Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ukma!xanth!lll-winken!uunet!wucs1!conrad
From: conrad@wucs1.wustl.edu (H. Conrad Cunningham)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Difference in Degrees
Keywords: Ph.D., D.SC., Sc.D.
Message-ID: <677@wucs1.wustl.edu>
Date: 2 Feb 89 15:00:34 GMT
References: <2008@lcuxlm.ATT.COM> <00JuC36BGP1010IEdew@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> <669@wucs1.wustl.edu> <02lc3af66p101003bfE@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com>
Reply-To: conrad@wucs1.UUCP (H. Conrad Cunningham)
Organization: Washington University, St. Louis, MO
Lines: 32

In article <02lc3af66p101003bfE@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> johnm@uts.amdahl.com (John Murray) writes:
>In article <669@wucs1.wustl.edu>, conrad@wucs1.wustl.edu (H. Conrad Cunningham) writes:
>>                   . . ..   (By the way not all research doctorates are
>> Doctor of Philosophy--Ph.D.-- degrees;  a few engineering schools grant
>> Doctor of Science degrees--D.Sc. or Sc.D. instead.)
>
>Anyone care to comment on exactly what the differences are between these
>degrees? Isn't it more of a naming convention than anything else?
>
>- John Murray.

At Washington University the doctoral degrees granted by the graduate school
of arts and sciences are Doctor of Philosophy degrees; those granted by
the graduate school of engineering and applied sciences are Doctor of Science
(D.Sc.) degrees.  (The Department of Computer Science is in the
engineering school.)  As far as I know, the requirements for the Ph.D.
and the D.Sc. are the "same," given the different natures of the
disciplines.  (I don't think any of the D.Sc. programs require foreign
language reading knowledge;  most of the liberal arts Ph.D. programs
probably do.)

I suppose that somewhere along the line someone just decided that
Science was more appropriate than Philosophy in a title for an
engineering and applied science degree.  It also matches the Bachelor of
Science and Master of Science degrees granted at a lower level.

Are there any Computer Science programs that grant more than one kind
of doctorate?  I think there are some institutions which grant
"Engineer", or something such, degrees that are intermediate between a
masters and a doctorate and are less research oriented than a doctorate.

Conrad Cunningham