Doctoral degree programs and requirements

¶ … pursue a doctoral degree in education.

Education is one of the most important fields in the world because it shapes the minds of students, young and old. Education is responsible for grooming individuals for society, teaching them necessary skills for life. The learning experience is more than just scholastic, as social skills become more and more important to contemporary society.

The education system in the United States deals with young children who have less structure in their home lives than earlier generations. Especially in the inner cities, more and more children are sent to school without a proper grounding in life skills and communication. In a conversation with a school board member from such a place, I learned that some children showed up for their first day of school without even knowing their full names. This is cause for growing concern as schools are now forced to educate children in basic life skills as well as the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic.

Almost everyone has been inspired by one of his or her teachers. Despite being overworked and underpaid, there have always been those few special examples of dedication and caring in teachers. Many successful people from all walks of life relate stories of their school days, in which a high school teacher or college professor helped them through a difficult time in their lives.

Professionally and scholastically, I would like to conduct research of educational techniques to find those methods that are more effective teaching tools than what we find in most of today's educational system. There is a need to update and modernize our very outlook on education in this country. This need is evident in the large numbers of functionally illiterate people that live in this country. Through study and research, I would like to contribute to the modernization of education.

The qualities that I bring to the program are dedication, creativity and an open mind. I believe that education is the most important field that someone can be involved in, and requires a personal dedication to pursue what is good for students. Anything innovative also requires creativity, and innovation is what our current educational technique lack. It takes an open mind to be objective in any scholarly pursuit, and objectivity is necessary in the interpretation of data gained through research.