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One thing to note: There are a lot of differences between PhDs in different fields of research. Especially in biomed research, PhD students often seem to do ex

by raphman 15y ago

One thing to note: There are a lot of differences between PhDs in different fields of research. Especially in biomed research, PhD students often seem to do extremely specialized research. Therefore, what they learn during their PhD may be much less generalizable than e.g. what CS PhD students learn. I guess it depends on the definition of a PhD whether it is necessary for a certain job or not. Interesting comments here: http://scientopia.org/blogs/science-professor/2011/03/22/rat-race/ http://scientopia.org/blogs/science-professor/2011/03/22/rat...

mvzink 15y ago
I'm still an undergrad and therefore naïve, but I had always thought PhDs were much more about proving they can perform research than "what they learn"
- Radim 15y ago
  You are correct; PhD is a degree where you are expected to demonstrate original research. See http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/ http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/ for a visual guide to academic degrees :)
- raphman 15y ago
  Maybe we should distinguish between the doctorate you get awarded for you PhD thesis (the proof that you can perform research) and the stuff you do during your PhD studies (what you learn). Depending on you advisor(s), your topic, your own knowledge and motivation, and many other factors, you may be able to conduct great research or mediocre research. Depending on how narrowly you focus, you may acquire more focused knowledge or more broad knowledge during your research. In fields like biomed research, you work on a very confined topic within a large team. You may only need to care about your specific experiment. Everything else is nothing you should (or need to) care about. Compare this to a typical CS PhD student at a German university (e.g. me). You more or less define the topic you want to work on by yourself, are required to teach courses, supervise students, occasionally work on a commercial project, and have to learn all that stuff which is necessary for your research, e.g. user studies, statistics, machine learning, electronics, etc. Having a PhD does not necessarily mean that you know how to perform proper research. I know of a good number of PhDs that have little knowledge of core scientific principles like correct attribution. In my opinion, what you learn on your journey to a PhD is much more important (in most cases) than the topic of your PhD thesis.

by raphman 15y ago

mvzink 15y ago

I'm still an undergrad and therefore naïve, but I had always thought PhDs were much more about proving they can perform research than "what they learn"

Radim 15y ago
You are correct; PhD is a degree where you are expected to demonstrate original research. See http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/ http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/ for a visual guide to academic degrees :)
raphman 15y ago
Maybe we should distinguish between the doctorate you get awarded for you PhD thesis (the proof that you can perform research) and the stuff you do during your PhD studies (what you learn). Depending on you advisor(s), your topic, your own knowledge and motivation, and many other factors, you may be able to conduct great research or mediocre research. Depending on how narrowly you focus, you may acquire more focused knowledge or more broad knowledge during your research. In fields like biomed research, you work on a very confined topic within a large team. You may only need to care about your specific experiment. Everything else is nothing you should (or need to) care about. Compare this to a typical CS PhD student at a German university (e.g. me). You more or less define the topic you want to work on by yourself, are required to teach courses, supervise students, occasionally work on a commercial project, and have to learn all that stuff which is necessary for your research, e.g. user studies, statistics, machine learning, electronics, etc. Having a PhD does not necessarily mean that you know how to perform proper research. I know of a good number of PhDs that have little knowledge of core scientific principles like correct attribution. In my opinion, what you learn on your journey to a PhD is much more important (in most cases) than the topic of your PhD thesis.