Beware of "Consulting" and "Leadership" PhD programs

[aequitasveritas]

Hi all,

I wanted to make sure I posted this for undergrads who may be interested in the field of consulting and I/O psych.


I use my school as a prism for this discussion, which is essentially aimed as cautioning people from non-clinical psychology PhDs.


To be fair the University of San Diego has a PhD in Leadership as well and is much more expensive. However, the point stands that these are, in my experienced position, useless degrees."Consulting" is much ado about nothing. It was literally an I/O degree with a few clinical classes thrown in and then some 1 credit consultation groups where you talk about "consulting"....whatever that is. Anyone and their brother can be a "consultant"...dont need a degree, much less a PhD in it.

Take my advice. Do NOT go to an expensive school for I/O psychology or one of these hybrid degrees. They are analogous to medical schools that teach you how to wear a white coat and write on notepads...but they dont teach you any medicine if you get my drift.

So back to the population I'm speaking to. If you want to work in the business world go get an MBA from a top notch accredited program. If you want to do I/O go to a funded program and learn the real stuff.The I/O psychs coming from some pro schools can barely put food on the table. I may get flagged for that but I'm just telling the truth....they literally let in anyone who applies as the program is failing. I know people who graduated from the I/O masters program and work at Target as fitting room clerks, Avon as sales ladies, for they're parents; one is a paralegal.

Overall point, if you want to be a "leader" that comes with expertise in a field. If you want to be a "consultant" that comes with actually having something to consult. Teaching people about "consulting psychology" in organizations is like giving people a PhD in talking. The question becomes...what exactly are you saying?!

Hope this helps

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

The best consultants come from:

1. Putting in 10+ years in management at a Fortunate 100 company.
2. Putting in 5+ years at a top firm, then attend a Top 5 B-School.
3. Start-up, go big, sell, repeat.

Essentially, the best consultants have a proven track record before they even talk to a client. Business is 10x worse than any psychology program about, "Where did you go to school? Where did you work? Who are your clients?" An I/O Ph.D. from a solid program can help, but the best consultants put in the 80hr weeks first, and then went back for degrees.

 

[psich]

How can universities create these programs in good conscience? Clearly they were only made to generate money and not much else. But at the same time, wouldn’t somebody be wary of a degree that just happens to appear and has no history in the educational or professional atmosphere? I mean, do people actually enroll in these programs?

 

[aequitasveritas]

You must first understand how powerful the doctor carrot can be. When waived in front of desperate faces it usually doesn't fail 2 attract a quota.

My experience was that the majority of the cohort in those made up degrees as well as the I/O program terminated after the MA or transferred to another program/school.

The school does a great job of creating an atmosphere of cognitive dissonance. Plus, the further the student gets into it the less likely they are to drop out.


Most of the people who are admitted into the fringe I/O programs and the like are subpar and have no business being in graduate school. I really cannot explain to you how dismal the collective intellect is in these programs.

If any of you thought the professional school debate had merit in clinical psych, you have no idea what goes on in professional school I/O programs...no idea. True story example: I had to show someone how to do a standard deviation in my advanced stats class. She did end up failing the class, but the point is that she was there. The stories abound and I don't have the energy to type them all.

Per your question of conscience.....I really do wonder about that myself. I think the professors actually get caught up in the cog diss themselves.

I always love to go back to the story of one of my cousins. He was a museum curator and one day he started to pick up a consulting gigg. 15 yrs later he was averaging a half a mill a year in contracts. Oh...he had a degree in history. I guess that falsifies the notion of needing a degree in consulting.

I think Victor Frankl applied to consulting with paradoxical intention....the more you train for it the less you hit the bullseye, which is essentially what T4C was getting at with the experience being tantamount to consultant viability.

 

[PsychGraduate]

The best consultants come from:

1. Putting in 10+ years in management at a Fortunate 100 company.
2. Putting in 5+ years at a top firm, then attend a Top 5 B-School.
3. Start-up, go big, sell, repeat.

Essentially, the best consultants have a proven track record before they even talk to a client. Business is 10x worse than any psychology program about, "Where did you go to school? Where did you work? Who are your clients?" An I/O Ph.D. from a solid program can help, but the best consultants put in the 80hr weeks first, and then went back for degrees.[/QUOTE/]

Completely right.

 

[Psy01]

This is definitely one of the most disconcerting threads I've seen here.

 

[erg923]

The leadership phd sounds interesting. Although Im not sure it would give you anything a 20 year old wouldn't learn during a 6 month deployment in Iraq or Afghanistan.

 

[aequitasveritas]

The leadership phd sounds interesting. Although Im not sure it would give you anything a 20 year old wouldn't learn during a 6 month deployment in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Chuckle. I agree. I'm kind of a nativist when it comes to leadership though. I think people have interpersonal capacities and senses of self that create leadership...and all of that is clinical psych. Studying leadership is ok...but not at $950 a credit hour!

