Texas' AGED D. Ed at a Distance?

Since I'm a grad of the program I'll take a shot at your question. This may create more questons so if you want more info, anyone can give me a shout at 501-827-1866.

L-O-V-E-D, loved it! Honestly, I wouldn't do a grad program any other way, huge fan of distance delivery done right! Please understand, this is not a Phoenix University where you just work independently and submit assignments to a computer all the time. Class meets Wednesday nights, spring and fall semesters, and during the summer you have classes too.

Pro's:

• you can draw a full salary while going to school!
• you aren't a professor's flunky who gets stuck with everything they don't want to do
• you can go to class from your office (it's real class, Wednesday nights, for 4 hours, everyone in places all over the country)
• you develop a great academic relationship with the cohort of fellow grad students because you work together on projects in a lot of classes
• you have access to amazing faculty at both TAMU and TTU
• TAMU's online library is wonderful
• high percentage of completion rate (our cohort was 76%)
• easier to get financial aide through TAMU's system than TTU's
• if you tend to be a bit techy, you'll love exposure to the latest in video conferencing and asychronous delivery systems
• you have a classroom that you can actually try out all the theories on students (didn't have that in undergrad so theory wasn't relative back then)
• if you're a self-directed learner, you'll love the freedom
• sometimes you can convince a professor to offer a traditional course via distance so you can take it (our group did that with a Teaching College course, I think we intimidated the masters students but that was ok)

Con's:

• out of state tuition is double the price of in state
• you have to cover the expense of annual face to face meetings that trade off between Lubbock and College Station
• not all professors are proficient at distance delivery and it can be a challenge to stay engaged with their courses
• if you're not techy it's going to be a struggle to keep up with the delivery system
• if you're not a self-directed learner, it's a struggle because you're not on campus where you can stay focused and everyone around you is focused
• when it's dissertation time you have to give yourself deadlines and keep them, that can be hard no matter the grad program and why so many people end up EBD (everything but dissertation) rather than EdD/PhD

Things to consider:

• The program was orginally designed for extension folks (in TX they have a higher degree requirement in order to advance in the extension service) so they didn't consider at first that ag teachers and ag communicators would be interested.  So know that most cohorts are heavy on extension. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, I learned a lot and appreciate what extension is about and how it functions. Those of us who were teachers tended to naturally group together at face to face meetings and when working on projects. In fact, we might have been a little over powering for the extension folks since we were immersed in education while they tended to be more program planning, delivery, and evaluation oriented.
• You are not on campus so you won't be advising or teaching. Again, not necessarily a bad thing, but if your final goal is to work at a university not having the advising and teaching experience at the college level can be a barrier for SOME hiring committees. You just need to know that up front.
• The program is an EdD rather than a PhD. That means you take one less statistics class. Some people have the perception that the EdD isn't worth as much as the PhD. It's a perception. When you look at a university graduation you see almost as much light blue (EdD) as you see purple (PhD) on robes and hoods. When it gets right down to it the EdD is more for the practitioner who is actively practicing their profession. The PhD is for the theorists and philosophers. Both do the dissertation, both learn the stats, both do the course work. I will say that my anecdotal observation has been that the EdD dissertations have real world application while the PhD ones tend to be less applicable in the realm of secondary education.
• If you plan to attend class from your school office, better make friends with your IT person. I had to get him to give me an internet line outside the school firewall to be able to connect. It took homemade brownies, a bottle of his favorite libation, and welding on his boat trailer to get it.
• You will have to create a balance between your day job, family, and school. More than ever. I sat my officers down and told them what I was doing, that they would be limited to 10 events/activities and that they would have to plan every detail because I was just showing up. IT WAS THE BEST THING I EVER DID! I don't know why I didn't think of it years before. The events were better because there were fewer and they really focused on quality over quantity. My family on the other hand was a bit tougher. For 4 years my husband saw me at supper and bedtime. If you have small children, it's going to be tough and you'd better be able to multitask and live on less sleep. School becomes your hobby. When I sat down to write my dissertation I took all of Christmas break and 2 weeks off from work to get it done. Removing all distractions was the only way I could get my head into the research mode and writing mode.
• From the ag teachers in my cohort, one is teaching at UC-San Luis Obispo, one is teaching at Tarleton, and I work for NFFA. I lost touch with the other 3 so I'm not sure what they are doing. The three of us all had articles published in Research To Practice issue of the Ag Ed Magazine this summer and I think all our dissertations have been published in the Journal for Ag Education. Good indicators of the quality of our doctoral program.