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I'm so sick of "higher" educational institutions pretending they're some bastions of professional knowledge. I continue to toy around with the idea of going bac
by _gabe_ 4y ago
I'm so sick of "higher" educational institutions pretending they're some bastions of professional knowledge. I continue to toy around with the idea of going back to school for a PhD, but then I talk to friends who are or have done that, and their experiences don't sound like anything that would be useful.
I can read a research paper right now (and I do read research papers when they're helpful to the situation at hand). I can write an article, make a video, or share some interesting thing I learned in a professional manner without ever submitting it to a journal. I don't need a PhD to pursue learning as much as I can about the field of Computer Science, and I highly doubt a PhD will offer me any significant advantages in this pursuit. Especially after my experience getting a B.S degree (pun fully intended).
I can't wait for the day when we recognize that educational institutions don't actually signify any more authority than a random person that's devoted years of their life to studying a topic.
And it especially sickens me that this author was dismissed by a "professional" at one of these institutions that was plagiarizing their work. These "professionals" are the same as every other person out there, and the dumb degree really adds nothing.
Nobody cares about your degree.
And yes, I know that there are good professors/researchers out there. But man I'm really sick of these institutions that pretend they hold some higher level of scrutiny to their work. The more I learn about them (and try to replicate the results in their research papers), the more I realize that this whole establishment is rife with shoddy work just like any corporation out there.
- hakunin 4y agoFrom a bystander's perspective (I'm nowhere near a PhD, but have friends who are), I think there's value in learning academic rigor (which is what I think PhD does). I see it like learning to submit a high quality PR into a field of science. You learn to make sure everything you do is well-written, properly backed up, tested, verified, reviewed. There are just way too many ways for humans to come to the wrong conclusions, make unintentional assumptions, or miss alternative explanations. A highly passionate person without academic training is more likely to find themselves falling into these traps. (I'm sure there are notable exceptions). I think with all its flaws, PhD might be the last bastion, in principle, where you're trained to be insanely precise and pedantic. The reality is a lot messier than the ideal, but it's still a valuable pursuit.
- LudwigNagasena 4y agoWhat kind of academic rigor is there in humanities? There is literally no subject with accepted methodology.
- hakunin 4y agoI wasn't talking about humanities, I was talking about the general value of PhD in response to the parent. Don't know what exactly they study in humanities, but I guess at least some of it has to be done with high rigor and precision.
- p1esk 4y agoYou learn to make sure everything you do is well-written, properly backed up, tested, verified, reviewed. In theory, yes, you should. In practice - not necessarily.
- hakunin 4y agoThat's true for everything. And yet we still do… everything.
- fractallyte 4y agoThe point is that institutions are comprised of peers that validate one's work. It's the validation that's important - confirmation from (ostensibly) equals that the work is rigorous and original. In contrast, anyone can go down a delusional rabbit-hole and present it to the world as „truth“, when it's anything but; and then try to pass themselves off as an independent academic. That's just not going to work in Science.
- coldpie 4y agoEvery system has flaws. That doesn't mean all systems are meaningless. It's easy to point out the flaws in a system; fixing them or proposing a new system with fewer flaws is much, much harder.
- ramblerman 4y agoPhDs in the humanities are a net negative to humanity.