Thanks for belittling everyone who has suffered through such a program. :s
well, any PhD is not easy, but the american style is often SO much shorter and has a much more achievable outcome that it is generally much easier to finish one (note this says absolutely nothing about the capacity of the candidate). the oxford style is totally openended and many many people fail to finish, not from a lack of the requisite intelligence or dedication, but just because the parameters of the problem are totally unknown and it expands exponentially as they delve further into it. but that’s research.
hey, if anybody wants to do a PhD, then do it, but I don’t think that they are worth it unless you directly need it to advance in your field. there is nothing stopping a non-doctorate from publishing, except experience and often expertise. this does not need to be earned through a degree, but that is one very accepted way of getting such experience.
Going the PhD route can turn sour and sow seeds of destruction in your life. My brother’s case is such an example. He spent five years working his socks off on his, in some field of chemistry and maths that I was never quite clear about, but eventually discovered that his supervisor was stealing his results, had a big bust-up with the fellow, and ended up being denied the doctorate and offered a piddling master’s instead, which he angrily declined.
That experience badly embittered him for many years, turning him into a crusading anti-establishment political activist, and prompting him to do silly things like getting a job in a factory (pretending not to have any academic qualifications at all) so that he could get involved in union activities. Eventually, after the blinding scales of anger had been knocked from his eyes, he drifted away from that life and found a semi-respectable job in local government - but so many years had been wasted, so much damage had been done (including a big rift with my solidly middle-class, deeply conservative father), his prospects in life had been so badly stunted, and he should have been able to achieve much more than will ever be possible in the stultifying environment of city council management.
[quote=“urodacus”]well, any PhD is not easy, but the American style is often SO much shorter and has a much more achievable outcome that it is generally much easier to finish one (note this says absolutely nothing about the capacity of the candidate). the oxford style is totally openended and many many people fail to finish, not from a lack of the requisite intelligence or dedication, but just because the parameters of the problem are totally unknown and it expands exponentially as they delve further into it. but that’s research.
hey, if anybody wants to do a PhD, then do it, but I don’t think that they are worth it unless you directly need it to advance in your field. there is nothing stopping a non-doctorate from publishing, except experience and often expertise. this does not need to be earned through a degree, but that is one very accepted way of getting such experience.[/quote]
What you describe is not what I’ve heard from PhD students I know in the US in biomedical area. They also get refused until paper’s are published and the projects parameters can alter along the way. They work days, nights and weekends. It’s also a fact that American graduate education system attracts the top scientists in the world to this day. The emphasis on publishing doesn’t neccessarily mean it’s a better PhD, often the reason for this is to further the supervising Professor’s publishing rate and own research. From many accounts that I have heard, a research PhD is a form of indentured servitude and completely tied to the opinions of your supervisor.
Also I don’t understand what you mean by shorter, I believe the average time to gain a PhD in the biological sciences is 3-4 years in the UK against about 5 in the US and between 5-7 years in Taiwan !
I am calling it as i see it, mate. I have had this argument before and i still remain to be convinced that the American system is not considerably easier than the Oxford style, with a huge thesis, published papers, and a verbal defense against a hostile audience who can and do fail people.
As i said before, no PhD system is easy, but the project is much more specified in the American system, whereas in the British system it is much more vague to begin with. I have sat through degree proposal meetings in both styles. the american ones generally require a very detailed plan of experiments before approval is given, and the outcomes are very much delineated before anything happens. The British ones are more like idea maps with many many unknowns. plus, access to a British style PhD requires reseaarch training before the program begins, either through a four-year honurs degree or a masters or equivalent. american students get research training as part of the degree, so that eats up a year and a half or so.
sure american students can get refused, same as in the british system. a lot of that is due to the supervisors and their ineptitude or lack of it. you owe it to yourself to choose your supervisor carefully! i abandoned one degree because of a wanker of a supervisor. others were not so fortunate, and one even spent 8 years or so before resigning in tears. you get greedy supervisors everywhere.
average time to get a biomedical research PhD in Australia is about 4.5 years. most people i know with american degrees took 3 1/2 to 4 years. i took 6 as my project foundered and i had to invent new techniques to do new stuff. plus i had to work to support myself. the PhD students at my institute here now generally take 4.5 years too.
