7 ms·

> Master's thesis I don't doubt this at all, and I have no doubt that GPT-3 with a bit of human editing can spit out something better than the lower third of m

> Master's thesis I don't doubt this at all, and I have no doubt that GPT-3 with a bit of human editing can spit out something better than the lower third of masters students at corn row colleges. Masters degrees are cash cows, which is why no one in unregulated industries cares about them. People in regulated/unionized industries also don't actually care; even educators, who at least nominally see intrinsic value in education, go to borderline diploma mills to get that union-mandated raise at minimal effort.

derefr 5y ago
How do you feel about doctorates?
- throwawaygh 5y ago
  Depends. University of Phoenix awards doctorates that take 3-4 years (HUGE red flag -- the best and brightest phd students might get out in 4 years if everything goes perfectly; an "expected time to graduation" of anything less than 5 years is almost certainly a worthless degree). Those doctorates don't require much more than taking some coursework and paying a boatload in tuition. Basically an expensive and length online masters program. Not worth the paper they're printed on, unless you're employed by the government or in a union job that mandates raises for education attainment. As a general rule of thumb, PhDs from R01 universities that are paid for by the university through research assistantships or teaching assistantships are generally a good signal of at least minimal training in research skills. Another good general rule of thumb is that paying for a PhD -- beyond perhaps some MD/PhDs or maybe nursing phds, stuff like that -- is always a good sign of someone who has both a meaningless degree and also poor reasoning/research skills. But anyways, real doctorates outside of a few fields (e.g., pure math) usually come with a non-trivial publication record that speaks for itself. You don't even need to know that the person has a doctorate; you can just read their papers and a rec letter from an advisor describing the student's role in each paper. (I'm excluding discussion of professional degrees like JDs, PharmDs, etc. which are technically doctorates but sort of their own class.)
  - thebooktocome 5y ago
    NB: I'm only speaking about the math doctorate as it currently stands in the United States. Due to the current market saturation of math doctorates, any pure mathematics PhD worth the paper its printed on will also probably come with a non-trivial publication record. The exceptions I can think of are high-risk high-reward areas like cutting-edge number theory (I had a friend go eight years without publishing, which, yikes, but his thesis was semi-revolutionary (or so I'm told)) or, I guess, suitably abstract category theory (though the people I follow in this area seem to publish lots of interesting papers, like the Baez school or the homotopy type theory people; your mileage may vary). It's really too bad. One wonders why we can't simply ax the entire advisor-candidate system (with all its myriad opportunities for physical, emotional, and even sexual abuse) and certify new candidates by saying: "You're a doctor of mathematics when you get five professors to sign off on 3-5 papers you've had published."
    - derefr 5y ago
      > certify new candidates by saying: "You're a doctor of mathematics when you get five professors to sign off on 3-5 papers you've had published." Or one big one. Basically, take the "honorary doctorates" some Universities give out to people retrospectively to people who have made major contributions to their fields; do it more often; and then make it the only path to getting a doctorate, such that they're no longer "honorary" at all.
  - lyaa 5y ago
    Length of PhD programs is an indicator that should be considered in context. UK Universities, for example, often have research PhD programs that take 3 years to complete and they are legitimate.
    - throwawaygh 5y ago
      Yes, my comment is specific to US (where, additionally, it's somewhat uncommon to have a masters degree prior to starting the phd).
  - hellbannedguy 5y ago
bjt 5y ago
> ... masters students at corn row colleges. First time I've heard the term "corn row colleges". Google's not bringing up anything that looks relevant. I suggest picking something else. Given that "cornrows" are a predominantly black hairstyle, the term reads like a racial slur.
- aliswe 5y ago
  nono, it means the long line of colleges that are virtually indistinguishable from eachother.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  No meaning in the cornfields, ie second tier state universities.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  I (non-American, not a native English speaker) thought it was a pejorative reference to rural universities; ("hick" / "rube") state universities of Midwestern states etc.
- throwawaygh 5y ago
  The name originates as a perforative for small tuition-dependent non-research teaching colleges. Those colleges mostly catered to pastors, teachers, etc. and were located in small towns. The historical reasons that these institutions are now "in the corn fields" provides an interesting topic for historical inquiry. Perhaps many are in old rail-road or factory towns that have since languished, but schools that were similar at time of founding and didn't die are in industrial and post-industrial hubs where they attracting the attention needed to thrive. Who knows. The point is that they are small, inconsequential institutions that are predominately located in rural and semi-rural towns.' The name now includes small state schools -- usually branch campuses with lower enrollment and no major (R1) research output. (NB: corn row colleges are also by definition non-elite, so small liberal arts colleges with billion dollar endowments which might otherwise count, don't). Many such institutions have since started offering graduate (or at least non-bachelors) degrees and certificates that are somehow even more worthless than their undergraduate programs. Apparently the name has a lot of different meanings these days -- see sibling comments -- but it has DEFINITELY never been meant as a racial pejorative. If anything, exactly the opposite, since most of those "crap-tier midwestern/southern colleges" cater to 99.99% WASP social networks (the P is even explicit).
wolverine876 5y ago
> Masters degrees are cash cows, which is why no one in unregulated industries cares about them. People in regulated/unionized industries also don't actually care... People don't care about masters degrees engineering, law, business, art, etc. etc.? Try applying for many jobs without one, or with one from lower-ranking colleges. The Chronicle of Higher Education article recently on the HN front page said that masters in some fields, they give the example of 'positive psychology', are indeed cash cows. But in the example, that degree was not part of the actual Department of Psychology, which is taken very seriously.
- fighterpilot 5y ago
  In engineering and financial services, my experience is that they don't care. Some weight is given to a PhD but not a Masters.
- throwawaygh 5y ago
  Engineering and CS masters are 100% cash cows that no one cares about. I promise you. I haven't even heard of a Masters in Law (law degrees are doctorates), but I can't imagine it's worth the paper it's printed on. MBAs are worthless unless they're from a few good places, and even then the brand and networking does a lot of the lifting.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    > law degrees are doctorates Law degrees are called Juris Doctor but are professional degrees, like MBAs. You aren't required to publish original research (afaik) and in the US they were formerly Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) and then renamed (as I understand it). The doctorate is Doctor of Juridical Science (J.S.D.). You can also get a Master of Law (LL.M.).
CRConrad 5y ago
> Masters degrees are cash cows, which is why no one in unregulated industries cares about them. So, uh, is Business Administration a regulated industry?
- throwawaygh 5y ago
  No one cares about MBAs. The networks can be helpful, but, unlike JDs/PhamDs/etc., an MBA from a no-name college & weak alumni network isn't worth the paper isn't printed on.
- sellyme 5y ago
  ...is it even an industry?
OminousWeapons 5y ago
> Masters degrees are cash cows, which is why no one in unregulated industries cares about them. People in regulated/unionized industries also don't actually care; even educators, who at least nominally see intrinsic value in education, go to borderline diploma mills to get that union-mandated raise at minimal effort. I don't mean this rudely, but it is attitudes like this which cause the CS interviewing process to be 100X more painful than the interviewing process in any other field: "I don't trust your credential so I demand you prove your competence to me on the spot and let's do 5 rounds of interviews just to be sure."
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
  I've found very limited correlation between credentials and relevant skills. In CS, the actually important skills are often self-taught or gained through experience.
- quotemstr 5y ago
  > I don't trust your credential so I demand you prove your competence to me on the spot Well, yeah?
- throwawaygh 5y ago
  CS definitely isn't the only field where Master's degrees don't really confer any additional trust.
- native_samples 5y ago
  But that happens because of the common experience interviewers have of interviewing someone with a PhD or (even worse) various corporate credentials and discovering they can't actually create and compile a program that loops over an array.
jimmaswell 5y ago
Why is a Master's not seen as at least marginally better than a Bachelor's?

