Advanced Degrees

Why are advanced degrees so hard to get? Yeah I know that they are supposed to earned, but how many 3 - 4 page papers must one person write in order to show that they are proficient in a subject? Maybe I am a different type of learner or maybe I just hate writing , so it seems like so much to me. I am working on my second 3 - 4 page paper and I have 6 more to go for my current class. I guess it will all be worth it when people have call me Dr. Dozier, Ed.D