General Question

RedDeerGuy1's avatar

What is Walden university's Bachelor's of psychology to Ph.D. program like?

Asked by RedDeerGuy1 (24468points) June 1st, 2016

link What was your experience?

Observing members: 0 Composing members: 0

4 Answers

zenvelo's avatar

I don’t have direct experience with Walden, but compared to other programs in Psychology, there are a few things to consider.

Lack of a campus/central location means there is no structured support for learning how to conduct a therapeutic counseling session. I know quite a few therapists, and a big part of the education is “how to have a session with a client”. That includes intake, evaluation, focus on the growth of the client.

Taking courses on-line for a whole program means never having a constructive relationship with a professor to provide feedback. At the Doctoral level, that is a critical part.

Buttonstc's avatar

Some fields lend themselves readily to online learning which is great for cut and dried subjects like Math, Computer programming or something similar.

Psychology is a people skill. You can learn all the theories in the world but that’s not where the rubber meets the road. In order to effectively learn how to deal with people, you have to actually deal with living breathing human beings under the supervision of someone who has experience doing precisely that. That’s where the rubber meets the road.

A headful of mental knowledge and theories basically gives you a very full head but without a clue as to how to apply it.

I can think of few worse fields for only online study than Psychology. Well, internal Medicine and Dentistry spring to mind but Psychology is right up there with them.

Put it this way: if I were going to choose a Psychologist to help me with thorny life problems, someone with an online only degree wouldn’t be first on my list. Heck, he wouldn’t be on my list at all.

Most reputable online schools I’ve read about have at least some minimum requirement for on-campus time in order to qualify for a degree.

I don’t see any indication of that here and wonder why not.

Is their Doctoral program also an only online one?

LostInParadise's avatar

There are many people who say that the school is not very good

Darth_Algar's avatar

An online-only degree in a field like psychology I doubt is worth the paper it is printed on. Distance learning is fine for somethings, but psychology is, essentially, the study of people. In order to do that you have to be with people. It is very much a field that requires in-person learning and experience.

You seem to always be looking for shortcuts. You seem to want to better yourself, to gain money and prestige, without really ever having to leave your apartment or step out of your comfort zone. I can understand that, I really can. But that’s not how the world works and the shortcuts on the road to self-improvement just aren’t there. If you’re truly serious then you need to figure out, once and for all, what it is you really want to do in life, and mentally/emotionally prepare yourself for the long trek. Don’t get discouraged when you learn the shortcuts aren’t there. Instead learn to stop looking for the shortcut and commit yourself to to travel the full distance.

Answer this question

Login

or

Join

to answer.

This question is in the General Section. Responses must be helpful and on-topic.

Your answer will be saved while you login or join.

Have a question? Ask Fluther!

What do you know more about?
or
Knowledge Networking @ Fluther