<p>Some faculty I know, especially older individuals, have ScDs instead of PhDs.</p>
<p>When I was in college (many moons ago) I remember one university I was considering for graduate school. They offered PhDs and ScDs. In exploring the differences, one thing that caught my attention was the foreign language requirement. Both types of degrees required some mastery of a foreign language. However, for the ScD, the foreign language could be fulfilled by learning FORTRAN.</p>
<p>Wonder what the requirements are today, assuming the ScD option is still around!</p>
<p>According to Wikipedia Sc.D and Ph.D degrees are equivalent and requirements for the degrees are identical or virtually so. Wiki mentions MIT, Johns Hopkins, Tulane and WashU as universities that still offer the Sc.D.</p>
<p>When I attended MIT, there was no difference between PhD and ScD. You could choose which one you wanted to receive. I checked the grad website from my department (MechE) and that still has not changed. “Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) or Doctor of Science (ScD), which differs in name only” [MIT</a> MechE - Academic Programs - Graduate Programs](<a href=“http://meche.mit.edu/academic/graduate/]MIT”>Education: Graduate | MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering)</p>
<p>ScD in the US is not too common, but when it’s awarded as an earned (e.g. not honorary) degree it’s usually equal to a PhD.</p>
<p>However, at the ancient universities (e.g. Cambridge) the PhD is the only doctorate that one earns through research and coursework. Doctor of Science, Doctor of Law, Doctor of Letters, Doctor of Divinity and Doctor of Music are all considered ‘higher doctorates’ and are only awarded to someone much later in their career (often as an honorary degree… they don’t give out honorary PhDs). </p>
<p>In the US there is also the Doctor of Medicine (MD) and Juris Doctor (JD) degrees, neither of which are strictly speaking doctorates. However, by convention medical doctors (although not lawyers) are still called “Dr.” Instead, lawyers in the US have laid claim to the title Esq. after their name… although it’s a totally incorrect usage of the title (any gentleman is titled Esq. unless they have another title) it has stuck here in the US.</p>
<p>No prob. I learned about the Esq. thing because I lived in England for a few years a while back. I kept getting letters addressed to Myfirst Mylast, Esq. I then chatted to a friend who once sent me a letter with that title and said “I’m not a lawyer, so why do you call me Esq.” they were very confused since they said “What does being a lawyer have anything to do with it?”. I then explained how in the US lawyers styled themselves as Esq. and that I assumed this was some special title but was then informed of what it actually means. Needless to say whenever I now see lawyers in the US write Esq. after their name I do have a bit of a chuckle even though it has become a sort of de facto title in the US, even if it’s an incorrect usage.</p>
<p>The whole calling physicians Dr. started in Scotland a while back when the medical school there was a bit jealous that academic scholars got a special title but the physicians didn’t (it’s basically a ‘class’ thing… higher classes had special titles, lower classes didn’t). So even though they didn’t meet the requirements they just decided to start styling themselves Dr. even though they weren’t… essentially out of jealously. “Doctor” essentially means ‘scholar’ although because of this hijacking of the title it now is often thought to mean ‘physician’ although that’s not strictly accurate. It doesn’t stop there though. Surgeons in the UK then wanted to show that they were above such attempts at self-promotion into a higher class and thus continued to style themselves as Mr. Even today, a surgeon in the UK is still just a Mr.</p>
<p>In the US, the title Dr. for physicans caught on after the usage crossed the Atlantic but until quite recently many medical schools didn’t award ‘doctorate’ degrees to those that graduated medical school (they were generally masters degrees, which more accurately reflects what medical school entails… e.g. there’s no original research and discovery… a key requirement for a doctorate). Anyway, for similar reasons of vanity, the “MD” degree was invented (and similarly the JD degree) and now most, all?, medical schools award either the MD or DO. It’s for these reasons that the MD and JD are generally called ‘professional doctorates’ to separate them from the actual doctorates. Although of course some MDs and JDs do go onto earn PhDs too. </p>
<p>I have no problem calling a physician Dr., but knowing the above facts I do laugh when a freshly graduated medical student suggests in a moment of false vanity that a PhD isn’t a “real doctor” when in reality it’s the other way around ;-).</p>
<p>
Yeah… same way in which some schools in the US award an A.B. instead of a B.A… It’s exactly the same thing with just the order of the words switched around ;-).</p>
<p>Some schools offer a Doctor of Arts degree which typically requires study not only in the discipline, say mathematics, but also in its teaching. Some schools offer joint Ph.D., D.A. programs.</p>
<p>This is a degree that stands somewhere between the research degrees (Ph.D, Sc.D, etc) and the service degrees (DSW, MD, PsyD, etc.).</p>