If you do the required work, write and defend your thesis, you could get as many as time will permit. Considering that many (science) degrees take a while (physics PhD’s now average more than six years, IIRC, and it keeps going up), it’s a matter of practicality. Doctoral students are typically indentured servants. I know of few who would willingly subjugate themselves to that situation for additional degrees.
Not quite right, Epimethus.
First of all, the PharmD is, like the JD, a “First Professional” degree. For most intents and purposes it is doctoral in the sense that a holder of it can hold tenure to teach (“docere”, impart the doctrine) in that field at the professional level. Heck, until the mid-1980s it wasn’t even considered a doctorate (and BTW many graduates of Law around the world to this day are NOT doctors, but “diplomates”, “licenciados” or whatever the title may be in your system).
The “Ph.D.” (philosophical doctor), however is a research/scholarship degree, it requires conducting significant scholarly study and research in the field (usually after a course of studying everything there is on the subject, almost as long as the BA itself) including original research that can * propel forward that field of knowledge* and a demonstrated skill in defending and supporting your theories. Technically you CAN have as many Ph.D.'s as you could manage, but it would be an olympian intellectual feat to get more than one; what the institutions will not do is give you multiple degrees in the same field; or, may have a policy about granting multiple PhDs to the same person in the same institution. But you could have someone have simultaneously a JD, an MD, a Ph.D in Chemistry and a Ph.D in Political Science from 4 different universities, atop her MBA, a BS in Electrical Engineering and a BA in English.
As mentioned, some disciplines have both a “[Whatever].D.” as well as a “Ph.D. in [Whatever]” track for the doctoral-level studies in the field. Usually the first one is more hands-on. Often this has to do with a legacy from the profession’s history; or a need to produce people who can teach that specific subject and/or manage the researchers/teachers that exceeds the need for people actualy locked up in the lab doing research; or one-size-fits-all regulations that require that all professors have doctorates; or just plain old Rank Inflation.
In the United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, and some other nations, the D.Sc. is considered a “Higher Doctorate”. In the United States, it is considered equivalent to a Ph.D. (accodring to the NSF). You can hunt through this NSF database to find more details for all of the various degrees offered in every nation.
A google search of “higher doctorate” turns up the following example from the Open University (UK):
(http://www3.open.ac.uk/research-school/policy/directly-registered/examinations/EX86.doc)
Very informative JRDelirious, thank you.
You can have as many degrees of any level that you have the time, funds, and ability to earn.
There are hundreds of different kinds of degrees available in the United States at the associate, bachelor, master, and doctorate levels. Some doctorates are “professional” degrees and others are “scholarly” or “research” degrees.
For example, a person studying law might follow this chain –
B.A. --> J.D. --> LL.M. --> S.J.D.
– getting a master’s degree after his or her first doctorate degree.
I beg to differ on the PharmD degree, JR. My father was graduated with his PharmD from the University of Southern California in 1967. His diploma says “Doctor of Pharmacy” and he has always used “Dr. Lastname” professionally.
Robin
The NSF classifies the JD, MD, and PharmD into the same category: “70. Advanced First Postsecondary Degrees and Awards”:
http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/mapping/pdf/sect1.pdf
(scroll down to p. 31)
And see here: http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/mapping/pdf/degu.pdf for a list of all degrees and into which category the NSF places each.
I have two, myself, in completely different fields - one is in communications, the other is in geology. Of course, as communications majors are typically required to take very few science courses, and not all of my previous liberal arts credits were transferrable to the second degree, it took me 3 years of full-time study to get the second BA.
For some reason my grad school grants M. Phil. degrees as part of the path to a Ph.D., so in all I have 5 degrees - 2 B.A.'s, 1 M.A., 1 M.Phil., and 1 Ph.D.
Occasionally when I get fed up with work I entertain the idea of going back to school yet again. 
Can you get additional BS’s or BA’s once you have officially graduated with one?
For instance, as an electrical engineering student, one more semester of the right classes would have given me a CS degree in addition to the BSEE. But I wanted to finish up school so I did. Could I now go back and just take the additional courses, or would I have to get the next degree up, a masters?