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

The leadership phd sounds interesting. Although Im not sure it would give you anything a 20 year old wouldn't learn during a 6 month deployment in Iraq or Afghanistan.

There is a science behind leadership though. They would learn the nuts and bolts through doing, though the study and implementation is much different. I've looked into related areas of training because of my interest in executive coaching, and there is a growing body of literature in this area....BUT, I don't think this particular degree is really relevant to the actual research and work. The research is much more technical, and the work isn't something you can learn in a classroom. It is an interesting degree in theory, but it fails in practice. I think most would rather a proven leader in the appropriate industry, instead of someone fresh out of a program.

 

[myoclinical]

Hi all,

I wanted to make sure I posted this for undergrads who may be interested in the field of consulting and I/O psych.


I use my school as a prism for this discussion, which is essentially aimed as cautioning people from non-clinical psychology PhDs.

Alliant and alot of other professional schools as well as online universities have a tendency to literally make up degrees. For example, Alliant decided to start offering a "Consulting Psychology" PhD and when that kinda floundered they regroups and made the "Leadership" PhD.

To be fair the University of San Diego has a PhD in Leadership as well and is much more expensive. However, the point stands that these are, in my experienced position, useless degrees. I started out doing both clinical and consulting psychology at Alliant and quickly recognized that the "Consulting" thing is much ado about nothing. It was literally an I/O degree with a few clinical classes thrown in and then some 1 credit consultation groups where you talk about "consulting"....whatever that is. Anyone and their brother can be a "consultant"...dont need a degree, much less a PhD in it.

Take my advice. Do NOT go to an expensive school for I/O psychology or one of these hybrid degrees. They are analogous to medical schools that teach you how to wear a white coat and write on notepads...but they dont teach you any medicine if you get my drift.

At one point Alliant was telling the Consulting PhDs they could become licensed. This is actually a lie. In CA you need all of the clinical classes from an APA approved syllabus (even if you're program is not APA approved) to sit for the exam. Most clinical schools even have additional classes for licensure. When I told them of this irony there was dead silence, some papers shuffling, and then a jump to a new discussion.

So back to the population I'm speaking to. If you want to work in the business world go get an MBA from a top notch accredited program. If you want to do I/O go to a funded program and learn the real stuff.The I/O psychs coming from Alliant can barely put food on the table because the program is such a joke and employers know it. I may get flagged for that but I'm just telling the truth....they literally let in anyone who applies as the program is failing. I know people who graduated from the I/O masters program and work at Target as fitting room clerks, Avon as sales ladies, for they're parents; one is a paralegal....trust me, you do not want anything but a Clinical PhD from Alliant and even that is better acquired somewhere funded.


Overall point, if you want to be a "leader" that comes with expertise in a field. If you want to be a "consultant" that comes with actually having something to consult. Teaching people about "consulting psychology" in organizations is like giving people a PhD in talking. The question becomes...what exactly are you saying?!

Hope this helps

While I appreciate your candor and think you have a number of valid points, some of your comments are a bit misleading, as indicated by the reply "wouldn't somebody be wary of a degree that just happens to appear and has no history in the educational or professional atmosphere?". I/O psychology did not just fall out of the sky, it was bred during World War I in response to a real need to select and assign troops to duty and placed in the educational atmosphere by prominent psychologists such as Kurt Lewin and Hugo Munsterberg. I do think that the field is at a standstill because it has not really grown out of its' initial stages of development much beyond theories developed in the early 1900's (i.e., management style, selection and recruitment). As a result, employing a science-practitioner model to the study of I/O psychology (as is attempted in professional I/O programs) is daunting because the field hasn't advanced much in practice.

What will advance the I/O field is fully integrating theories developed, tested, and normed in the clinical field. However, many of the long-standing psych assessments/theories have been normed/applied to a clinical population. There is a need to bridge the illusory gap between the outside world and the world of organizations. I think it is all of our jobs as budding clinicians to ensure the health and well being of all persons, both low- and high-functioning. With that said, there is a place for those trained in clinical psychology, practicing in the organizational arena, and what will enhance these professionals is knowledge in areas like work motivation, job analysis, performance appraisal, training, and yes, leadership... because such environmental factors are bound to have an impact on everyday functioning and we cannot effectively serve others without knowledge of their environment.

 

[myoclinical]

I

 

[Ollie123]

I'm doubtful it was intended to apply to I/O psychology as a whole. Indeed, he seems to be encouraging people to pursue I/O programs (if that is their interest) at other schools. It more seems a statement about that particular degree/program. Certainly, psychological application in business and management are well-established and have quite a bit of solid research backing them. Graduates from top I/O programs tend to do very well for themselves (last I checked, average pay was actually higher than any other domain in psychology).

