Talk:Terminal degree

This article has not yet been rated on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Education This article is within the scope of WikiProject Education, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of education and education-related topics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.EducationWikipedia:WikiProject EducationTemplate:WikiProject Educationeducation articles ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

This article has been mentioned by a media organization: Hathaway, Donna; et al. (December 1, 2006). "The Practice Doctorate: Perspectives of Early Adopters". http://www.journalofnursingeducation.com/ Journal of Nursing Education. {{cite news}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help); External link in |agency= (help)

I've mostly heard the term "terminal degree" applied to people, referring to the last degree they've obtained, which appears to be the usage in the ALA quote:

That usage seems to clearly indicate that "terminal degree" applies to the person who is (or wants to be) an academic librarian. There appears to be no citation of use of the phrase "terminal degree" in the way this article uses it, and the paper on professional degrees cited herein never uses the words "terminal" nor "final". Argyriou 19:15, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It may make sense to merge most of the existing content of this article into Professional degree, as the material is about professional degrees, not terminal degrees. An article on "terminal degree" which meets the definition cited in my comment above (and in the article) should not be merged with Professional degree. Argyriou 22:49, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Someone added The degree required to practice without limitatation in a professional field is generally considered the terminal professional degree.. This directly contradicts the immediately preceding sentence, A first professional degree is generally required by law or custom to practice the profession without limitation. Further, the unknown editor removed a useful example of a non-doctoral professional degree which is not the terminal degree in the profession.

I've reverted those changes, and will do so again if they reappear, unless they are very well cited. Argyriou (talk) 22:15, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is incorrect information on here, but I don't know enough about editing Wikipedia to fix it correctly. An LLM is not needed for a J.D. (law degree) and neither is an undergraduate degree in law. All that is required is a bachelor's degree. -Peter —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.28.119.125 (talk) 04:30, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

At least in the UK, the degrees of Doctor of Divinity (D.D) and Doctor of Laws (LL.D) are not "advanced professional degrees" in the American sense, but rather "higher doctorates" awarded to eminent senior scholars based on the evaluation by an ad hoc committee of an extensive portfolio of scholarly publications submitted by the candidate. More rarely, British higher doctorates can also be awarded honoris causa, as they normally are in the US (especially in Ivy League schools). In either case, the degree is normally awarded without any university residence requirements or a final oral exam. 11:23, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

"Many professional degrees are also considered terminal degrees because they are the highest professional degree in the field, such as the J.D." - Zoticogrillo

By that token.. so are dental(DDS/BDS/DMD), medical(MD,MBBS,DO), chiropractic(MChiro, DC), audiology(AuD), physical therapy(DPT), etc. etc. So, you might as well say all first professional degrees in many fields are also terminal degrees. Jwri7474 (talk) 22:42, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I intended to post to this page right away, sorry for the delay. Actually, there are more advanced professional degrees for some first professional degrees. After the DDS, there are masters degrees which prepare the dentist for a professional specialization. There are also professional specializations possible after education after the M.D. There is no professional degree after the J.D.

As for sources... http://www.sdcba.org/ethics/ethicsopinion69-5.html says that the J.D. is a professional doctorate and that the S.J.D. is a research doctorate, and the wiki LLM article defines the LL.M. as a research degree.

The other degrees you mention might also be terminal degrees, I'm not sure, I haven't researched it. I can only add what I know. Feel free to add them if you've verified that they are. Zoticogrillo (talk) 23:18, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Did you read this above post before making your recent edits? I am assuming you did not and will be re-introducing the content with citations. My intentions are not hostile ;) Zoticogrillo (talk) 23:29, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The LLM is also for legal specialization. When you graduate as a dentist, vet, chiro, etc. You are allowed to practice right away at the highest level. No different to JD. If you want to specialize. Then you can go back to get a Masters. Jwri7474 (talk) 23:32, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So are you saying that the citation I gave is invalid? Please provide a source for your assertion. I will research another source, if possible. Zoticogrillo (talk) 23:40, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Here are additional sources: http://www.law.wisc.edu/grad/prospective/llm/overview-llm.html http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/pg/research/ http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/pg/prospective/research/ These support various factual incidents, such as why it is that LL.M. applications are frequently submitted to the graduate school of the main campus and not the law school, and why it is that traditionally the LL.M. was a degree for those intending on teaching. Zoticogrillo (talk) 23:54, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If that's the case, then why don't the Texas and California bars require a LL.M. for their certification of specialization? In fact, an LL.M. in a field is insufficient for those associations to certify the lawyer as a specialist. Those are the only two states that have a bar-certified specialization program. Zoticogrillo (talk) 00:11, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Arizona, Florida, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio State, South Carolina, and Tennessee also have a bar-certified specialization program: http://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/committees_commissions/specialization/resources/resources_for_lawyers/sources_of_certification.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.181.138.127 (talk) 16:33, 23 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well.. you don't need an LLM for specilisation, but many legal specialty programs include an LLM degree. Same with dentistry. All you need is to complete an accredited dental specialty program. Some dental specialty programs just happen to include a dental masters.

