What is the name of the PhD I receive from MIT's BCS or Caltech's BSN?

[bori]

Like the title says, I'm confused about what the exact "name" of the PhD I would receive from these programs. Would I receive a "PhD in Brain and Cognitive Sciences," rather than, say, PhD in psychology or neuroscience? In the same vein, is completing the "Neuroscience" area program under Department of Psychology (psychology(DOT)yale(DOT)edu/research/neuroscience) going to award me a PhD in Neurosci or PhD in Psychology?

[TakeruK]

Every school does this differently. You must consult each school's website to determine this for yourself and if you are not sure, you should ask someone at the department.

But before you send an email, you can almost certainly find this information online if you know where to look. Here are some places to check:

1. The Course Catalog (at US schools) or the Course Calendar (Canadian schools). i.e. the document/book that lists every degree and program the school offers as well as their requirements. The name of the degree is often listed here.

2. Find a copy of the school's most recent graduation ceremony, where it may list the names of the degrees that participants marched for. Many schools post this information online.

3. Check the department's website. Note that this can be a little less reliable because the people that write info for department website are generally not the same people that determine what the degrees are called. So the department may use informal names that don't correspond to the degree.

That said, the degree name is not very important. The work you do in the degree will be a lot more important. Being in a cross-disciplinary field myself (my PhD says "Planetary Science" but my work might fit into any school's Astronomy or Physics or Planetary Science programs, depending on how each school organizes itself), I paid attention to job requirements when applying to jobs. I found that within academia, I did not see any posting that absolutely required an applicant to have a specific degree name, it always says, "X or related fields". And outside of academia, I see a lot more focus on requirements listing specific skills or experiences rather than degree name.

[fuzzylogician]

It really doesn't matter one bit, but find some recent dissertations/CVs by alums from each department if you really must know. For what it's worth, my dissertation says "Submitted to the Department of XYZ in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. On my CV I say "PhD in linguistics, with specialization in XYZ".

For any relevant purpose, though, people are going to want to know what you actually did, not what the official name of the degree is. For example, job ads will require a "degree in cogsci or related field" or "familiarity with XYZ" or some such, and interviewers will look at your cover letter and dissertation and other publications to learn what techniques you are familiar with and what you can teach.