51–60 of 87 posts
In some states, including California, you can practice law without having any type of law degree -- as long as you pass the Bar Exam. I've always been tempted to study & take it.
As did Wittgenstein http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittgenstein who was an engineering drop out and wrote the Tractatus whilst a WW1 PoW in Italy, only to be given a PhD as an afterthought by Russell. I have known of an academic in a teaching and research position at a major university who did not complete high-school & was hired based on the merit of their published papers. These are of course the very small minority…
I believe that, for once, formally you don't need MA/MSc to get a PhD. Another example could be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Banach
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And not just any PhD, a Cambridge PhD, using said Tractatus as the dissertation. Astonishing.
At the time, the PhD was not seen very highly in the department, and in the report on the defence of the PhD Moore famously said: "It is my personal opinion that Mr. Wittgenstein’s thesis is a work of genius; but, be that as it may, it is certainly well up to the standard required for the Cambridge degree of Doctor of Philosophy’ So, it was not seen as an achievement at all!
As did Wittgenstein http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittgenstein who was an engineering drop out and wrote the Tractatus whilst a WW1 PoW in Italy, only to be given a PhD as an afterthought by Russell. I have known of an academic in a teaching and research position at a major university who did not complete high-school & was hired based on the merit of their published papers. These are of course the very small minority…
Even after the Tractatus was published, Wittgenstein was still teaching secondary school in Austria (though this was of his own choice). He didn't even take a position at Cambridge until 1929 (eight years after the Tractatus was published).
I have an MSc in Computer Science but lack a BSc or A-levels. I was homeless and sleeping rough when my peers were in secondary education, I was living in squats and hitch-hiking around the UK when they were in university. Being self-taught, I applied for the MSc after 15 years experience as it was a source of personal anxiety for me to lead large technical projects in which almost every other person was highly educa…
That's a fascinating story and a great perspective. One thing that's hard to communicate with those who've decided to pass up on higher education is how many different (and different kinds) of tools it gives you in your field.
It's not just the theoretical bits, or the formalism, but also the language of the field...something which has a surprising number of uses beyond just talking to a peer. A decade after my undergrad, I'll be working on a problem and remember a handful of possible algorithms from my undergrad days that might apply to it, but have no clue about the particulars (they may have not even been covered). But because I learned the language of the subject, I can usually drive into google for an hour or so and quickly triage the algorithms to find the one I want to relearn. It's easy to look things up when you know what they are called -- and more importantly can understand the instructions!
I have a number of friends who decided to focus purely on their development skills and skip school, and they've definitely expressed frustration at finding and understanding the literature, or have spent many hours reinventing the wheel because they didn't realize it had already been built!
This isn't that strange. A lot of universities are private institutions, so they can accept whom they please.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And not just any PhD, a Cambridge PhD, using said Tractatus as the dissertation. Astonishing.
At the time, the PhD was not seen very highly in the department, and in the report on the defence of the PhD Moore famously said: "It is my personal opinion that Mr. Wittgenstein’s thesis is a work of genius; but, be that as it may, it is certainly well up to the standard required for the Cambridge degree of Doctor of Philosophy’ So, it was not seen as an achievement at all!
I don't get that interpretation from that quote at all. To me, the quote is about contrasting the speaker's subjective view with a more objective "standard" requirement for a PhD degree. It's basically saying: "To me, his work as that of a genius. But YMMV. However, even if you don't want to go quite that far, you'll certainly admit that it's great and fulfills the requirements for a PhD."
Not being the work of a genius does not necessarily mean that it's not an achievement.