Bloody book-larnin’! Never did a whit of good to nobody. Swots, we called 'em in our day. Specky cunts, too, sometimes. They made good punching bags, though, it has to be said.
Just when I got used to hanging out in the university mensa (restaurant) all day long, they told me I had to make the degree now, because they wanted to close down the university.
Just after I finished, they reopened again (what I mean trick…)
[quote=“Clifford T. Ward”]Let me tell you 'bout a girl
who’s breaking my heart
She decided lately to get smart
She read an article that changed her life
So tired of working in a factory
She joined the Open University.
We used to have a lot of fun you know
Spend our money and away we’d go
But now whenever I go round to call
She’s reading Lawrence and T. H. Huxley
With the Open University.
She never cared for school - such a drag
Now she’s qualification mad
She’s corresponding like a politician
Her main objective is an arts degree
God help the Open University.[/quote]
For some jobs/careers there just isn’t any option but to get a Masters or PhD. For example, if you want to become a clinical psychologist you need to do a Clinical Masters degree. I’ve known many who got to honors level and were turned down for masters studies, and not due to grades either. Something like that can really screw up your career dreams.
If you are in public education in the US at the primary or secondary level, the degree you want for long-term earnings is the doctorate in “educational administration”, which is, er, um, sometimes not the most challenging degree ever designed, but puts you on the track to become an administrator after teaching for X years. This is if you want to “move up” and make more money. I don’t ever want to be an admin, personally.
I was fortunate that I was hired by a district that did not have a “problem” with my having a Ph.D. (which did mean they have to shell out a whopping $700 a year extra on my salary – woo hoo!) I entered on a higher step due to past experience and having an MA, but since I am teaching Chinese, they probably didn’t have THAT much choice if they really wanted someone who was certified.
There can also be problems in public school situations if you have a Ph.D in that people decide (ahead of time) that you are going to be acting all superior to them. Sometimes it is not the best thing in the world socially, just because of people’s preconceptions.
I’m not as edumacated as a lot of you guys and can’t really talk about further degrees such as PhDs.
Hmm. My first thought was ‘not much’, but then I realised that the ability to write 3000 words on The Dream of the Rood with a ten pint hangover and a last-week deadline actually is a useful skill.
I totally drifted into studying what I did. I was good at writing and gobbing off at school (newspaper editor, student council VP, leader of several insurrections- classroom vivsection, vegetarian lunch options, student lounge annexation, the right to wear trousers). I also had a high rate of truancy and used to walk out of stupid classes such as maths to go and read in the library. Teachers encouraged me to do English because I would read a lot, but wasn’t much of a joiner in terms of classroom activities.
In terms of career, my education gets me interviews, and my sweet charming personality gets me the job. There’s a girl who works at my school who has a CELTA but no degree and many countries wouldn’t consider her for a work permit. Even though a BA is boring and genarally a waste of time, I’m encouraging her to study so she has more options. I don’t think my degree gave me that much (a withered liver?) other than space and time to read and make friends and ingest controlled substances, but I can’t imagine what I’d have ended up doing without the piece of paper.
I was in the Master of Library Science program for one semester but it was so boring I couldn’t take it. I really loved working in the library too.
Albert Einstein, Richard Branson and Bill Gates were still successful people anyway.
Left secondary school, went straight into the industry, did an apprenticeship in electrical/electronic engineering, while going to college one day a week for a couple yrs.
Was the education I did worth it yes, the theoretical in class was complimented by the practical I was experiencing daily. Did I ever feel like continuing on and getting a degree, no not really. Has it held me back, I don’t feel it has, but who knows where I would be if I had gone through that sliding door.
