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A ‘Rebel’ Without a Ph.D (2014)

quantamagazine.org

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Re: A ‘Rebel’ Without a Ph.D (2014)

#31

Post by noobiemcfoob »

jimrandomh wrote: post #28

"Oh, yes. I’m very proud of not having a Ph.D. I think the Ph.D. system is an abomination. It was invented as a system for educating German professors in the 19th century, and it works well under those conditions. It’s good for a very small number of people who are going to spend their lives being professors. But it has become now a kind of union card that you have to have in order to have a job, whether it’s being a…

While, broadly speaking, these arguments against the Ph.D system can be valid, that has more to do with individual institutions watering down the true meaning of a Ph.D. This is a flaw with the implementation, not the system itself.

But this is also why a Ph.D from MIT or others carries a much bigger weight than a Ph.D from University of . Those institutions are trusted to only hand Ph.D's to those who have earned them.

Re: A ‘Rebel’ Without a Ph.D (2014)

#33

Post by peter303 »

In some cases a PhD is formality. In many PhD programs you have to publish the equivalent of three peer-reviewed paper in your specialty. Getting these papers published knows you are doing something important and original and know the system. Sometimes these papers are just stapled together into a the thesis with a forward. Rebel types may forgo the title even though the meet all the qualifications.

Re: A ‘Rebel’ Without a Ph.D (2014)

#34

Post by thebooktocome »

jimrandomh wrote: post #28

"Oh, yes. I’m very proud of not having a Ph.D. I think the Ph.D. system is an abomination. It was invented as a system for educating German professors in the 19th century, and it works well under those conditions. It’s good for a very small number of people who are going to spend their lives being professors. But it has become now a kind of union card that you have to have in order to have a job, whether it’s being a…

Pray, tell us how a "truth-seeker" does highly technical research in any field without the resources and credentials of a university.

Re: A ‘Rebel’ Without a Ph.D (2014)

#35

Post by physPop »

noobiemcfoob wrote: post #31
jimrandomh wrote: post #28

"Oh, yes. I’m very proud of not having a Ph.D. I think the Ph.D. system is an abomination. It was invented as a system for educating German professors in the 19th century, and it works well under those conditions. It’s good for a very small number of people who are going to spend their lives being professors. But it has become now a kind of union card that you have to have in order to have a job, whether it’s being a…

While, broadly speaking, these arguments against the Ph.D system can be valid, that has more to do with individual institutions watering down the true meaning of a Ph.D. This is a flaw with the implementation, not the system itself. But this is also why a Ph.D from MIT or others carries a much bigger weight than a Ph.D from University of . Those institutions are trusted to only hand Ph.D's to those who have earned th…

> Those institutions are trusted to only hand Ph.D's to those who have earned them.

I disagree. Even MIT and the highfalutin Ivey's have a lot of mediocre grad students to keep the cogs of the research machine running. This is especially true in the biomedical field because of the cheap labor supply of grad students - vs - the cost of highly trained lab techs. All of these students pass and earn PhDs.

Inside your own little field in academia you are judged by your peers on both your work as well as who you work with, not where you sit or the stamp on the letterhead. Sadly, outside of our small fields we have very poor (if any) tools to assess researchers, and thus fall back on regular consumer judgements: brand recognition, familiarity and advertising.

Re: A ‘Rebel’ Without a Ph.D (2014)

#36

Post by physPop »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #29
chrisseaton wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK I think all PhD programmes work as I've described. To begin my PhD I made contact from cold with a professor who had similar research interests to mine at the University I wanted to go to. We did an informal interview and he offered me the studentship. I didn't go through any kind of central application process, do any entrance exams or write any essays or anything. When I started my PhD I immediately began…

Wow... that's awesome . That's quite different from how I've seen it done in other places. I wish I could get that much freedom from a studentship!

They're also only 3 years long typically. We don't hire a lot of post-docs from the UK because they are relatively less well trained due to the significantly shorter time spend in lab...

