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This Professor only has a PhD degree

earthsciences.hku.hk

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Re: This Professor only has a PhD degree

#41

Post by ot »

Van_av_Ordning wrote: post #37
ot wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At that time the Ph.D. was something new in European universities; it was basically imported from the US. Many professors didn't welcome the novelty, including one of Wittgenstein's examiners, who wrote in his report: "The Tractatus is a work of genius, but it otherwise satisfies the requirements for a Ph.D." EDIT: I should have said "British" instead of "European", see comments below.

You have things the wrong way round. The Ph.D. degree originated in Germany.

You are right, but it came to UK through US:

  From the United States, the Ph.D. degree spread to 
  Canada in 1900, and then to the United Kingdom in 1917.
(from Wikipedia)

Re: This Professor only has a PhD degree

#42

Post by seanmcdirmid »

aortega wrote: post #26
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many many more than that, but we don't typically bother with those details; if the guy/gal knows their stuff, who cares what their degree level is?

All credentials including PhDs are designed for getting into a job (I.E. research position, postdoc, etc.), and they are a very effective tool at it. In scientific articles (At least from IEEE) notice there are no titles associated with authors. It's a common misconception that you need a PhD to publish an article, there are many papers with authors in high-school.

> All credentials including PhDs are designed for getting into a job

I don't think PhDs are designed for getting a job actually. Sure, you can get some jobs easier with them, but the value of the PhD is really about the close apprenticeship you have with your advisers and other professors/grad students in your orbit.

When you actually finish your PhD, its like...what am I supposed to do next? Your circle can advise you, but you've hardly been preparing for this at all during the 4-8 years you've been inside.

You could be in middle school and publish an article. You are even allowed to make up an institution, the PC won't care at all. Heck, many conferences do double-blind reviewing now, and you know its possible to accept a paper from someone in prison (who might get disqualified b/c they can't present it, but still...).

Re: This Professor only has a PhD degree

#43

Post by eli_gottlieb »

noelwelsh wrote: post #21
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many many more than that, but we don't typically bother with those details; if the guy/gal knows their stuff, who cares what their degree level is?

Sssh, you don't want the grad students to hear! Without grad students who's gonna do all the prof's grunt work?

Help, I'm trapped in a research paper factory. If you can read this, send help to:

Taub Building Technion City Haifa, Israel 32000

Re: This Professor only has a PhD degree

#44

Post by seanmcdirmid »

noelwelsh wrote: post #40
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The PhD gives us time and resources to become a researcher; it is actually a quite useful experience. If we can get the time/resources another way, great! I personally would have been lost on my own; I met people in my program who really set my path. If you are young and inexperienced, it is also getting more difficult to get your foot in the door of a research institution without a PhD from a TOP program. Sure, ther…

I agree. I have a PhD. While the process wasn't 100% sunshine and rainbows I enjoyed most of it, learned a heck of a lot, and I understand the utility of doing a PhD for most people who are interested in doing further research.

Well, your name is familiar :)

Re: This Professor only has a PhD degree

#45

Post by mark_h »

noelwelsh wrote: post #10

I know a few cases of researchers who don't have PhDs, but I've never seen this before. Probably the best known researcher in CS who doesn't hold a PhD is Simon Peyton Jones. He is very well known in the field of programming languages and one of the main implementors of the main Haskell implementation GHC. I think he might have started a PhD in the last few years, but he was appointed a professor at Glasgow without o…

Robin Milner is another notable CS research without a PhD, but with a Turing award.

Re: This Professor only has a PhD degree

#47

Post by bmj »

derrida wrote: post #15

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).

Re: This Professor only has a PhD degree

#48

Post by argumentum »

The number theorist, Ramanujan, had only one Cambridge degree, "B.A. by Research", which was later renamed as "PhD". It was awarded after he had published important work with two of the greatest English mathematicians, Hardy and Littlewood.

If you delve into history, there are innumerable examples of achievement through non-traditional channels. Lincoln didn't have a law degree, for example. In the 20th century, auto-didacticism (teaching yourself) became less common .. here's hoping that that trend is reversed in the 21st.

Re: This Professor only has a PhD degree

#49

Post by enjolras »

ot wrote: post #41
Van_av_Ordning wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have things the wrong way round. The Ph.D. degree originated in Germany.

You are right, but it came to UK through US: From the United States, the Ph.D. degree spread to Canada in 1900, and then to the United Kingdom in 1917. (from Wikipedia)

Maybe the name Ph. D., but the Ph. D. itself is older in the USA and in Europe. There were Ph. D. in the 19th century both in Europe and in Universities like Yale or Harvard.

Re: This Professor only has a PhD degree

#50

Post by mafribe »

mark_h wrote: post #45
noelwelsh wrote: post #10

I know a few cases of researchers who don't have PhDs, but I've never seen this before. Probably the best known researcher in CS who doesn't hold a PhD is Simon Peyton Jones. He is very well known in the field of programming languages and one of the main implementors of the main Haskell implementation GHC. I think he might have started a PhD in the last few years, but he was appointed a professor at Glasgow without o…

Robin Milner is another notable CS research without a PhD, but with a Turing award.

Tony Hoare, another Turing award winner, also doesn't have a PhD.
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