The door I did go through has led me around the world on someone else’s coin, and ultimately here.
I’ve always found it interesting the fascination with higher education here in Taiwan, and humorous the assumption I must have an advanced degree.
Being something of a hybrid*, I also find interest in the differing opinions of the value of education based on the actual education level one has achieved. In my experience many of those with degrees and advanced degrees usually profess how important education is, proceed to mount a copy of their MBA on the wall, worship it, and talk about their entitlement, while many of those without will suggest education has little merits, suggest ‘only those who could not get a real job, went on to uni’, or generally don’t give a toss.
- I say hybrid as I am not educated, but not not.
Well, if I ever actually decide to do the PhD, I’ll make my litttle brother call me “Doctor,” but otherwise I’d not likely tell anyone. Really, I can’t immagine what I’d DO with it. Even if I decided I wanted to teach US grad students one day (doubtful), I don’t think there are all that many such job openings. And I guess, then, that I could simply do my own research anyway.
I have my B.A. in English, enough Spanish for a minor, but my school doesen’t, or didn’t, declare minors, because I simply had no idea what I wanted to do when I went to school. The one and only thing I knew for SURE was that I never wanted to be an English teacher. So, of course, English was the obvious choice.
I didn’t actually graduate from high school. I intentionally flunked sr. English and had to finish up in summer school. Summer school, btw, is a complete joke. Anyway, I had no plans for attending university, as I knew I was far too stupid to be up to the task. I worked two jobs for a couple years and couldn’t make ends meet. I moved out of my mother’s house when I was 17 and was paying all my own expenses from the get go.
I got hanging around some kids my age who were students and decided that maybe I COULD do it. I found a way to get it paid for, took the exams and was told that if I’d only taken them when I was still a sr. I’d have earned a full scholarship. So, you should ALWAYS TRY!!!
Anyway, I hung out with mostly international students in school because my roomate was Japanese. I liked these people way more than most of the other American Citizens I was going to school with. I found out that I could teach English overseas when I ended up tutoring all of my friends and they suggested it.
So, to me, my B.A. has been a round the world ticket. It’s meant making many friends and learning so very much about the world and about my own culture. It has mean open eyes that have nothing to do spelling or grammar (as I’m sure you all have noticed, especially my spelling).
This Master of Arts in Teaching I’m working on is simply so that I can continue to teach while living in my own country, as it comes with certification. There are other programs without the MA, but why not have both? And I’ll make one or two thousand more a year with the MA for the same amount of time and energy.
However, I really don’t enjoy the American education environment much. I don’t really like the schools, the regulations, the way the US educators are mostly used as scape goats, but given little power or authority in their own classrooms. So, I may just end up overseas again anyway.
Well, I think it works different in different countries. Back home most people finish college and that’s it. It’s no problem getting a job once you’ve done that and you don’t need to go to Uni by any means. I’ve got 12 years of schooling and that’s considered normal in Sweden. In all fairness, I’ve never really worked with anything that’s related to what I studied, but that hasn’t held me back. I’m mostly self tought out of interest of what I’m doing and the rest is stuff I’ve picked up along the road.
However, coming here wasn’t that straight forward, but luckily I had enough work experience to pass as qualified for the job I got here at the time. I’ve meet people with all sort of degrees, but what seem to be lacking these days is common sense and hands on knowledge. So many people know the book stuff, but can’t actually do the practical bits. I specifically remember one shitty job I had in the UK, it was for an internet helpdesk and the first thing we had to do was change the operating system on some machines and one guy was bragging about his MCSE (Microsoft Certification), but he didn’t know how to use simple DOS commands (yes, this was some time ago).
Someone I used to work with got a job based on his PhD, but it turned out that the company he got the job with was just looking for people with degrees to look good in front of the investors and he was sitting around doing nothing most of the time, so he quit in the end. It’s all nice and good to have a degree if you’re actually using it and used your time well and know both the book stuff and the hands on stuff, but I think we’re in a world these days where people don’t have any practical knowledge.