Re: A ‘Rebel’ Without a Ph.D (2014)

#37

Post by tjl »

chrisseaton wrote: post #8
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So while the PhD system is deeply flawed, unless he can provide an alternative then there's not much to discuss. Ok, how about a much simpler system of research apprenticeship? An apprentice is paid a low but livable salary, possibly with tuition remission for any necessary coursework, and probably with TA/RA duties as we have now. There are no grades and no qualifying exams. Instead, the apprentice must simply prod…

That's exactly what a PhD already is - a research apprenticeship. They already get a low but liveable salary without having to pay tuition. I don't think many PhDs do TA/RA duties - they're too busy researching. PhD students don't have grades or qualifying exams, and three publishable research papers is what most PhD students achieve anyway. The thesis is just these papers written up into one continuous piece and sub…

You're making some big assumptions. At my university, every Ph.D. candidate must take comprehensive exams. Depending on the department (and faculty) they're administered differently. In engineering (where I did my Ph.D.), you had to do a proposal which was submitted to your committee. Then, you had an oral exam. Half of which was questions on your proposal and the other was about your background knowledge in the field. It could take as long as they wanted. Mine only ended because they wanted lunch (it was 3.5 hours long). Also, you were required to take 3 courses, which you were pretty much expected to complete before your comprehensive exam.

The 3 papers makes a thesis also ignores the fact that it needs to be a coherent whole and pass the thesis defence, where the committee includes both a person external to the department and one external to the university. While I'll grant 3 papers is probably a thesis, it entirely depends on the papers.

Everybody in STEM courses at my university did both an RA and a TA unless they had a large scholarship and didn't need any extra money. In the CS department, it was actually expected (I was co-supervised by a CS prof for my Master's so I know what the other people in my lab did).

I had a girlfriend who did her PhD in Mechanical Engineering and she was actually required to do contract work in her lab. She couldn't even get paid for it and was still required to do it. She was in the Canadian military and they were paying for her to do the doctorate so she couldn't get paid from anyone else (but she had a scholarship which was allowed). The contract work delayed her thesis research, but the professor required her to do the work. So, you're extrapolating your knowledge and assuming it's the same everywhere which isn't true.

Re: A ‘Rebel’ Without a Ph.D (2014)

#38

Post by jimrandomh »

thebooktocome wrote: post #34
jimrandomh wrote: post #28

"Oh, yes. I’m very proud of not having a Ph.D. I think the Ph.D. system is an abomination. It was invented as a system for educating German professors in the 19th century, and it works well under those conditions. It’s good for a very small number of people who are going to spend their lives being professors. But it has become now a kind of union card that you have to have in order to have a job, whether it’s being a…

Pray, tell us how a "truth-seeker" does highly technical research in any field without the resources and credentials of a university.

For fields that require expensive lab equipment, like physics and biology, I admit this is hard. But for fields like math and computer science, all you need is a computer and free time. A university can help you get time for research, by paying a salary so you don't have to do a non-research job, but there are other ways to handle that. A university can help you make connections and find collaborators, but it's not the only way to do that, either.

Re: A ‘Rebel’ Without a Ph.D (2014)

#39

Post by goodcanadian »

baddspellar wrote: post #11

As long as "Percent faculty with terminal degree in their field" is an evaluation criterion for ranking school quality (I took those exact words from the US News and World Report rankings criteria), there is little chance that non-PhD holders will be able to become tenured faculty at research universities going forward. Let's not fool ourselves. Schools work towards higher rankings, as they are rewarded for doing so.

Sure, but when only 4% of PhDs ever get a faculty position, there is a huge pool of underemployed PhDs to choose from. Why would an institution ever consider someone without regardless of rankings?

Re: A ‘Rebel’ Without a Ph.D (2014)

#40

Post by thebooktocome »

jimrandomh wrote: post #38
thebooktocome wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pray, tell us how a "truth-seeker" does highly technical research in any field without the resources and credentials of a university.

For fields that require expensive lab equipment, like physics and biology, I admit this is hard. But for fields like math and computer science, all you need is a computer and free time. A university can help you get time for research, by paying a salary so you don't have to do a non-research job, but there are other ways to handle that. A university can help you make connections and find collaborators, but it's not t…

> But for fields like math and computer science, all you need is a computer and free time.

As someone who has been on both sides, it can be hard to impossible to research mathematics without access to a university library and credentials. Math books are prohibitively expensive and go out of print swiftly. Articles are behind paywalls. Few research mathematicians in my experience respond to requests for preprints or clarification from non-academic e-mails.

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