The term Professional student has two uses in the university setting:
- In the United States and Canada, if not elsewhere, a professional student is a student majoring in what are considered the professional degrees. These include Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Veterinary Medicine (D.V.M.), Law (J.D. or LL.B.), Medicine (M.D.) or (D.O.), Engineering, Business Administration (M.B.A.), Nursing (B.Sc.N.), Pharmacy (Pharm.D. or B.Sc.Phm.) and more.
- "Professional student" is a slang term commonly used in colleges to describe a student who stays in school for many years rather than embarking on a career. To avoid these types, some four-year colleges have imposed limits on the length of time students can be enrolled in order to open up their limited slots to new students. However, the colleges allow for demonstrated exceptions (e.g., a student who holds down a full-time occupation or has a family to raise, who is clearly demonstrating progress toward a degree). See: perpetual student.
- A less common meaning for "Professional student" is an individual who makes a living writing papers and doing college work in exchange for pay from other people.
Famous quotes containing the words professional and/or student:
“Men seem more bound to the wheel of success than women do. That women are trained to get satisfaction from affiliation rather than achievement has tended to keep them from great achievement. But it has also freed them from unreasonable expectations about the satisfactions that professional achievement brings.”
—Phyllis Rose (b. 1942)
“When I tried to talk to my father about the kind of work I might do after college, he said, “You know, Charlotte, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to that, and it seems to me that the world really needs good, competent secretaries. Your English degree will help you.” He said this with perfect seriousness. I was an A student at Bryn Mawr ...”
—Charlotte Palmer (b. c. 1925)