Before I left the UK almost two years ago now, it was reported on the news that college teachers had to start with the basics such as simple maths and English, as the “kids” comming from the lower educational system didn’t know how to cound and read and write properly, which is really quite scary…
I think the school system here is insane and people spend way too much time being taught and too little time actually learning. There’s a big difference between the two and I think they really need to figure that out here. I guess I was lucky as I had a few really good teachers back in school and they helped peak peoples interest about stuff and that also shows how important it is to have a good teacher that know how to make things interesting, as that leads to people learning things. If you’re not interested in something, you’ll never learn it and that’s simply how it is.
[quote=“TheLostSwede”]
I think the school system here is insane and people spend way too much time being taught and too little time actually learning. There’s a big difference between the two and I think they really need to figure that out here. I guess I was lucky as I had a few really good teachers back in school and they helped peak peoples interest about stuff and that also shows how important it is to have a good teacher that know how to make things interesting, as that leads to people learning things. If you’re not interested in something, you’ll never learn it and that’s simply how it is.[/quote]
Trust me, they need to figure that out here, too. The American schools are now accountable for student standardized test scores. If the students do too poorly, the schools lose funding. So, most of what goes on in accademic subjects, like Read’n, write’n, & 'rythmatic, is simply test prep. I spent 10 years in Taiwan lamenting students who only cared about the correct answer and never learned how to think critically and figure out anything for themselves. After all, it didn’t matter if they learned, only if they got high enough marks on a test. So, the prospect of teaching English in an American high school and being forced to participate in this silly travisty is a bit of a nightmare.
I had to observe high school classes as part of a practicum last year. I watched the head of the English department teaching a class of Jr.s basic grammar because they’d all bombed the practice run for the standardized test. One bright young man in the class listened to her explanation of prepositions with a lost expression on his face until, suddenly, he brightened and interrupted her to say, “Oh! You talking about that “of” thing?”
This was a high school Jr. who should have understood about prepositions from fith or sixth grade. I remember diagramming sentences in the sixth grade. They don’t even bother to try to actually teach these kids these fundamental concepts. Just to get them to clue in long enough to pass the test. It’s almost criminal. What they’re depriving these kids of is not simply an understanding of grammar mechanics, but the ability to think for themselves. They’re churning out sheeple.
That means that these kids don’t have a chance to be, as you say you are, Swede, self taught from investigating their interests. In order for you to learn, you had to know how to think. These kids aren’t learning this. It bodes frightenly ominous for the future.
Eh? Albert Einstein went to the University of Geneva for years, Bill Gates actually attended Harvard. He set up Microsoft with his buddies from there. As for Richard Branson he was busy setting up his Virgin Record Label with student mates. They still had a lot of connections with education!
Famous dropouts such as Gates, Jobs, guy from Facebook, they seemed to go to fancy schools and they had a choice to go into industry, it’s hard to see them having such success outside IT.
Got an MA because a BA in English is worthless, I was having a great time in uni and didn’t know what else to do.
Got a JD because after a couple of years of teaching Freshman English I realized that was not what I wanted to do and the idea of lawschool just came to me out of the blue. Was walking across campus one day and thought “why not law school?”
Went to the career center and asked, “when’s the next law school admission test?”
“Saturday.”
“When’s the last day to sign up?”
“Today.”
“Ok, I’ll sign up.”
Law school was 1000 times harder than the mickey-mouse MA program. Extremely challenging and almost all my classmates were very bright and hard working. But I loved it, found it very intellectually stimulating and exciting. It took years for me to figure out what I wanted to do with that degree, but I’ve never had any regrets. With a JD there are loads of high-paying jobs in all sorts of different areas. And, here in Taiwan I’ve finally gotten on to a very good track with that degree. So, it’s not for everyone but it was one of the really good decisions I’ve made in life.
[quote]Was walking across campus one day and thought “why not law school?”
[/quote]
Jeez, if you were high and around a med school, imagine…!