Surging interest in Penn’s program is very much in line with national trends, as the Ed.D. degree is becoming increasingly popular both for educators and people in the corporate world looking to advance their careers. Through interviews and conversations with prospective Penn students, Wiens discovered that the pandemic caused many people to reevaluate their priorities and think about what they really want from life. All of that soul-searching naturally led to some major career decisions—and that explains the jump in application numbers.

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Wiens didn’t need a global health crisis to trigger her interest in an Ed.D., which she earned from Penn in 2016. By 2013, when she began her studies, she’d spent more than 20 years at Huron Consulting Group, where she worked on process improvement and change management for large hospital systems. She often had to oversee large-scale layoffs while simultaneously keeping leadership “engaged and effective,” even though they were suddenly short staffed.

“It was definitely very challenging—and one of the reasons I chose to get a doctorate, actually,” Wiens says. 

Fortune sat down with Wiens to learn more about why she got an Ed.D., how the degree strengthened her work as a private consultant, and what other benefits came with her time in the program.

The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. 

The many benefits of an Ed.D. degree

Fortune: What made you want to get an Ed.D.?

Wiens: I’m one of those people that reads voraciously. I went to many different leadership development programs, but I learned really well by reading and immersing myself in books and literature, and I found myself really drawn to the academic side of trying to understand what it was I was doing. A lot of what I was implementing with my clients—I was just kind of figuring it out on my own,  taking what I was reading from literature and then trying to implement it the best I could without a lot of mentorship or formal training. 

That really sparked this interest in wanting to get my doctorate so that I could learn the academic side and the scholarly foundation of what I was doing. But I also had a big desire to be a scholar myself. I knew that longer term, that was the direction I wanted my career to go in, a balance between being a practitioner—someone who’s still consulting—and being a scholar, someone who’s actually contributing to the research and the body of knowledge.

How has getting an Ed.D. made you a better private consultant?

That’s a great question. It’s actually a question people should consider if they want to think about what value they can get out of a doctoral program that will add to their consulting practice—or if they’re internal within an organization, add to whatever it is they’re doing. 

Absolutely, [it gave me] the foundation of a better understanding of why I was doing certain things in my practice. Really grounding my choices and my consulting approach in an academic stance gave me a lot more confidence. I definitely have more knowledge because I was looking at research around change-management practices that were effective in certain research studies and those that were not effective. I was gaining a lot of that knowledge and deeper understanding but also gaining confidence in my ability, because oftentimes what I would read in these studies confirmed that practices that I was already doing in my change-management work were the right way to do things. And then other times I would learn, no, actually, there’s a better approach based on the research.

Were there unexpected benefits of getting an Ed.D.?

Many people go into a doctoral program—and I was one of those people—expecting that I’m going to come out with this advanced degree, and it’s going to be good for me, and it’ll be good for my career, not really recognizing that the process itself could be a really great experience. I knew for sure it was going to be life-changing in a lot of ways, but those three years that I was a student at Penn was one of the best times in my whole life. 

I loved it. I love learning. I love being in a classroom with like-minded peers who were struggling with some big problems that I either could relate to or couldn’t relate to. I learned so much from my peers, and then, after class, we would all go to dinner or drinks and literally sit around for three or four hours almost every night, just talking about what we were learning. It was so intellectually stimulating and really fun, too.

Choosing the program—and type of degree—that’s right for you

Did you debate between getting a Ph.D. and an Ed.D.?

I did, and it’s a really important thing for people to consider if they’re looking for a doctorate—they need to first understand the difference between a Ph.D. and an Ed.D. People who graduate with a Ph.D., in the type of work that I do, typically go on to do only research and/or teaching, meaning that they’re 90%-plus focused on the academic-scholar side. Whereas people like me who pursued an Ed.D. are scholar practitioners. We’re still heavily versed and heavily trained on the scholar side, but we go out and practice. I’m an exception, because I’m at the University of Pennsylvania. So I do more research than most people who get an Ed.D. But the majority of people who come out with an Ed.D. go back into practice. They go back to their consulting jobs, or if they’re in an organization doing HR work or talent work, they’re more applying and practicing what they learned. 

How did you pick the University of Pennsylvania?

What I was looking for was a really rigorous program that would fit my schedule, and that I felt would add a lot of credibility. I looked at some of these online programs … where you can do a program fully online while working full-time, and that had an appeal in one way, because I wouldn’t have to travel, and it was a lot more flexible with my schedule. 

But I was a little concerned that if I had an Ed.D. from one of these other programs—which I’m sure are very good in their own regard—I didn’t know if it would set me up for what I wanted to do. I wanted to launch my career more in research and eventually in teaching and speaking.

What would you tell people who are considering getting an Ed.D.?

When it comes to figuring out if it’s the right time in your life, I think No. 1 is they need to be really honest with themselves about how much time they need to dedicate. Our program—and what I hear with other programs—is a pretty massive time commitment, but it’s also quite doable. A lot of these programs have designed them to be flex in a lot of ways that do accommodate students’ schedules and their busy lives. But for the student or the prospective student, it is really important to be aware that you’re going to have to dedicate, in our case, a minimum of 10 to 20 hours a week almost every single week, and that might include attending classes, or it might include writing papers. Some weeks, it might be 40 hours. 

I would encourage people to try to talk not just to program administrators about the time commitment, but also talk to a couple of current students or alumni to find out how much time they really dedicate towards their commitment in the program, just to get a really realistic view and then see how this the school work will fit within their life and their lifestyle.

The way that classes are scheduled is a really important thing for people to look at and see if that fits within their life. Our program at Penn is six weeks per year on campus. It’s basically three semesters, and every semester, we go to campus for two full weeks … They’re very intensive weeks when we’re there. I didn’t work that week. Most people don’t work at all. You basically take it as vacation time or take your phone calls in the evening or whatever. You have to really balance that. 

I encourage students to protect their time and set expectations with their work colleagues: When I’m at school, I’m really protecting that time. I’m not going to take calls or emails. I’m going to really limit it. Not just from a time perspective, but mental capacity. To be able to dedicate the amount of mental energy you need to, you have to be fully present when you’re in class.

Check out all of Fortune’s rankings of degree programs, and learn more about specific career paths.