I'm not saying your citations are invalid. Simply that what your stating is the exact situation for a number of professional fields. Its ok to list the JD degree. However, when you leave the others out.. it kind of indirectly infers they are not included. I think a good compromise would be to either include all professional fields in your statement (law, vet, dentistry, chiro, PT, audiology, etc, etc) ... or what would be easier would be to just make a generalised statment that many first professional degrees can sometimes also be considered terminal degrees. Jwri7474 (talk) 00:03, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And my statement was: the only one I know for sure (verifiable) is the J.D., and I'm not sure of some of the others, but I know for sure the dentistry degree is not, which might be the case for some of the others, I don't know. Do you know? Zoticogrillo (talk) 00:07, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How can you say that the only one you know for sure "verifiable" is the JD, and in same sentence say that you know for sure that the dental degree is not? Do you have sources to back up your statement about dentistry?Jwri7474 (talk) 00:10, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm biting my tongue here, but I really must point out that so far I'm the only one who has provided any citations at all. Just google it, and you'll immediately find stuff like this: http://dentalschool.umdnj.edu/masters/index.htm Zoticogrillo (talk) 00:15, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and this link states the following. "All course work addresses issues specific to each dental specialty program, thereby, enriching the students' experience in their specialties" and "DMD and DDS prepared individuals who are accepted into a UMDNJ-New Jersey Dental School graduate dental education specialty program will be able to apply to either of the Masters programs at the time of their application to the graduate dental specialty program or during the first year of that program"

• MDS(New Jersy): "The Master of Dental Science program is designed to give students a more in-depth understanding of the biological processes underlying their clinical specialty."

• MScD(New Jersy): "The Master of Science in Dentistry program is designed to train students for a career in academic dentistry focused on research."

Also, many overseas trained dentists apply to these programs to help them integrate into the US system to practice dentistry.

How is this different than the LLM again?

I know you said that your intentions are not hostile.. its just amusing because everything you post on wiki seems to indirectly assert the superiority of the US JD degree over every other degree in the world.  :) All, I'm saying is that the situations are pretty similar. I hope we can be friends. Jwri7474 (talk) 00:24, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It would certainly be easier to be friends if you lived nearby and we could get a drink or a bite to eat or something. :) I guess I was unclear with my message? This is what I intended: The J.D. is a terminal professional degree because it is the highest professional degree in law. The LL.M. is a research degree and not a professional degree. The DDS is not a terminal professional degree because the dental masters is "higher" than the DDS, and the masters is a professional degree.

I know it seems like I've been arguing the superiority of the J.D., and I apologize, because it wasn't my intent. I think it looks that way because there is so much on wiki trying to say that the J.D. is not a doctorate, or exactly the same as a LL.B., for which there is no verifiable support (that I have found). Therefore, it seems that elevating the J.D. is my goal because my efforts have been against the backdrop of people who are trying to elevate the LL.B. or degrade the J.D.

So, why the J.D. with me? Well, I had been looking for some time for an article to which I could contribute, and the need seemed greatest with this degree. Now I've become quite familiar with the topic. Unfortunately there is much dis-information about the subject on the internet, so my stuff shows up here and there. I don't have time to do a lot, so I figured I would just do one thing well. Believe you me, I have been very anxious to put this topic to rest so that I can move on to something else. I hope that can happen soon. Zoticogrillo (talk) 02:13, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed... these things are usually more enjoyable to discuss over a beer.  :)

This is a little off topic. However, one thing that I would like to point out is that just because in the field of "law" the LLB is not equal to the JD.. doesn't mean that in the field of medicine or dentistry the bachelor of medicine or dentistry is not equal to the MD or DDS (or other fields). Every professional field is different.

