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Articles by NU Editorial Contributors
May 10, 2025Dissertation Defense Guide: How to Present Your Research
A dissertation defense is a formal presentation in which doctoral candidates present their research findings to a faculty committee, an oral examination that assesses the candidate's ability to articulate their research, justify their methodology and results, and address committee questions with clarity and confidence. Most defenses are scheduled for approximately two hours and are open to the public, though formats, time limits, and protocols vary by institution and department.
April 26, 2025Careers in Health Informatics: Where Healthcare Meets Technology
Health informatics careers sit at the intersection of healthcare, data science, and information technology, with professionals managing electronic health records, analyzing patient data to improve outcomes, implementing health technology systems, and ensuring compliance with privacy regulations such as HIPAA.
April 12, 2025Information Security vs. Cybersecurity: What’s the Difference?
Information security (InfoSec) is the broader discipline protecting all organizational data assets, across physical, human, and digital domains, through policies, risk management, compliance frameworks, and physical controls. Cybersecurity is a specialized subset of InfoSec focused exclusively on defending digital systems, networks, and data from electronic threats including malware, phishing, ransomware, and unauthorized access. The relationship between the two is hierarchical: every cybersecurity decision is an information security decision, but not every information security decision is a cybersecurity decision, InfoSec sets the foundational rules and risk frameworks that govern how the organization protects all its information, while cybersecurity handles the technical implementation on the digital frontier.
April 2, 2025What Is Integrated Marketing Communications?
Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) is a strategic approach that coordinates all marketing channels and messages, advertising, public relations, social media, direct marketing, and sales promotion, to deliver a clear, consistent, and compelling brand message across every customer touchpoint. The IMC framework is grounded in consumer behavior and psychology and emphasizes the customer, not the product, as the central focus of all communication strategy.
March 29, 2025What Can You Do with a Marketing Degree: 10 Career Paths
A marketing degree opens pathways across six core career tracks: digital marketing, brand management, advertising and promotions, market research and analytics, public relations, and product management. According to BLS data, marketing managers earn a median annual salary of $161,030 as of May 2024, with overall employment of advertising, promotions, and marketing managers projected to grow 6% from 2024 to 2034, faster than the national average and approximately 36,400 openings projected each year.
March 26, 2025What is a DNP Degree?
A Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) is the highest clinical degree in nursing, a terminal, practice-focused doctorate that prepares expert clinicians and healthcare leaders to translate research into real-world clinical practice and improve patient outcomes and healthcare delivery systems. The DNP differs from a PhD in Nursing in purpose and focus: the DNP develops clinical expertise, leadership, and quality improvement competencies for direct practice and system-level leadership, while the PhD develops the research and theoretical scholarship that builds the scientific foundation of the nursing profession.
March 19, 2025What is a Dissertation?
A dissertation is an original, in-depth research project typically required in doctoral (PhD) programs, designed to contribute new knowledge, insights, or theories to a field through independent research and analysis, representing the pinnacle of academic achievement and culminating in a formal dissertation defense before a faculty committee. In American academic usage, "dissertation" refers to the doctoral-level document, while "thesis" refers to the shorter research project completed for a master's degree, though in many other countries these terms are used in reverse or interchangeably. Lehman
March 13, 2025How to Become a Penetration Tester
Penetration testers are ethical hackers hired to simulate cyberattacks on an organization's computer systems, networks, and web applications, identifying security vulnerabilities before malicious actors can exploit them using the same tools, tactics, and techniques as real-world attackers.
March 6, 2025How to Become a Nurse Anesthetist
Becoming a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA) requires seven to ten years of education and clinical practice: four years for a BSN, one to three years of critical care experience as an RN, and approximately three years in an accredited doctoral nurse anesthesia program (DNP or DNAP). ICU experience is not optional, most nurse anesthesia programs require a minimum of one to three years in a high-acuity critical care setting, and competitive applicants typically have three or more years, often supplemented by the CCRN (Critical Care Registered Nurse) certification.
February 24, 2025Criminal Psychology vs. Forensic Psychology: What’s the Difference?
Criminal psychology focuses on analyzing patterns in criminal behavior, identifying the social and environmental factors behind crime, and developing theories that explain why certain individuals commit offenses, with the primary goal of understanding, predicting, and preventing criminal acts. Forensic psychology, by contrast, applies psychological principles broadly across the legal system, ensuring that psychological factors are appropriately considered in legal decision-making processes.
