You've now finished your bachelor's and master's degrees and are ready to strive for the highest degree we offer, the doctoral degree. Be ready to put in countless hours studying. Hopefully you have a great group of fellow students with whom you can work on this degree. Help each other out, and have fun while working hard!
Listed in the "Doctoral Degree Course Catalog" below are the courses offered by the University of Geocaching. For each course, you will find the number of credits earned by completing that course and the requirements for completing the course.
In order to earn your doctoral degree, you must earn at least 50 credits. When you have completed at least 50 credits, you may attend graduation (sign the log and claim your find). As part of your graduation requirements, you must fill out your final transcript. Please list in your cache log: your total credits earned, the courses you completed (including credits for each course), your qualification for each course, and how your qualification may be verified for each course (please see my "Note" log on 9/13/2014 for an example of how to log this challenge cache). Your geocaching profile at geocaching.com and either the output from the GSAK macro "FindStatsGen" or your Project Geocaching profile contain enough pieces of information to verify all of the course requirements. You may also verify your requirements in another manner if you like.
You may use the following challenge checker that someone developed for this challenge, but please make sure that you include in your log the output from the checker showing how you qualify for each of the parts of the challenge and your total number of credits.
Each degree recipient is eligible to receive a personalized diploma certifying his/her accomplishment. These are usually sent out electronically at the end of each month.
Doctoral Degree Course Catalog (Course - Credits - Requirements)
Chronos I.D - 5 credits - Find geocaches on at least 366 days of the year (these do not have to all be in the same calendar year)
Chronos II.D - 2 credits - Find geocaches that were placed on at least 366 days of the year (these do not have to all be in the same calendar year)
Chronos III.D - 5 credits - Find geocaches on at least 365 consecutive days
Chronos IV.D - 2 credits - Find at least 200 geocaches during one calendar day
Chronos V.D - 3 credits - Find at least 2,000 geocaches during one calendar year
General Geocaching I.D - 5 credits - Find at least 10,000 geocaches
General Geocaching II.D - 5 credits - Find at least 100 geocaches of each size (micro, small, regular, large, virtual, and other)
General Geocaching III.D - 2 credits - Earn at least 100 geocaching souvenirs
General Geocaching IV.D - 2 credits - Move or discover at least 1,000 trackables
Geography I.D - 5 credits - Find a geocache in at least 10 countries
Geography II.D - 5 credits - Find a geocache in at least 40 U.S. states
Geography III.D - 5 credits - Find a geocache in at least 10 Canadian provinces
Geography IV.D - 3 credits - Find a geocache in at least 400 U.S. counties
Geography V.D - 2 credits - Find a geocache at least 1,000 miles from home
Geography VI.D - 2 credits - Find a geocache at an elevation of at least 10,000 feet
History I.D - 3 credits - Find at least 10 geocaches that were placed in the year 2000
History II.D - 5 credits - Find at least 1 geocache that was placed in every month of every year starting with May of 2000
Matrix I.D - 5 credits - Find a geocache in at least 81 spots in the difficulty/terrain matrix
Matrix II.D - 4 credits - Find at least 100 high-difficulty geocaches (4-, 4.5-, and 5-star difficulty ratings)
Matrix III.D - 4 credits - Find at least 100 high-terrain geocaches (4-, 4.5-, and 5-star terrain ratings)
Non-Traditional Geocaching I.D - 1 credit - Find at least 1,000 Mystery/Puzzle/Unknown geocaches
Non-Traditional Geocaching II.D - 1 credit - Find at least 100 Multi-caches
Non-Traditional Geocaching III.D - 1 credit - Find at least 100 Letterbox Hybrid geocaches
Non-Traditional Geocaching IV.D - 1 credit - Find at least 100 Earthcaches
Non-Traditional Geocaching V.D - 1 credit - Find at least 100 Virtual geocaches
Non-Traditional Geocaching VI.D - 1 credit - Find at least 100 NGS Benchmarks (this class is no longer offered due to benchmarks being removed from geocaching.com)
Non-Traditional Geocaching VII.D - 1 credit - Attend at least 100 Events (does not include CITO, Mega-Events, or Giga-Events)
Non-Traditional Geocaching VIII.D - 1 credit - Attend at least 10 CITO (Cache In Trash Out) events
Non-Traditional Geocaching IX.D - 1 credit - Find at least 10 Webcam geocaches
Non-Traditional Geocaching X.D - 1 credit - Find at least 10 Wherigo geocaches
Non-Traditional Geocaching XI.D - 4 credits - Find/Attend at least 10 "unusual" geocaches/events (Mega-Event, Giga-Event, Project A.P.E, GPS Adventure Maze Exhibit, Geocaching Block Party, or Geocaching HQ)
Now it's time to get studying!
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This is a challenge cache, and while it is at the posted coordinates, you may only log a find on it when you have completed the challenge.
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The difficulty and terrain ratings for this cache reflect the challenge ... the actual hide is a 2/2.5.
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Thanks go to
Woodland Clan in Kansas City whose great challenge cache,
P.H.D in Geocaching Degree Challenge (GC441J5), inspired this challenge cache.
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I have completed this challenge cache myself by completing courses for a total of 52 credits. Please see my "Note" log on 9/13/2014 for an example of how to log this challenge cache.
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Congratulations to RN escape on her milestone 15,000th find!
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Congratulations to Goldilocks513 on her milestone 5,000th find!
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