4 ms·

Excellent point, and I can't help but agree. I guess my view on it is a bit skewed since with while pursuing an undergrad degree, it's hard to be taken serious

Excellent point, and I can't help but agree. I guess my view on it is a bit skewed since with while pursuing an undergrad degree, it's hard to be taken seriously. In most subject areas here, depending on the school, you'd need to get sponsored by an employer to have the schooling itself paid for. Unless you're on a full scholarship or having someone else pay it, you're subtracting 20-50K from that 54K salary. That, and personally, I'm just not an academic. I learn faster on my own and from a blog or lynda.com than I do from an actual course... Even now, I'd either pursue an MS for pure tech core knowledge to build bleeding edge tech around or a top 10 MBA -- but that would be purely to meet and work with the individuals that worked hard enough to get to the same point. Given the scenario you've outlined however, that sounds like a perfect setup. It'd be even more perfect if one could study something in the field related to their startup project and learn subject matter directly related to their business ventures 24/7

FrojoS 15y ago
Come to Germany, Switzerland or any other country with the european Dr. system then. You don't have to take any classes or pay tuition. In fact, you are not a student. We don't call them students and we don't treat them as students. But watch out for an appropriate Professor! If you're lucky you don't have to do any teaching. This is usually the case for non-university research institutes like those who belong to Max-Planck, Fraunhofer or Helmholtz. At universities it depends. In some cases, TA'ing alone can be a fulltime job. Other professors see you as cheap labour and you have to do lots of work for them that you're neither qualified nor motivated to. Examples could be applying to grands, doing PR or managing the labs computer network. I've lately seen many top tier professor and students from the US coming to Germany. Part of it, I think is that the government has invested a lot more money on carefully chosen projects in an effort to catch up with the US. Another reason, is that they have become a lot opener to non German speaking scientist. When I took classes two years ago, even the young Professors where all German. But recently, I hardly see a German post-doc or Professor landing a job. They are all foreigners. Anyway, in my experience, the German Diploma and Doctorate Systems is perfect for people who like to learn by them self. For the Diploma, you have lots of choices after the first years and often there is only one final exam. No assignments or midterms. You can pass a class with an A* without knowing how the Prof. looks like. How you learn the required content is totally up to you. I've often chosen good American books and video lectures over the lectures here. And again, for the Dr. you can do what ever you like as long as your advisor is cool with it. Actually, I found your quote quite confusing. "I'm just not an academic. I learn faster on my own and from a blog or lynda.com than I do from an actual course..." English is not my first language but academia = higher education / research, right? To me this is almost a synonym with learning and discovering on your own. PS: Its all not roses and unicorns, though. For instance, becoming a Professor right after your Dr. is very uncommon if not impossible. A US Phd from a top tier school usually is worth a bit more.

FrojoS 15y ago

Come to Germany, Switzerland or any other country with the european Dr. system then. You don't have to take any classes or pay tuition. In fact, you are not a student. We don't call them students and we don't treat them as students. But watch out for an appropriate Professor! If you're lucky you don't have to do any teaching. This is usually the case for non-university research institutes like those who belong to Max-Planck, Fraunhofer or Helmholtz. At universities it depends. In some cases, TA'ing alone can be a fulltime job. Other professors see you as cheap labour and you have to do lots of work for them that you're neither qualified nor motivated to. Examples could be applying to grands, doing PR or managing the labs computer network. I've lately seen many top tier professor and students from the US coming to Germany. Part of it, I think is that the government has invested a lot more money on carefully chosen projects in an effort to catch up with the US. Another reason, is that they have become a lot opener to non German speaking scientist. When I took classes two years ago, even the young Professors where all German. But recently, I hardly see a German post-doc or Professor landing a job. They are all foreigners. Anyway, in my experience, the German Diploma and Doctorate Systems is perfect for people who like to learn by them self. For the Diploma, you have lots of choices after the first years and often there is only one final exam. No assignments or midterms. You can pass a class with an A* without knowing how the Prof. looks like. How you learn the required content is totally up to you. I've often chosen good American books and video lectures over the lectures here. And again, for the Dr. you can do what ever you like as long as your advisor is cool with it. Actually, I found your quote quite confusing. "I'm just not an academic. I learn faster on my own and from a blog or lynda.com than I do from an actual course..." English is not my first language but academia = higher education / research, right? To me this is almost a synonym with learning and discovering on your own. PS: Its all not roses and unicorns, though. For instance, becoming a Professor right after your Dr. is very uncommon if not impossible. A US Phd from a top tier school usually is worth a bit more.