Posted by: fortunefaded November 1, 2009
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"One of my professor had said and I think he said well- that when you complete your bachelors
degree you boast like you know all in your field, when you do your
masters you realize u know a very little about your field and while in
phd you think you don't know anything at all. Further more, if you go
beyond that like post doc or something, he said you start to feel that
nobody knows anything at all. "
haha. That made me chuckle.
But I have to disagree with a lot of folks here. I will be restricting most of my opinions within engineering but I am sure many people can relate to it. I am not a grad student and neither do I denounce grad students. But I feel like either we have to change people's mindset of what PhD means or change the education system. I used to think when you have a PhD, you know everything in the subject. I didn't know that subject was so loosely defined. For example, in electrical engineering (EE), a person can have a PhD (specializing in digital circuits) and know no more than what an undergrad knows in another field of EE (example, analog circuits).
There is also a disconnect between academia (where you have the most PhDs) and the industry. I've had classes with professors who had PhDs(one was even an IEEE Fellow), but no concrete understanding of how things go in the real world. During my undergraduate degree, I took classes with part time students who had jobs. To my surprise, some of these students knew way more than the professors, who had only theoretical knowledge in the subject matter. These students didn't do very well in exams but during projects, these students knew how to solve problems. For example, we had a professor who could write complex formulas in filter design but couldn't debug code for a DSP board.
Anyways, my point is that our education system is very messed up. We have been led to believe that getting a higher degree is always the better option. You accumulate knowledge and you accumulate more knowledge before you even learn to use your previous knowledge properly. I've met people with a Master's degree who can solve complex circuit problems or write advanced compiler codes but can't solve a simple circuit problem or code a decent program.
Then again, I boast as if I know all in my field.
FF
degree you boast like you know all in your field, when you do your
masters you realize u know a very little about your field and while in
phd you think you don't know anything at all. Further more, if you go
beyond that like post doc or something, he said you start to feel that
nobody knows anything at all. "
haha. That made me chuckle.
But I have to disagree with a lot of folks here. I will be restricting most of my opinions within engineering but I am sure many people can relate to it. I am not a grad student and neither do I denounce grad students. But I feel like either we have to change people's mindset of what PhD means or change the education system. I used to think when you have a PhD, you know everything in the subject. I didn't know that subject was so loosely defined. For example, in electrical engineering (EE), a person can have a PhD (specializing in digital circuits) and know no more than what an undergrad knows in another field of EE (example, analog circuits).
There is also a disconnect between academia (where you have the most PhDs) and the industry. I've had classes with professors who had PhDs(one was even an IEEE Fellow), but no concrete understanding of how things go in the real world. During my undergraduate degree, I took classes with part time students who had jobs. To my surprise, some of these students knew way more than the professors, who had only theoretical knowledge in the subject matter. These students didn't do very well in exams but during projects, these students knew how to solve problems. For example, we had a professor who could write complex formulas in filter design but couldn't debug code for a DSP board.
Anyways, my point is that our education system is very messed up. We have been led to believe that getting a higher degree is always the better option. You accumulate knowledge and you accumulate more knowledge before you even learn to use your previous knowledge properly. I've met people with a Master's degree who can solve complex circuit problems or write advanced compiler codes but can't solve a simple circuit problem or code a decent program.
Then again, I boast as if I know all in my field.
FF