Many seminary students and graduates get the "doctorate bug." Their educational experience is such that they
fall in love with learning and new ideas, and at times dream of what it would be like to be a professor. Little do they know the real amount of work that Ph.D./Th.D. studies demand, nor what the day-to-day academic life of a full-time professor is actually like.
Pastors, at times, get bitten by the doctorate bug as well. Some want to escape the rigors of pastoral life by trading for an academic one and so pursue Ph.D. work, while others merely want to be addressed as "Doctor," so they enter a D.Min. program which has far fewer demands than an academic doctorate. And then there are some pastors who honestly want to continue their education for more effective pastoral ministry and so they pursue doctoral studies.
Professor Keith Drury of Indiana Wesleyan University has done us a great service in describing what the day-to-day life of a professor is actually like here. Read this, and any romanticizing of the professorial life will die a quick death. If teaching still appeals to you after reading this, than maybe you are truly called to teach.
Professor John Stackhouse of Regent College has written a nice piece about what it takes to choose, get into, and survive a Ph.D. program in theology, religion, etc. What you will gain from reading this is that you must seriously count the cost before entering a quality doctoral program. That is, if you can get into one at all.
Update 3-13-09: Duke D.Th. student Andy Rowell provides great help on getting into a doctoral program, the differences between a Th.D. and Ph.D. at Duke and much, much more at his blog.
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