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This Professor only has a PhD degree

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Re: This Professor only has a PhD degree

#71

Post by abduhl »

napoleond wrote: post #66
chollida1 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineering, atleast in Canada, is similar. You can write a series of tests instead of getting a university degree. Though you still need to do the 4 year engineer in training before you become a PEng.

Source? I'm aware of programs which allow internationally educated engineers to earn equivalency in Canada (ie. without having to re-do their entire degree), and there is certainly a test to write before you may be a member of a province's professional organisation (and thus eligible for a PEng), but that test is about ethics and engineering law. I've never heard of any system by which someone without any formal engi…

Many states (and provinces I assume) will allow one to sit for EIT or PE exams given you can provide over X years of experience doing professional levels engineering work under the direction of a licensed professional, where X is generally on the range of 15 years.

Re: This Professor only has a PhD degree

#72

Post by papercrane »

napoleond wrote: post #66
chollida1 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineering, atleast in Canada, is similar. You can write a series of tests instead of getting a university degree. Though you still need to do the 4 year engineer in training before you become a PEng.

Source? I'm aware of programs which allow internationally educated engineers to earn equivalency in Canada (ie. without having to re-do their entire degree), and there is certainly a test to write before you may be a member of a province's professional organisation (and thus eligible for a PEng), but that test is about ethics and engineering law. I've never heard of any system by which someone without any formal engi…

I was interested as well, and found this:

http://www.engineerscanada.ca/e/files/guideline_admission_wi...

From my cursory reading it looks like if you went to a school that isn't accredited you can take the examinations instead, but it doesn't look like you can just take the exams and be licensed, they still want you to have some academic qualifications.

Re: This Professor only has a PhD degree

#73

Post by chollida1 »

napoleond wrote: post #66
chollida1 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineering, atleast in Canada, is similar. You can write a series of tests instead of getting a university degree. Though you still need to do the 4 year engineer in training before you become a PEng.

Source? I'm aware of programs which allow internationally educated engineers to earn equivalency in Canada (ie. without having to re-do their entire degree), and there is certainly a test to write before you may be a member of a province's professional organisation (and thus eligible for a PEng), but that test is about ethics and engineering law. I've never heard of any system by which someone without any formal engi…

I'm a little foggy since I haven't been in school for a few years, but I remember that anyone with a technical degree from a college could write a series of exams rather than enroll and get a 4 year Eng degree.

I'll see if I can dig up a source but I'm pretty sure this is accurate as I actually know someone who has done this and is a practicing P Eng right now.

Re: This Professor only has a PhD degree

#74

Post by ruycer »

Is it possible that he did not had a chance to go to college because he grew up in the midst of the cultural revolution? He seems a middle age man, who could be in his late teens/early twenties in the late 1960's, when for the regime any academic degree was suspicious.

Re: This Professor only has a PhD degree

#76

Post by tantalor »

celerity wrote: post #59

I am a math Ph.D. student, and one of my professors went straight to Princeton after 3 years of college without his degree. He impressed a Princeton professor enough to have him offer a position there, which he could apparently do. My professor took the offer, not only because it was fantastic in its own right, but also because he only took math courses as an undergrad, and getting his bachelor's degree would have me…

I doubt the public-or-private distinction matters in hiring choices.

Re: This Professor only has a PhD degree

#78

Post by mturmon »

fluidcruft wrote: post #65
kleiba wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 requir…

I think it's more along the lines of: the degree itself is a insignificant and unworthy of his work. It's like giving him a Kindergarten gold star sticker. Which says something about the quality of his work, or of other degree holders, or both.

Disagree. The quote reflects this observation:

Just because the thesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tractatus_Logico-Philosophicus) exceeds the requirements for the degree, does not make the degree insignificant.

Re: This Professor only has a PhD degree

#79

Post by mturmon »

auctiontheory wrote: post #75

This is a side effect of the Cultural Revolution, a terrible time for "intellectuals" in China. There must be many others like him.

That's what I suspected, thanks for making this observation. I wonder if others can chime in with anecdotes?

Certainly I've known several people who were held back by forced labor in the countryside, but later went to grad school in the US. They were a little younger than the professor in the OP, so it didn't affect them as much.

Re: This Professor only has a PhD degree

#80

Post by tirrellp »

Ive seen something similar to this.

My friend has a BS in Chemistry, and the head of the academic NanoTech lab where he worked said, "I really want you in our NanoTech PhD program. Just try it for a couple years. If after 2 years you don't like it, You can walk away and I will grant you a Master's for your trouble"

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