Forever wrote:
Non-rare? Really? How about common? Well, at least you used a dash properly.
Many people/celebrities are awarded honorary doctorates every year by all universities. Many of them aren't that smart.
Good example: Dr.Bill Cosby.
Forever wrote:
Non-rare? Really? How about common? Well, at least you used a dash properly.
Many people/celebrities are awarded honorary doctorates every year by all universities. Many of them aren't that smart.
Good example: Dr.Bill Cosby.
HandWringingLiberal wrote:
Good example: Dr.Bill Cosby.
How is that a good example? Cosby is arguably a genius.
OP is an idiot.
Sincerely,
A Ph.D.
An extreme example is the Unabomber, Ted Kazinsky who had a PhD in Math and taught at UC Berkeley for a while.
Dr. Steve Bruhl is a great example, he seems silly.
Dr. Jason Karp /thread
Trump_better_listen wrote:
Graduate school here, Masters
I once thought to take a stab at Tutoring professionally. This fat woman, appeared at my door, to my house. She walked in. I can't believe I let this woman in my house. She was "finishing" a PhD from some non-accredited.
She went on to demand that I write her final dissertation for her. I couldn't believe it. I told her I'd think about it. Walked her out and contacted her later telling her it wasn't going to work out.
She happened to be obnoxious and black, if that matters.
Another person, finishing her Master's degree had me do all her analysis and I had to teach her what she didn't learn in her Masters program. She grasped it ok, just ok. Then she gave me, no more than, $200.
She too was black, if that matters.
She gave the School $20,000 to $30,000
And she gave me $200
I guess I learned something from those experiences. I'm still unsure.
Thanks for your analysis of a sample size of 2. Tells us all need to know about "the blacks"
Jack Splat wrote:
OP is an idiot.
Sincerely,
A Ph.D.
What a well reasoned argument. Thank you posting.
We graduate many idiots with PhDs.
If you are not a top ranked school it is difficult to recruit good students, yet profs need people to TA and conduct research.
A hardworking and dedicated but unintelligent student can easily get a PhD.
Unfortunately simply having a PhD is not worth much these days. Those students can't get into the jobs they want. Domestic students like this wind up doing something else. International students often go back to their countries despite preferring to stay.
Is it common to hire someone to write your thesis in grad school and to take tests online without a monitor?
chemprof wrote:
We graduate many idiots with PhDs.
If you are not a top ranked school it is difficult to recruit good students, yet profs need people to TA and conduct research.
A hardworking and dedicated but unintelligent student can easily get a PhD.
Unfortunately simply having a PhD is not worth much these days. Those students can't get into the jobs they want. Domestic students like this wind up doing something else. International students often go back to their countries despite preferring to stay.
This.
Ultradude wrote:
chemprof wrote:We graduate many idiots with PhDs.
If you are not a top ranked school it is difficult to recruit good students, yet profs need people to TA and conduct research.
A hardworking and dedicated but unintelligent student can easily get a PhD.
Unfortunately simply having a PhD is not worth much these days. Those students can't get into the jobs they want. Domestic students like this wind up doing something else. International students often go back to their countries despite preferring to stay.
This.
Lamont, ya big dummy.
Whiite Trash wrote:
I am a non-traditional student (read old) ..... This is an overgeneralization, but I have started to believe that universities these days are not good organizational citizens.
Any more thoughts on college? I'm in a similar situation, but am really struggling to get through the nonsense. I understand that I'm a pawn in the game, can't change the game, but damn college has changed a lot in the last 20 years.
Robert Mercer is proof that you can get a PhD in CS and become a billionaire and still be an idiot. This guy is responsible for Steve Bannon in the white house.
No, I'm swallowing my personal and civic pride every week and going to class. I'm trying to be a good student while hating much of the time spent in class, all the while trying to keep my eyes on the prize. There are days I strongly consider transferring, or doing something less academically-based. What are your thoughts?
