What Doctorate For Me?

[nykorn]

I'm trying to decide on which doctorate to get where, or even to get a doctorate at all.

Current location: Washington state, USA.

Citizenship: Sweden, USA and (soon to be) Italy.

Age: Almost 33.

Budget: As cheap as possible.

Needs: A degree that is recognized in Europe, the US and Japan. I don't care about prestige. I prefer self-paced when possible but it's not a requirement. If not in my timezone then it needs to have recorded lectures or something, I can't pass classes when sessions are at 2am my time.

Commitments: I have no spouse, no kids, no pets, no house, no debts, nothing really.

Time to study: Unsure where I'll be at during the point when I can start a PhD.

Motivation: I'm visually impaired and depending on where I live also an immigrant using second language skills, thus potential employers don't see me as very valuable. Due to this struggle I was unemployed for all of my 20's and I regularly continue to have employment issues in my 30's as I only seem to get the bottom of the barrel jobs (and I'm not talking only about salary). I want better credentials to help secure decent employment.

Location: Online is my normal, but in person is ok if I can afford moving/living there. If I have to move to a physical campus, note that I can't get a driver's license so there needs to be good public transport. Also as I'm close to blind I make a good target, it needs to be a location with low crime. I prefer the countryside to the city.

Interests: My dream job would be to get handed a minority language with sentence translations and told to analyze it to write a grammar book and create a dictionary. Or to help create worksheets, books and so on in minority languages. Or to do something like design a regularized constructed language to be used as intercommunication. I enjoy teaching and translating languages however the range of that is limited as most people want native speakers and AI is quickly taking over that career field. 

I love Japanese but degrees in Japanese are worthless nowadays and don't lead to any career. You have a few prospects as a native speaker but not as a non-native.

I would be interested in doing something like creating products for disabled people (stuff I wish I had) or learning programming in order to code stuff for disabled people (stuff like Chrome browser extensions, edits to Windows or modifications to Steam videogames) but I feel that's probably not within the scope of a PhD.

I'm also interested in starting my own business, I have a few ideas, one being running a hostel that incorporates language stuff. But I feel that is also not within the scope of a PhD.

I also have the hobby of genealogy. Similar to language analysis this is another "research tons of stuff and analyze it to see what fits" sort of hobby.

Languages I can read at C1 level: English (native), Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Faroese, Japanese, Esperanto.

Languages I could probably learn pretty fast (within 1-3 years) to C1 level, to meet college entry requirements: Yiddish, German, Dutch, Italian, Korean, Turkish.

Work Experience: Language teaching, hotel work, article writing, ebook creation, AI output editing/reviewing.

Finished Education:
Certificate - 120 hour TEFL
Certificate - C1 (JLPT N1) in Japanese
Benchmark - SAS 3 (C1 level) Swedish courses completed
State Exams - Praxis Core (West-B), NES 102 & 103 passed
Trade school - Hospitality
Trade school - Bartending
Associate's - Integrated Studies
Bachelor's - Japanese Language
ENEB Bachelor's / Master's - MBA, Project Management, Hotel & Tourism

Education in Progress:
WGU Master's - Elementary Education for US licensure

Timeline: Will graduate from WGU by summer 2025. Due to legal requirements regarding my WGU scholarship I will probably have to stick around for 6 to 12 months before I can physically move elsewhere. After that I should probably jump into a PhD right away since I won't be getting any younger.

Tuition assistance/reimbursement: My workplace doesn't do that.

[armado]

You can consider about DBA from Italian-Guglielmo Marconi University.
https://ebsedu.org/doctor/doctor-of-busi...istration/.
or UK- Arbetay University.
https://www.westfordonline.com/course/do...n-abertay/

[bjcheung77]

Basically, I would wait for completion of the Masters at WGU until you even decide... Get some experience in the field you want to get into first, the doctorate can come later. You need to decide on what doctorate subject matter you want to specialize in first, be it business, education, IT, or something different... Once you know what you want to be an expert in, then look at avenues to completing that program of study.

[datby98]

Your language skills are so impressive!

[nykorn]

Thanks guys.

While it's not a Doctorate, I found the following program in Poland which looks really interesting: https://interl.amu.edu.pl/interlingvisti...dojen.html

I'm still puzzling it out but it looks like there is a 1, 2 or 3 year postgraduate course OR Master's degree in Interlinguistics taught in Esperanto, which can also get you a diploma in instructing Esperanto, and where part of the coursework is translation work between English and Esperanto. The course contents are not solely about Esperanto and English.

It looks like the tuition cost varies from 100 to 300 Euro per term depending on what country you come from but the page hasn't been updated in a while.

I'll keep this one in my back pocket...

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You can consider about DBA from Italian-Guglielmo Marconi University.
https://ebsedu.org/doctor/doctor-of-busi...istration/.
or UK- Arbetay University.
https://www.westfordonline.com/course/do...n-abertay/

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm not sure there is any point to getting a DBA for me. I don't see what it can get me that an MBA can't, other than the title of Doctor or maybe teaching Business at a college somewhere. If I do start a business, there are some places that want a related degree to prove your proficiency in the subject before they give you a business loan, but my ENEB diplomas should suffice for that.

[cro-magnon]

Hey, I’m in my early thirties and live in Poland, it’s a decent place to be if your expectations aren’t too high. There’s demand for people with your language skills. Self-paced distance learning doesn’t exist here as such, but education on campus is free or cheap at public universities (for EU citizens). Ping me if you need help looking for a specific programme, we can chat.
To pursue a doctoral degree, you’d need a university master’s degree, the ENEB propio won’t do. Here’s the government website where you can see what international qualifications are acceptable for admission to the different levels of higher education: https://kwalifikator.nawa.gov.pl/

[Stonybeach]

https://ace.edu/degree-programs/doctoral...echnology/

American College of Education is accredited and affordable. Ed.D in instructional technology. Perhaps your dissertation can focus on effective learning tools for the visually impaired?

[bjcheung77]

Yes, +1, I agree... That's a great program from ACE, they also have other programs as well, say for instance you want to go into TEFL/TESOL, etc. You can take the Bridge TEFL program for $1K, get 2K off the doctorate program at ACE.edu, you pretty much get a 2 for 1 deal (depending if you want to go into TEFL/Teaching).