I currently hold a BA, BEd & and MEd and will be defending my PhD thesis in the next couple of months. My PhD will be in Higher Education-Curriculum.
Would it be appropriate to include more than my PhD in my professional email signature? If so, what order should the credentials be listed?
Example:
FirstName LastName, PhD, MEd or FirstName LastName, MEd, PhD
Comments
No, definitely not. Only the highest qualification. They seem related
I fail to see why you’d include it. Isn’t PhD sufficient?
If a lower degree wouldn’t be expected of someone with your PhD, or serves as a professional credential (e.g., RN or MLIS), add it. If it’s something most people with your PhD would have, omit it.
Generally, it looks silly to list out every degree & credential in a signature. However, occasionally a prior degree/credential addition explains your unique expertise.
Do people even usually write PhD in their email signature? I’m not aware of any of my friends doing this in maths, whether they are postdocs or full professors. I would only contemplate writing it if I was chasing up some crappy administrative thing in the off chance it would help get a faster response lol
Im not putting anything. I noticed that among my students, the good ones don’t have any signature, and the ones who work the less have all kinds of “phd candidate” , “phd promotion xxx”, or “bachelor 2028, research assistant Smith’s lab”
Among my colleagues, most of the case, the longer the signature, the bigger the ego. Some of the smartest people I know just sign by their first name
Now i kind of treat signatures as a potential red flag
Post nominals are usually for highest degree (i.e. PhD) and maybe something like PMP or other relevant certifications after that for signature. For places like LinkedIn, people go crazy there but would never use that in a signature. Conversely, I see Dr before without the PhD behind it, kinda one or the other sorta thing, minus around hospitals which have thier own standard for how they delineate doctors and thier fields.
Just include the highest degree if including degree. The PhD implies you have completed all education leading up to it
History has taught me that the longer the email signature, the more egotistical and annoying the person will be during future interactions. If you are one or both of those things, please include all of your degrees as a warning to folks like me. We will thank you for it.
Include previous degrees only if:
In your case, none of these would apply (I don’t think), you would just put your PhD.
I am in the same position, though my Ph.D. is in a STEM field. I don’t list it in my signature, just the Ph.D. I did list it on my card (when I had them), and of course it’s on my CV.
Only include the masters if your trumpeter is on strike.
I’d argue for maybe not using an email signature. It always strikes me as a little much when people put their titles at the end of an email.