Broken Eyes wrote:
Whiite Trash wrote:I am a non-traditional student (read old) ..... This is an overgeneralization, but I have started to believe that universities these days are not good organizational citizens.
Any more thoughts on college? I'm in a similar situation, but am really struggling to get through the nonsense. I understand that I'm a pawn in the game, can't change the game, but damn college has changed a lot in the last 20 years.
I was a graduate for a short time at a state university. I estimated that around 75% of what I was doing was a waste of time and valueless, which is why I left before completing the degree. I understand there is going to be a certain amount of hoop jumping with just about anything you do in life, but the program I was in seemed to be almost nothing but hoop jumping and chasing our own tails. I left and went out into the world, studied on my own, developed more skills and knowledge in a year than I would have in 5 back in my old program, and have been successful by most anyone's standards. At some point I will likely need to go back to graduate school to add a few letters next to my name (MS, not PhD), and I am somewhat dreading the experience because I know of how tedious and intellectually vapid the whole thing is going to be.
Graduate school attracts those types of people who were "teacher's pets" and ascribe tremendous value to conventional achievements regardless of whether or not they have real value. This leads to many moderately bright (but rarely brilliant) and/or hard-working individuals populating PhD programs. Because most people go straight through from undergrad to grad school, they also tend to be quite ignorant and naive about the real world, real world issues, and how foolish their choice of pursuing a PhD generally is.
I have met and known many bright and competent people with PhDs, but there are enough idiots and fools with the same credentials as to warrant the title virtually meaningless by itself. More than anything, a PhD indicates only that the person worked long hours for little pay, likely under substantial stress and psychological discontent, for ~5 years. Such a feat can be considered impressive, but it does not necessarily indicate high intelligence.
Whiite Trash wrote:
I am a non-traditional student (read old) who returned to get a master's last year to start an "encore" career. As happy as I am to be making this transition as an oldish-timer, I have quite turned off by academia and modern campus culture.
First, the professors are not particularly impressive. I used to feel truly deferential toward PhDs, but now I find the ones I'm spending time with to be unbalanced, arrogant and unaware that they exist in a bizarro cloistered world separate from where the rest of us exist. I have concluded that tenure, while I understand its purpose, is not a great thing. People who are too comfortable, too confident and not beholden to someone else for performance, transform into the weirdos I see on campus every day now. To those who are either tenured or aspire to be, yuck is what I have to say to you.
Secondly, academia seems a world in which "researchers" feast on the dregs of what others have said, or accomplished, parsing it into endless lists, drawing distinctions without difference, writing endless pages of fluff that has minimal relevance in the real world. I'm in semester two of a 3 year program and can honestly say that most of what I've learned so far is simply fluff, detritus layered upon detritus. I'm put off by the $100+ dollar hardbound textbooks, 11th edition of course, the tens of thousands of annually published articles, many recycling the same ideas as the others, it's been a genuine experience in seeing the wizard behind the curtain. And there are how many thousands of universities in the US, sucking vast amounts of money out of the larger economy? This is not productivity.
Lastly, everything on campuses these days revolves around a dogmatic and political adherence to "diversity" and identity politics. I'm finding that for the most part, rigid "openness" to predefined diversity is demanded, but genuine diversity of thought is not tolerated in discourse. In summary, if I didn't need to complete this program to get started on career 2.0, I would keep my dollars and run as far as I could from academia. It's been disappointing to learn that academia really is the land of broken toys. This is an overgeneralization, but I have started to believe that universities these days are not good organizational citizens.
What is your masters in and what school or type of school are you at? This makes a big difference.
This is a pretty typical older masters student sentiment. A masters is for those that really, really love and want to grasp material or for those that need additional skills/credentials like a MBA/MACC for a job. It is not there to satisfy your particular ideals and needs like a business tries to do. If it is accounting/finance/med school/engineering/etc. you can bet that that particular industry has a tight grip and input on curriculum. You're there to separate yourself by gaining a credential, accept the consequences. If it is not in one of those fields I question your wisdom in starting a masters program when you don't absolutely love mastering the material.