derefr 5y ago

How do you feel about doctorates?

throwawaygh 5y ago
Depends. University of Phoenix awards doctorates that take 3-4 years (HUGE red flag -- the best and brightest phd students might get out in 4 years if everything goes perfectly; an "expected time to graduation" of anything less than 5 years is almost certainly a worthless degree). Those doctorates don't require much more than taking some coursework and paying a boatload in tuition. Basically an expensive and length online masters program. Not worth the paper they're printed on, unless you're employed by the government or in a union job that mandates raises for education attainment. As a general rule of thumb, PhDs from R01 universities that are paid for by the university through research assistantships or teaching assistantships are generally a good signal of at least minimal training in research skills. Another good general rule of thumb is that paying for a PhD -- beyond perhaps some MD/PhDs or maybe nursing phds, stuff like that -- is always a good sign of someone who has both a meaningless degree and also poor reasoning/research skills. But anyways, real doctorates outside of a few fields (e.g., pure math) usually come with a non-trivial publication record that speaks for itself. You don't even need to know that the person has a doctorate; you can just read their papers and a rec letter from an advisor describing the student's role in each paper. (I'm excluding discussion of professional degrees like JDs, PharmDs, etc. which are technically doctorates but sort of their own class.)
- thebooktocome 5y ago
  NB: I'm only speaking about the math doctorate as it currently stands in the United States. Due to the current market saturation of math doctorates, any pure mathematics PhD worth the paper its printed on will also probably come with a non-trivial publication record. The exceptions I can think of are high-risk high-reward areas like cutting-edge number theory (I had a friend go eight years without publishing, which, yikes, but his thesis was semi-revolutionary (or so I'm told)) or, I guess, suitably abstract category theory (though the people I follow in this area seem to publish lots of interesting papers, like the Baez school or the homotopy type theory people; your mileage may vary). It's really too bad. One wonders why we can't simply ax the entire advisor-candidate system (with all its myriad opportunities for physical, emotional, and even sexual abuse) and certify new candidates by saying: "You're a doctor of mathematics when you get five professors to sign off on 3-5 papers you've had published."
  - derefr 5y ago
    > certify new candidates by saying: "You're a doctor of mathematics when you get five professors to sign off on 3-5 papers you've had published." Or one big one. Basically, take the "honorary doctorates" some Universities give out to people retrospectively to people who have made major contributions to their fields; do it more often; and then make it the only path to getting a doctorate, such that they're no longer "honorary" at all.
- lyaa 5y ago
  Length of PhD programs is an indicator that should be considered in context. UK Universities, for example, often have research PhD programs that take 3 years to complete and they are legitimate.
  - throwawaygh 5y ago
    Yes, my comment is specific to US (where, additionally, it's somewhat uncommon to have a masters degree prior to starting the phd).
- hellbannedguy 5y ago