I really don’t know how it works after graduation, but most schools will let you double-major or do some sort of conjoined degree where you basically re-enroll and complete the remaining courses for the 2nd degree.
That’s how UT-Dallas does it- I just graduated(12/13!) with my MBA, but I can still stay in school and get an MS in a couple of fields(Accounting, Accounting & Info Mgmt, Finance, MIS, IT Mgmt, etc…) for 18 more credit hours.
I would say this depends on the school. When I was looking to return to school for my second BA (2 years after my first), the university I graduated from told me that I would not be able to enroll in any classes in the college that had granted me my degree earlier. (In other words, retroactively double-majoring was not allowed.) Instead, I would have to enroll in their School for General Studies (for “non-traditional” students working on their degrees at night), and fulfill any particular core requirements for that program that I hadn’t already met.
That wasn’t especially practical for several reasons, so I looked elsewhere. Other schools severely limited the number of credits I could transfer from my first BA in order to fulfill core requirements for the second, which would have meant as much as another 2 to 2.5 years taking classes unrelated to the geology major I wanted! In the end, I ended up going to the school that accepted the most transfer credits (95, toward a requirement of 140), sparing me all but a handful of liberal arts classes and letting me focus on the science I needed.
In sum - do see if you can just slip back into your old school for the second degree. However, if they won’t let you, and if it means a lot to you to get that second degree, by all means shop around for a place that won’t make you take all the (unnecessary) stuff all over again.
You might not be able to take multiple BA’s at the same institution. The University of California discourages “duplication of degrees” as they call it, though they do make exceptions.
This is incorrect - I have both, and the major difference between a professional degree (such as an MD or Pharm.D.) and the Ph.D. is the dissertation.
It was once explained to me this way:
B.S. - shows that you are capable of learning
M.S./M.A. -shows that you are capable of learning something important (also appies to JD,MD,Pharm.D,etc)
Ph.D. - show that you are capable of contributing to learning/knoeldge in the field.
There’s also the ThD for theologians
That’s not a bad description of the J.D., and it really applies to the LL.M. as well. LL.M.'s are almost invariably awarded in a specific field - taxation is very common. But it’s just coursework, really - no research. The equivalent to a Ph.D. in law is the S.J.D. (doctor of juridical science), which is exceedingly rare. I know at my law school graduation, there were two. They tend to be in extremely academic fields, such as international human rights law.
I have also learned, courtesy of the OxyBF, that in architecture there is a B.Arch., an M.Arch, and even a D.Arch (v. rare). But only the B.Arch. (which can also be a B.A. or B.S. in architecture) is necessary to practice. He’s going back to school for an M.Arch., but not because it’s required, or even all that helpful in the short term. It’s mainly just to immerse himself in theory, perhaps make some connections, and improve his chances of getting a teaching position at some distant date.
MsRobyn, for the 1967 time-frame, your father’s degree probably WAS doctoral, in the traditional sense (unless USC used the “new” system already at the time). But in much of the USA the course of study that qualified you to be in charge of an apothecary only became “doctoral” c. 1980, and pharmacists were still graduating sans “doctorate” into the mid-80s.
My wife is about to return to school for a second BS. She’s had a BS in Marine Science for some time, but it doesn’t serve her well in our geographic area. So she’s going to get another BS in Computer Engineering starting this winter. It’s at a different institution, but it still won’t take her long at all. Two to two and a half years, since all of her general education and elective requirements are waived at this school for people who already hold a degree. She’ll just have to take engineering courses for 4 or 5 semesters.
A PsyD and a PhD in Psychology are different degrees–I forget exactly what the difference is, but I think it may have something to do with PsyDs getting training specifically for clinical work and maybe not doing a dissertation (though if anyone knows better, please correct me). At any rate, a PsyD is may be looked down upon by the snootier of the academicians and it isn’t offered at as many institutions, though this is changing.
It’s possible with other degrees as well. I hold two LL.B. degrees - one in common law from one university, and another in civil law from another university. Since there was a fair amount of overlap in the degree requirements (e.g. - criminal law, admin law, constitutional law were all the same), it only took one year to complete the second LL.B.
Northern Piper, I’m curious…what country did you get your law degrees from?