You said the LLM is an "academic degree". Is it not "associated" with legal specalization? The Master of Dental Science is can be granted for a number of things. Most commonly it is granted as part of a dental specaialty residency or training program and requires a thesis. This would mean that the MDSc is an academic degree which most commonly reflects completion of dental specailty trainig. This is not a higher "general dental" qualification than the DDS or BDS. (All Dental masters degrees as far as I know require a thesis and are thus academic.. I'm also unaware of any Masters degree in general dentistry. All of them focus on a small aspect or specalization to some extent) I'm a bit busy at the moment, but will try to find you some sources soon. Jwri7474 (talk) 03:17, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct that every field and its training is peculiar. The J.D. article does the best at explaining the professional legal training paradigm, and I recommend it rather than restating it here. Nonetheless, the relevant points are that professional training focuses on developing the skills and expertise necessary to succeed in a profession. An academic degree is primarily for discovering and analyzing new knowledge.

The J.D. program teach legal analysis skills through in class Socratic examination, and includes very intensive courses and practicums on such skills as case law and legislative research, writing, in court argumentation, negotiation, and includes internships and clinics. It is therefore a professional program.

The LL.M. and S.J.D. programs concentrate on lectures, academic research, publishing of findings and producing a thesis or dissertation. Which is why they are a research, academic or scholarly degree.

One of the major differences between the LL.B. (as originally implemented) and J.D. (as originally implemented) is that the LL.B. is a bachelors degree that includes the classical or liberal-arts study of philosophy. It is a scholarly oriented degree. This is because it was developed in a jurisdiction that had the Inns of Court (U.K.), a school for the professional training of lawyers, and was not intended as a complete training of lawyers. The J.D. is a professional program, which has not yet been implemented as originally conceived in any institution outside the United States (see the J.D. article). Zoticogrillo (talk) 05:42, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The LLB and BCL degrees are not terminal degrees, and most sources agree that they are not professional degrees either. Because they are not terminal degrees, they don't belong in the terminal degree article. Zoticogrillo (talk) 11:44, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

False. University of Melbourne lists the LLB as a professional degree. See http://undergraduate.law.unimelb.edu.au/go/courses/llb-and-double-degrees/index.cfm. Wikiant (talk) 13:32, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The phrase (and, indeed, the concept) "terminal degree" isn't in general use in the UK. Does anyone happen to know if it's in widespread use outside the US, and if so, in what countries it does exist? -- Nicholas Jackson (talk) 22:48, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

After a quick search of other british commonwealth territories (b/c you mention UK), I found:

