Florida Atlantic University: PhD in CS $34K

[Stanislav]

You should go back and see the recent posts in that thread. Some of the senior members there did a little investigative research and discovered that the school is publishing bogus research. It appears that the school was setup to be Trump outlet based on their research. I think someone in that thread said that the university is going to lose its accreditation in the next review. It goes back to that adage, "if it seems too good to be true, it probably is".
Also, just to let you know professional doctorates are considered to be equivalent to Ph.D's. They are fully qualified to be on Ph.D. committees, be Ph.D readers and take on other academic-type roles. The most recognized professional doctorates are the DBA's and EdD's.  I Googled it and found that graduates with these degrees (and other common professional doctorates) hold tenured faculty positions at top universities like MIT and Stanford. So you can earn a professional doctorate (wouldn't recommend FAU though) and have all the privileges a Ph.D holder has.

Whoa. That's seriously overreaching.

FAU is a member of Florida's public university system, is 60 years old, more than 30 thousand students, a medical school, yadda yadda. It's not going away any time soon (full disclosure: I went to Floida State University, PhD'08). I doubt they can do much about the one dope on their faculty (out of hundreds); might be reluctant to do anything seeing the current political climate. A school that had their accreditor worried is the supposed "flagship", University of Florida, over admins trying to silence some professors trying to serve as expert witnesses in a case inconvenient to Governor DeSantis. Even in that case, and as much as I would want to embarrass them Gators - no one is in any serious danger of losing their accreditations. Another issue is a Republican bill trying to require universities to rotate their accreditors every five years - which is so stupid it can't possibly become law.

In short, FAU is a solid place. I'd say anything with "Florida" in its name lost a little bit of reputation thanks to close association with Trump and sorry ass people that keep winning nationwide offices there (De Santis, Scott), but this is at best a minor consideration for someone after a PhD in Computer Science, people.

[sgloer]

Hey guys, let's keep this thread on-topic and as factual as possible -- no veering off into the political or personal. Thanks.

[dserios]

Just wanted to give some updates on the program. Fall 2022 Registration started today. The course schedule through Fall 2023 are now published:
Program's main page:
https://www.fau.edu/engineering/eecs/gra...ional-phd/

This is the link to the 2022-2023 course schedule:
https://www.fau.edu/engineering/eecs/pdf...2-2023.pdf

[mcjon77]

Thanks for the info, dserios!

If you don't mind me asking, what was your Master's in? Was it CS. I have a data science masters and a ton of CS courses and am considering the program.

[compsci]

Hello,
I'm in this program! I just read the above posts, and I can confirm that Pat, Steve, and Ifo are all correct. This is a major public research university with an incredible amount of research in many departments. Their research budget is exploding, so they're likely to be an R1 in the next Carnegie classification update. If anyone wants to know more from someone in the program, I'll try and answer.
I started this Spring. Application to the program was through their application portal. You need three letters of recommendation and official transcripts from your previous schools. So you need to apply a few weeks before the deadline to make sure they are in on time.
After my acceptance, I had an hour-long meeting with one of the associate deans to talk about the program, their research and my research interests. I really liked that they set up this meeting because that's how on-campus programs are. That is, you can make appointments with deans if you want to talk to them.  The lectures are on every other Saturday 9AM-5PM on campus but are also set up for students to conference in live. So clearly they're doing their best to make distance students feel like they're studying alongside on-campus students. Distance students are welcome to attend the lecture onsite. The dean told me that's highly encouraged because the professors are present and you can meet with them and talk about your research interests or anything else. That's pretty amazing that the professors will give up their Saturdays. What else? The class size. Only seven students in my class, so you'll be working very closely with your advisor and research team. After my meeting with the dean, I have in-depth info about rules for the qualifying exam and rules for dissertation, etc. but my post is getting too long. If anyone wants to know more, ask away!

Please tell me, what will the transcript say: PhD or Professional PhD?
I just got into the program   
I also got into Clarkson, but there is more research going on in FAU, and Clarkson is more expensive

[bjcheung77]

Please tell me, what will the transcript say: PhD or Professional PhD?
I just got into the program   
I also got into Clarkson, but there is more research going on in FAU, and Clarkson is more expensive

It should say PhD... When do you start?

[compsci]

Please tell me, what will the transcript say: PhD or Professional PhD?
I just got into the program   
I also got into Clarkson, but there is more research going on in FAU, and Clarkson is more expensive

It should say PhD... When do you start?

I am starting in Fall 2024

[dserios]

Hello,
I'm in this program! I just read the above posts, and I can confirm that Pat, Steve, and Ifo are all correct. This is a major public research university with an incredible amount of research in many departments. Their research budget is exploding, so they're likely to be an R1 in the next Carnegie classification update. If anyone wants to know more from someone in the program, I'll try and answer.
I started this Spring. Application to the program was through their application portal. You need three letters of recommendation and official transcripts from your previous schools. So you need to apply a few weeks before the deadline to make sure they are in on time.
After my acceptance, I had an hour-long meeting with one of the associate deans to talk about the program, their research and my research interests. I really liked that they set up this meeting because that's how on-campus programs are. That is, you can make appointments with deans if you want to talk to them.  The lectures are on every other Saturday 9AM-5PM on campus but are also set up for students to conference in live. So clearly they're doing their best to make distance students feel like they're studying alongside on-campus students. Distance students are welcome to attend the lecture onsite. The dean told me that's highly encouraged because the professors are present and you can meet with them and talk about your research interests or anything else. That's pretty amazing that the professors will give up their Saturdays. What else? The class size. Only seven students in my class, so you'll be working very closely with your advisor and research team. After my meeting with the dean, I have in-depth info about rules for the qualifying exam and rules for dissertation, etc. but my post is getting too long. If anyone wants to know more, ask away!

Please tell me, what will the transcript say: PhD or Professional PhD?
I just got into the program   
I also got into Clarkson, but there is more research going on in FAU, and Clarkson is more expensive

Congratulations! Did you start this fall? The transcript will say Ph.D. not "Professional Ph.D." I did see that someone else posted that it's a professional doctorate and not a research one. That's all fabricated information. As the Dean has probably told you during your onboarding, you need to publish at least two peer-reviewed major journal or conference papers. Do you know what your thesis/dissertation is going to be on?