February 20, 2025Demand for University Credit Transfer on the Rise
A new study by National University reveals that interest in credit transfer has been on an upward trajectory since 2021. This variation not only reflects changing student behaviors but also signals a broader shift in how students approach their educational journeys. Key Takeaways Seasonal Patterns Over the study period, average yearly search interest demonstrated a ...
February 17, 2025Clinical and Non-clinical Psychology PhD Programs: What’s the Difference?
Clinical and non-clinical psychology PhD programs both represent doctoral-level training in psychology, but they prepare graduates for fundamentally different careers. A clinical psychology PhD integrates scientific research with direct patient care, requiring supervised clinical practicum hours, a year-long APA-accredited predoctoral internship, and a dissertation, and leads to state licensure as a psychologist, qualifying graduates to diagnose mental health conditions, provide psychotherapy, and conduct clinical research. A non-clinical psychology PhD focuses exclusively on research, theory, and experimental investigation in areas such as cognitive, social, developmental, or industrial-organizational psychology, without clinical training or APA clinical accreditation requirements, and prepares graduates for careers in academia, behavioral research, data science, or organizational consulting.
February 14, 2025What Is Health Informatics? A Comprehensive Guide
Health informatics is an interdisciplinary field combining healthcare, information technology, and data science to manage, analyze, and apply medical data, optimizing patient care, streamlining clinical workflows, and supporting evidence-based decision-making across health systems. Core applications include electronic health records (EHR) management, health data analytics for improving treatment outcomes and reducing operational costs, telemedicine integration, and clinical decision support systems that use algorithms and AI to assist clinicians in diagnosis and treatment planning.
February 13, 2025What is Cybersecurity and Its Importance to Business
Cybersecurity is the practice of protecting networks, systems, devices, and data from unauthorized access, digital attacks, and damage, encompassing the tools, processes, and human decisions that defend the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information across every sector. Common threats include phishing, ransomware, malware, and increasingly AI-powered attacks that automate vulnerability scanning and social engineering at scale. According to the WEF Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2026, 73% of respondents reported that they or someone in their professional or personal network had been affected by cyber-enabled fraud over the course of 2025, with CEOs now ranking cyber-enabled fraud as their top concern.
February 6, 2025What is an MEd Degree? Understanding the Master of Education [Updated 2026]
A Master of Education (MEd) is a professional graduate degree designed for educators and education professionals seeking to deepen their expertise, advance into leadership roles, or specialize in areas such as curriculum and instruction, educational technology, special education, or school counseling. Programs typically take one to two years full-time, or two to four years part-time, and are available in flexible formats including fully online, making them accessible to working teachers. The average total cost of an MEd degree is approximately $44,640, and most programs are structured around practical application rather than original research, distinguishing them from more research-oriented degrees like the MA in Education or EdD.
February 4, 2025What Are the Types of Forensic Science? [Updated 2026]
Forensic science is the application of scientific principles to legal investigations, collecting, analyzing, and interpreting physical, biological, chemical, and digital evidence to support the justice system. The American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS) organizes the field into recognized sections, with major branches spanning pathology/biology, criminalistics, toxicology, questioned documents, digital and multimedia sciences, anthropology, odontology, and forensic psychiatry and behavioral science.
January 31, 2025PhD in Education vs. EdD: How to Choose
Nurses are organized into credential levels based on education and licensure, from Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs) who assist with basic daily living activities after a brief state-approved training program, to Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs/LVNs) who perform clinical tasks after approximately one year of schooling, to Registered Nurses (RNs) who coordinate care and administer complex treatments after completing an ADN or BSN, to Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs), including Nurse Practitioners, Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists, Certified Nurse Midwives, and Clinical Nurse Specialists, who hold master's or doctoral degrees and can diagnose, order tests, and in most states prescribe medication.
January 30, 2025How to Become a Psychiatrist
Becoming a psychiatrist takes approximately 12 years after high school and follows a structured path: four years of undergraduate education, four years of medical school to earn an MD or DO degree, and a four-year psychiatry residency. The American Psychiatric Association defines a psychiatrist as a medical doctor who specializes in mental health, including substance use disorders, a designation that sets psychiatrists apart from psychologists and therapists, as psychiatrists are licensed to prescribe medication.