bjt 5y ago

> ... masters students at corn row colleges. First time I've heard the term "corn row colleges". Google's not bringing up anything that looks relevant. I suggest picking something else. Given that "cornrows" are a predominantly black hairstyle, the term reads like a racial slur.

aliswe 5y ago
nono, it means the long line of colleges that are virtually indistinguishable from eachother.
selimthegrim 5y ago
No meaning in the cornfields, ie second tier state universities.
CRConrad 5y ago
I (non-American, not a native English speaker) thought it was a pejorative reference to rural universities; ("hick" / "rube") state universities of Midwestern states etc.
throwawaygh 5y ago
The name originates as a perforative for small tuition-dependent non-research teaching colleges. Those colleges mostly catered to pastors, teachers, etc. and were located in small towns. The historical reasons that these institutions are now "in the corn fields" provides an interesting topic for historical inquiry. Perhaps many are in old rail-road or factory towns that have since languished, but schools that were similar at time of founding and didn't die are in industrial and post-industrial hubs where they attracting the attention needed to thrive. Who knows. The point is that they are small, inconsequential institutions that are predominately located in rural and semi-rural towns.' The name now includes small state schools -- usually branch campuses with lower enrollment and no major (R1) research output. (NB: corn row colleges are also by definition non-elite, so small liberal arts colleges with billion dollar endowments which might otherwise count, don't). Many such institutions have since started offering graduate (or at least non-bachelors) degrees and certificates that are somehow even more worthless than their undergraduate programs. Apparently the name has a lot of different meanings these days -- see sibling comments -- but it has DEFINITELY never been meant as a racial pejorative. If anything, exactly the opposite, since most of those "crap-tier midwestern/southern colleges" cater to 99.99% WASP social networks (the P is even explicit).

wolverine876 5y ago

> Masters degrees are cash cows, which is why no one in unregulated industries cares about them. People in regulated/unionized industries also don't actually care... People don't care about masters degrees engineering, law, business, art, etc. etc.? Try applying for many jobs without one, or with one from lower-ranking colleges. The Chronicle of Higher Education article recently on the HN front page said that masters in some fields, they give the example of 'positive psychology', are indeed cash cows. But in the example, that degree was not part of the actual Department of Psychology, which is taken very seriously.

fighterpilot 5y ago
In engineering and financial services, my experience is that they don't care. Some weight is given to a PhD but not a Masters.
throwawaygh 5y ago
Engineering and CS masters are 100% cash cows that no one cares about. I promise you. I haven't even heard of a Masters in Law (law degrees are doctorates), but I can't imagine it's worth the paper it's printed on. MBAs are worthless unless they're from a few good places, and even then the brand and networking does a lot of the lifting.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  > law degrees are doctorates Law degrees are called Juris Doctor but are professional degrees, like MBAs. You aren't required to publish original research (afaik) and in the US they were formerly Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) and then renamed (as I understand it). The doctorate is Doctor of Juridical Science (J.S.D.). You can also get a Master of Law (LL.M.).

CRConrad 5y ago

> Masters degrees are cash cows, which is why no one in unregulated industries cares about them. So, uh, is Business Administration a regulated industry?

throwawaygh 5y ago
No one cares about MBAs. The networks can be helpful, but, unlike JDs/PhamDs/etc., an MBA from a no-name college & weak alumni network isn't worth the paper isn't printed on.
sellyme 5y ago
...is it even an industry?

OminousWeapons 5y ago

> Masters degrees are cash cows, which is why no one in unregulated industries cares about them. People in regulated/unionized industries also don't actually care; even educators, who at least nominally see intrinsic value in education, go to borderline diploma mills to get that union-mandated raise at minimal effort. I don't mean this rudely, but it is attitudes like this which cause the CS interviewing process to be 100X more painful than the interviewing process in any other field: "I don't trust your credential so I demand you prove your competence to me on the spot and let's do 5 rounds of interviews just to be sure."

tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
I've found very limited correlation between credentials and relevant skills. In CS, the actually important skills are often self-taught or gained through experience.
quotemstr 5y ago
> I don't trust your credential so I demand you prove your competence to me on the spot Well, yeah?
throwawaygh 5y ago
CS definitely isn't the only field where Master's degrees don't really confer any additional trust.
native_samples 5y ago
But that happens because of the common experience interviewers have of interviewing someone with a PhD or (even worse) various corporate credentials and discovering they can't actually create and compile a program that loops over an array.

jimmaswell 5y ago

Why is a Master's not seen as at least marginally better than a Bachelor's?