Do i need a Doctorates In the IT Field

Hello all,

So earlier this week I posted about WGU offering a Doctorates Degree and it started the old cogs in my head to crank, Do i actually need one is the question? My personal goals in life is to make it to Director level preferably above that (C-Suite). So to all you senior peeps what are the standard norms education wise?

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Danielm7

No. Director+ would be an MBA most likely.

Cyberscum

Director role
MBA>PMP>proven track record

markulous

Not at all. I doubt you can find any job postings asking for one. It'd be cool to do but I imagine the ROI is pretty bad.

OctalDump

So, you'd go get a doctorate if you weren't just about business as usual and standard practice, but wanted to do some real innovation.

There are people at that level without doctorates, and there are people at that level with them. Once you are at that level, then the ROI probably would be there, but there are very few people at that level. Very few.

The big thing for a doctorate is to be able to bridge the gap between academia (cutting edge research) and practice. To throw something out there as an example, imagine that you could come up with some profitable, practical applications for some new Quantum Computing technology? How much would that be worth?

More likely what you would do is something more like assess current frameworks against current research, and determine their efficacy within certain organisational structures. Or examine models of clouds of clouds. You might go work for top 500 organisation to lead major innovative change, or work in consultancy.

Or you could just do it because you think you'd enjoy it. People spend 10,000s on cars or travel or fancy houses, so why not spend 10,000s on education if that is what you enjoy.

TheFORCE

Clm wrote: »

Hello all,

So earlier this week I posted about WGU offering a Doctorates Degree and it started the old cogs in my head to crank, Do i actually need one is the question? My personal goals in life is to make it to Director level preferably above that (C-Suite). So to all you senior peeps what are the standard norms education wise?

Director positions are below C-level titles, not above C-level titles. But to answer the question, no you don't need to have a PhD, an MBA will do it and will probably have an RoI after a meaningful career spaning years of experience.

TranceSoulBrother

So any discussion about the validity of a PhD in IT will always revolves around the couple of axis that you see in this thread (I saw this in about 3 forums that I cared to research while validating my own thoughts)
Many will bring out the full time academia vs corporate, MBA vs PhD, or that it's not valid unless you want to teach part time.
Just like with the discussion about expert level certs (Cisco, Juniper, Red Hat...), I personally view this pursuit as a labor of love more than a pure ROI analysis. No one wants to be a CCIE to become the CIO or CTO somewhere, but rather to showcase a deep level of knowledge and because you love to tinker with that field (plus, you have a lifelong membership in the No-Life Club)
Like someone else said, you have people who open up their chop shop or tinker with a bike in their garage, others who devote untold hours to train for ironman and marathon competitions. How is obtaining a CCIE or a PhD any different in that regard without analyzing the academic vs corporate angle? The amount of universities offering these degrees online is increasing and affords one the opportunity to do that while having a family and maintaining a career. Just do your due diligence when researching a program and see how it corresponds with your goals and finances.
Some universities to look at: Capella, Walden, Dakota State, Nova Southeastern, NorthCentral (Arizona), Indiana State...

DatabaseHead

Experience and good budgeting and communication skills. Masters degree would help, especially if you have a weak bachelors. Bachelors from Harvard business or Engineering from Georgia Tech, just focus on budgeting and communications.

techfiend

One-year MBA Programme | INSEAD is what you want. You may not know the name but companies sure do. It has by far the most CEO graduates per capita in the world.