but do we want it? In these years we will see.”
    —John Dos Passos (1896–1970)

    “... it is probable that in a fit of generosity the men of the United States would have enfranchised its women en masse; and the government now staggering under the ballots of ignorant, irresponsible men, must have gone down under the additional burden of the votes which would have been thrown upon it, by millions of ignorant, irresponsible women.”
    —Jane Grey Swisshelm (1815–1884)

    “The United States have a coffle of four millions of slaves. They are determined to keep them in this condition; and Massachusetts is one of the confederated overseers to prevent their escape.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “Yesterday, December 7, 1941Ma date that will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”
    —Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)