Singapore [1] Hong Kong [2] India [3] Jamaica [4] New Zealand [www.otago.ac.nz/education/staff/docs/research_costs_estb_staff.doc] The use of the term, particularly in India and Jamaica, seems to be different than that in this wiki article. I'm not sure that the above examples demonstrate the the usage is common within those countries, or universally defined. Zoticogrillo (talk) 00:34, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Even in the US, the usage in the article seems to only be commonly used in certain fields, and not in others (medicine).Fuzbaby (talk) 19:18, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The main concern I have with this article is that it can be read as presenting US practice as if that were the default situation throughout the world, whereas it's starting to look to me as though actually it's only the US where the phrase "terminal degree" is widespread (and I'm still not convinced that everybody who uses it means the same thing). A Google search for "terminal degree" restricting to .ac.uk sites turned up a total of 182 matches, of which almost all were instances of the phrase being used in a US context (for example, when discussing practice at US universities) and very few were in official UK university publications or documentation. (For comparison, the phrase "higher doctorate" turned up about 1800 matches, and "higher degree" about 44000.) I'm also not convinced that the phrase means the same thing in those other countries in which it is vaguely current, and even if it did, the highest degree in a given field in one country might not be so in a different country: for example, in the US, the highest earned academic degree in physics is the PhD, whereas in the UK it's the DSc (a higher doctorate ranking rather higher than a PhD, awarded upon submission of a portfolio of published research of a very high standard) and Germany has a sort of postdoctoral qualification called a habilitation (which either is or isn't a degree in a formal sense, depending on whom you talk to). Perhaps the simplest approach would be to modify the opening paragraph to clarify this - I'll have a think about how to do that if nobody has any objections. -- Nicholas Jackson (talk) 16:47, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. As a side topic: Is it possible that habilitation is equivalent to what, in the US, is promotion to Full Professor? Apart from the smaller 4-year colleges that tend to promote based on longevity and "service," in US universities, promotion to Full Professor requires the submission of a portfolio of published research of a significantly high standard. Wikiant (talk) 17:21, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have an M.B.A. and have always seen an M.B.A. listed as a terminal degree[5]. Lately, because schools have been inventing a D.B.A., a bunch of sources have popped up saying that an M.B.A. is not a terminal degree. This is fundamentally flawed to me, since a DBA is not seen as a progression of an MBA, nor have most MBA students ever heard the term DBA. Many MBAs already have doctorates in other fields, or are CPAs or JDs already. Furthermore, many jobs still require "a doctorate or an MBA," DBA programs don't require an MBA, and no level of job requires or pays more for a DBA versus an MBA (not even colleges.) For these reasons, I would like this article to have, in its opening section, discussion of the abstract theory of what is a terminal degree--not just "a doctorate", but "the perceived stopping point in education within any subject." MBA/DBA may be a great example for such.--Mrcolj (talk) 20:52, 2 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The DBA is not a new degree, and the MBA has never been considered terminal (in my experience, MBA degrees issued by 4-year colleges are of significantly lesser quality than undergraduate business degrees issued by major universities). Your statement that "many MBAs already have doctorates in other fields" flies in the face of my 20+ years experience teaching MBAs. If you can produce data supporting that claim, I'd be incredibly surprised. Wikiant (talk) 12:56, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How long has the DBA been around? I don't know. They may have existed for more than 20 years, but they haven't been common until the last few years. But in my experience, where an MBA and a PhD in Business were considered different tracks, an MBA was therefore considered terminal (again, for the reasons I listed above.) And the many google hits along those lines to me argue that this should merit inclusion in the article. (I'm not sure what your point is about 4-year colleges not being as quality as major universities. I agree with you on that. But if you're arguing that a significant number of major universities offer DBAs, I'm not sure that's the case.) Regarding "many MBAs already have doctorates," of course I don't mean "many" as an absolute number, but as a relative number. The number of doctors going back for an MBA is a heck of a lot higher than the number of doctors going back for a M.A. in Biology. Yet you know many people, and have probably seen many job listings requesting people, who have a PhD in some subject and then went back for an MBA.--Mrcolj (talk) 16:59, 7 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The MFA should probably show up somewhere in this entry. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.108.80.217 (talk) 13:26, 22 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would delete the opening of the second sentence "This phrase is in common use in the United States". Many educated people in the USA do not know the definition of terminal degree, and others have never heard of it. So for sure the use is not common.--Gciriani (talk) 14:28, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"This phrase is in academic use in the United States but is little used outside North America. The term is not generally used in the United Kingdom or Canada, for example, and its exact meaning varies somewhat between those areas and disciplines in which the term is used." Again, Canada is in North America.... Should be rephrased to "little used outside the United States". 24.244.29.59 (talk) 06:56, 2 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As long as we're not talking about a degree in computer science ('terminal degree'). MaynardClark (talk) 07:34, 2 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I've made divisons because for instance if you studied Medicine, you wouldn't study any of the other healthcare type subjects, since they're all categorized together. So say if you see what people do it's like Doctor + Lawyer + Manager + Minister + Engineer + Educator + Designer 182.255.99.214 (talk) 13:06, 28 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Guild of Copy Editors volunteer here. I tried to add more sources to address the refimprove hatnote, and struggled with what is and isn't a terminal degree. Both the MBA and MAT were listed in the lead as terminal degrees, but those statements were unsourced. The only validation I could find for the MBA as a terminal degree was a business school website, which is somewhat unreliable, but I left it in nonetheless. (aside: I am a bit puzzled that the definition of terminal as the bare minimum required to practice the profession works for an MBA, despite the fact that a DBA is a higher level business degree.) For the