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Not everyone is a certified genius like Grigori Perelman who can do great research while living in a vacuum. You need great advisors who will guide you, and fel
by newen 8y ago
Not everyone is a certified genius like Grigori Perelman who can do great research while living in a vacuum. You need great advisors who will guide you, and fellow grad students who you can ask for help and bounce ideas off. The academic enviroment is invaluable for someone doing their PhD, and it's pretty much impossible for someone with somewhat above average intelligence (and let's face it, most PhD's are not geniuses) to do good research with just a computer.
The "all information is free and you can study anything using just a computer" is a stupid meme that doesn't work for the vast majority of people.
- TTPrograms 8y agoMy statement is not that people can't benefit from a PhD, but that it is not a strict requirement. You are presenting a strawman.
- newen 8y agoWhat is that strawman exactly? You are saying that anyone can do PhD level research with just a laptop and the internet. I am saying that that is extremely difficult and impossible for the vast majority of people.
- coolwhhip 8y agoMaybe I’m misreading, but the strawman seems to be that research can be done in a vacuum without collaborating. The parent commenter seems to be suggesting that a PhD isn’t a requirement to work successfully on interesting research problems. It’s possible to go online and read the same papers everyone’s reading. You can still talk to people to get guidance and find out known things that are not published.
- newen 8y agoYa I guess it was something of a strawman. But it's pretty close to the truth since it's very hard to get good guidance outside academia or places like google with lots of phds around.
- p1esk 8y agoPerelman had great advisors and peers at every stage of his education.
- newen 8y agoLike the main guy in Good Will Hunting then ;)