 

[myoclinical]

.

 

[aequitasveritas]

While I appreciate your candor and think you have a number of valid points, some of your comments are a bit misleading, as indicated by the reply “wouldn’t somebody be wary of a degree that just happens to appear and has no history in the educational or professional atmosphere?”. I/O psychology did not just fall out of the sky, it was bred during World War I in response to a real need to select and assign troops to duty and placed in the educational atmosphere by prominent psychologists such as Kurt Lewin and Hugo Munsterberg. I do think that the field is at a standstill because it has not really grown out of its’ initial stages of development much beyond theories developed in the early 1900's (i.e., management style, selection and recruitment). As a result, employing a science-practitioner model to the study of I/O psychology (as is attempted in professional I/O programs) is daunting because the field hasn’t advanced much in practice.

What will advance the I/O field is fully integrating theories developed, tested, and normed in the clinical field. However, many of the long-standing psych assessments/theories have been normed/applied to a clinical population. There is a need to bridge the illusory gap between the outside world and the world of organizations. I think it is all of our jobs as budding clinicians to ensure the health and well being of all persons, both low- and high-functioning. With that said, there is a place for those trained in clinical psychology, practicing in the organizational arena, and what will enhance these professionals is knowledge in areas like work motivation, job analysis, performance appraisal, training, and yes, leadership... because such environmental factors are bound to have an impact on everyday functioning and we cannot effectively serve others without knowledge of their environment.

Sorry if I came off as anti-I/O. I'm not...but I am anti-fabricated degrees like the ones I described. I am certainly also jaded to Alliant and I think they need to clean up their act and get back to the competitive program that CSPP once was. Note....lets not turn this into another pro school debate people Thus I think their crafty marketing towards degree hungry folks needs to be stopped.

There are some great I/O practitioners out of Alliant, no question. Moreover, I hear the dual I/O-Clinial students make the best executive consultants around

But I do repeat....beware of "consulting psychology" and "leadership" PhDs...scammy scam scam!

 

[psich]

While I appreciate your candor and think you have a number of valid points, some of your comments are a bit misleading, as indicated by the reply “wouldn’t somebody be wary of a degree that just happens to appear and has no history in the educational or professional atmosphere?”. I/O psychology did not just fall out of the sky, it was bred during World War I in response to a real need to select and assign troops to duty and placed in the educational atmosphere by prominent psychologists such as Kurt Lewin and Hugo Munsterberg. I do think that the field is at a standstill because it has not really grown out of its’ initial stages of development much beyond theories developed in the early 1900's (i.e., management style, selection and recruitment). As a result, employing a science-practitioner model to the study of I/O psychology (as is attempted in professional I/O programs) is daunting because the field hasn’t advanced much in practice.

What will advance the I/O field is fully integrating theories developed, tested, and normed in the clinical field. However, many of the long-standing psych assessments/theories have been normed/applied to a clinical population. There is a need to bridge the illusory gap between the outside world and the world of organizations. I think it is all of our jobs as budding clinicians to ensure the health and well being of all persons, both low- and high-functioning. With that said, there is a place for those trained in clinical psychology, practicing in the organizational arena, and what will enhance these professionals is knowledge in areas like work motivation, job analysis, performance appraisal, training, and yes, leadership... because such environmental factors are bound to have an impact on everyday functioning and we cannot effectively serve others without knowledge of their environment.

I did not get the impression that aq was talking about traditional I/O psychology programs. He clearly stated “Consulting” and “Leadership” PhDs which do not have much, if any, history in the academic or professional field.

 

[el3eal]

Was curious about DBA at Wilmongton DE or D.E.L at university of charlston.

 

[el3eal]

So am I hearing that phd in leadership is not worth it?

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

So am I hearing that phd in leadership is not worth it?

Yes, at least in my opinion.

 

[el3eal]

Then what PhD should you get. Or what to learn out of masters program in counseling

 

[chicandtoughness]

Then what PhD should you get. Or what to learn out of masters program in counseling

If you got a masters in counseling, why are you interested in an I/O-type PhD?

 

[erg923]

Then what PhD should you get.

You should not. Unless you need it, and know why your are getting it. You seem to have neither.

 

[el3eal]

You should not. Unless you need it, and know why your are getting it. You seem to have neither

Phd is my goal to obtain.
Allows me to be more marketable as a doctor, have option to teach in university.

 

[erg923]

Wrong.

Academic jobs are super competitive with a finite demand for that topic...which has overlap with about a dozen other fields, by the way.

One can "teach" with a masters.

Related: Does the salary justify the debt?