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:
“The relationship between mother and professional has not been a partnership in which both work together on behalf of the child, in which the expert helps the mother achieve her own goals for her child. Instead, professionals often behave as if they alone are advocates for the child; as if they are the guardians of the child’s needs; as if the mother left to her own devices will surely damage the child and only the professional can rescue him.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)
“It is not easy to imagine how little interested a scientist usually is in the work of any other, with the possible exception of the teacher who backs him or the student who honors him.”
—Jean Rostand (1894–1977)