A professor does exist in a bizarro cloistered world separate from you. That is why it is called academia and not industry/corporate life/etc. You've come back to academia, you should have accepted and understood that before you tried to obtain a masters.
Second, you are also correct that academia is there to write endless pages of obscure "fluff" that has minimal relevance in the real world. Consultants write practitioner papers. Academics write for a specific audience (themselves) and try to incrementally advance and understand issues. Again, a good masters student would have understood this before applying or at least not expect the entire system to change for them.
Finally, yes I agree with your assessment of diversity and identity politics. However, I'd argue that your general sentiment towards having a university satisfy your needs as a student to make it worthwhile is the reason that universities have run amok.
PhD students drank the coolaid wrote:
I was a graduate for a short time at a state university. I estimated that around 75% of what I was doing was a waste of time and valueless, which is why I left before completing the degree. I understand there is going to be a certain amount of hoop jumping with just about anything you do in life, but the program I was in seemed to be almost nothing but hoop jumping and chasing our own tails. I left and went out into the world, studied on my own, developed more skills and knowledge in a year than I would have in 5 back in my old program, and have been successful by most anyone's standards. At some point I will likely need to go back to graduate school to add a few letters next to my name (MS, not PhD), and I am somewhat dreading the experience because I know of how tedious and intellectually vapid the whole thing is going to be.
Graduate school attracts those types of people who were "teacher's pets" and ascribe tremendous value to conventional achievements regardless of whether or not they have real value. This leads to many moderately bright (but rarely brilliant) and/or hard-working individuals populating PhD programs. Because most people go straight through from undergrad to grad school, they also tend to be quite ignorant and naive about the real world, real world issues, and how foolish their choice of pursuing a PhD generally is.
I have met and known many bright and competent people with PhDs, but there are enough idiots and fools with the same credentials as to warrant the title virtually meaningless by itself. More than anything, a PhD indicates only that the person worked long hours for little pay, likely under substantial stress and psychological discontent, for ~5 years. Such a feat can be considered impressive, but it does not necessarily indicate high intelligence.
Why would you go back to school then? What profession other than medicine and education actually values an MS so much that you cannot advance without it? Generally masters and PhD students do not make money for a university. Please stay away from grad school if you do not want to attend, it will further poison the well.
PhD students drank the coolaid wrote:
Graduate school attracts those types of people who were "teacher's pets" and ascribe tremendous value to conventional achievements regardless of whether or not they have real value. This leads to many moderately bright (but rarely brilliant) and/or hard-working individuals populating PhD programs. Because most people go straight through from undergrad to grad school, they also tend to be quite ignorant and naive about the real world, real world issues, and how foolish their choice of pursuing a PhD generally is.
I can say this paragraph of your post is false in my case. I was never and am not a teacher's pet (lowest grades, never talked to professors, etc). After 5 years of gaining skills in the work force I am now going back for a PhD in econ because there is far too many math, programming, and statistics concepts that I will never learn on my own unless I just quit working. The PhD program I will be attending gives me the same disposable income as my current job (with the combination of my stipend and amazingly subsidized student housing) so it makes sense to take the opportunity. I can admit I am lucky with my financial package...
Here's my second reason: To get into the private sector research jobs I want I need to 1) have the PhD, 2) work for 20-25 years in a non-business dev job; which is nearly impossible because my resume is full of business dev jobs and making the switch would take luck at this day and age, or 3) start my own company. Of those three, #1 and #3 are in my control and #3 requires luck and better sales skills than I have so #1 is the best option. I'll gladly trade 5 years of school for 20-25 years of working and hoping for luck. Remember, hope is NOT a plan...
I do agree that some students are very stupid. At one of my campus visits a student asked me, "why do we need computer labs?" I was appalled and explained to her why econ students need computer labs... I'm certain she's a 4.0 Harvard econ grad who has no real world experience and hasn't read a single academic paper in her life. But hey, she'll have a PhD one day.
My thoughts: I'm probably going to end up doing the same as you and make the best of it.