Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

Leucippus1 t1_ja85osx wrote

Typically undergraduate degrees are conferred by a college and include associate's and bachelor's degrees. A graduate program is a specific college (so College of Business, College of Medicine, College of Dentistry, etc) that will award a Master's Degree or a Doctorate after completing the program. You must earn a bachelor's degree to earn a spot in a graduate program but you don't need a Master's degree to earn your PhD (academic doctorate) or professional (JD - lawyer, MD - medical doctor, DO - doctor of Doctor of Osteopathic medicine) doctorate. Professional doctorates almost always include a significant amount of time in licensure training. Once you graduate medical college you have earned the right to be called "Doctor" but without 2-6 years of additional training (called a residency) you are not licensed to act as a physician.

1