Edgewood College/UpGrad DBA; potentially $11,250

[lidel]

Hi lidel, 

thanks for sharing your experiences with the DBA program! Greatly appreciated.

I am thinking about applying for the program too, but my time is rather limited due to full time work and child. Do you have a rough idea how many hours per week are necessary to dedicate to the program? Are you always taking two courses at the same time? How long are assignments (min. words, etc.) and presentations? Do you have to work through most of the provided coursework to get them done? 

Thanks for your response. 
Caracal

Hi Caracal,

I'm glad to hear this information has been helpful. While everyone is different, I feel like most people could keep up with things with about 6-10 hours a week of dedicated time. I am in the UpGrad program and we only do one course at a time. If you opt to take the course directly from Edgewood I believe you could take as many courses as you like.

The assignments vary in length, but generally, it is about what I was encountering for my master's level courses. This course I'm in now the final is 10-14 pages with a six minute video and a 10 page secondary assignment. The five-module quizzes took me about an hour in total. The last course was a 5-minute video, a 15-minute video, a 3-page assignment, and one about 20 pages plus the exam.

Most courses are structured so that the assignments progress towards the final submissions. I usually spend the first week just digesting the lectures and readings. By the end of that, I have a big picture of things and can start focusing on assignments, usually doing them sequentially if they build on one another. Week two is usually a live office hours call, and the instructors have begun being open to direct emails. There are also opportunities for TA calls in the last couple of weeks if you want them. 

Let me know if you have any other questions!

S

Hi lidel, 

thanks for your quick reply. 

10 hours per week and one course at a time seems still doable in my current situation. 80-300 pages for the thesis in just one year seems ambitious though compared to other programs, but I guess they do not expect students to reinvent the wheel? As an international student, I will also apply via UpGrad since the scholarship would significantly reduce the fee. I hope they will offer it to me. 

@all: Has anyone checked by any chance if this DBA will be accepted by German authorities as equal to a PhD?

Thanks and best wishes
Caracal

I wouldn't worry too much about the dissertation stage. The way the program is structured, you will be indirectly working on it from day one, and at least in my case, it has progressed very naturally. I'm a year into the program and about four months from the start of the applied doctoral research portion, and I already have an 80-page proposal draft. By the time May rolls around and the final coursework is done, I hope to be hitting the ground running for the next phase. 

S