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Qualifying exams are somewhat arbitrary. In some universities they are serious and a large portion of the students fail; in some they are basically a formality

Qualifying exams are somewhat arbitrary. In some universities they are serious and a large portion of the students fail; in some they are basically a formality and everyone already knows each other and if the student isn't ready the examiners just delay. Also what constitutes "academic competence" is up to the examiners who may be biased. But IMO this is not a major issue, because I do think for the most part academia still maintains high and fair standards: a majority of examiners have good judgement, and a vast majority of universities will not give a PhD to someone who is not PhD worthy. The fundamental issue with quals, though, is that they are just a really bad way of gauging academic knowledge. Professors should be able to and already do tell if a student is PhD worthy based on everything they've accomplished in grad school: the papers they've published and their thesis. Also, some people do really bad thinking and speaking under pressure, and while that makes them terrible presenters, I don't think it makes them unworthy of a PhD: you can be a terrible presenter but still write great papers and be able to thoroughly communicate your expertise in casual conversation. To me it seems like the one-hour qualifying exam is just an unnecessary stress: at best it reaffirms what the student and advisor already knew, and in the cases I've heard where it doesn't it often turns out there was a serious problem somewhere in the PhD process (you could argue that the qual's purpose is to detect that problem, but then it just becomes a formality again).

etrautmann 4y ago
What? Quals come well before the thesis and sometimes years before first author publications depending on the field.
- tsbischof 4y ago
  Exactly, the PhD is a kind of participation trophy at some point. Quals are the last simple way to decide that someone will not get a PhD.
ramraj07 4y ago
You make many valid points and I want to address some of them here: 1. My belief of what a qualifying exam is that it’s almost the only time an external expert, someone not the advisor, gets an opportunity to gauge the readiness of the student for a PhD. You are correct that a competent unbiased advisor will already know if the student is ready for a PhD but the two adjectives in this sentence make the case for why independent external evaluation is needed in such a case. I worked with advisors who eventually became antagonistic to my interests and I depended on the quals and viva exams to make sure they don’t screw me over. I also lived through multiple generations of PhD students going through this lab via many universities and grad programs, and every program with lax quals only enabled advisors to have outsized influence on the students future (either for better or worse). So hopefully I have made the case for why external evaluation is necessary. With that convinced, let’s then ask how best can external evaluators gauge a PhD student? Written work might not work since you can never tell how much help they had. In fact I feel you can never trust anything that is “take home” Because at the graduate level it’s hard to evaluate an individuals’ contribution to a piece of research. Which only becomes harder in the more collaborative environments of today! So I’ll be curious what you think the solution here is if viva exams are not equitable. 2. You are correct that some people don’t do well under the time pressure of things like quals. But unless there’s a viable solution for problem 1 above, i feel this is an acceptable compromise. This is not an exam where it’s determined you get basic rights, it’s an exam to choose elite members of a society that should be meritoriously selective. And as grueling tests go this seems the lightest! Just an hour of grilling by 4 people in closed doors, and you get Multiple chances and infinite time to prepare! How much simpler can it get? Further, how sure are we that this skill doesn’t indirectly transfer to their future career? You are correct that phds can be productive without ever talking to another human being but doesn’t mean this skill isn’t important or helpful. This is like asking the navy seals training to become less strenuous because it could exclude people and maybe because carrying logs doesn’t directly apply to their future career! I’d argue it does tangentially help and given the lack of alternative testing methods this seems perfectly acceptable.

etrautmann 4y ago

What? Quals come well before the thesis and sometimes years before first author publications depending on the field.

tsbischof 4y ago
Exactly, the PhD is a kind of participation trophy at some point. Quals are the last simple way to decide that someone will not get a PhD.

ramraj07 4y ago

You make many valid points and I want to address some of them here: 1. My belief of what a qualifying exam is that it’s almost the only time an external expert, someone not the advisor, gets an opportunity to gauge the readiness of the student for a PhD. You are correct that a competent unbiased advisor will already know if the student is ready for a PhD but the two adjectives in this sentence make the case for why independent external evaluation is needed in such a case. I worked with advisors who eventually became antagonistic to my interests and I depended on the quals and viva exams to make sure they don’t screw me over. I also lived through multiple generations of PhD students going through this lab via many universities and grad programs, and every program with lax quals only enabled advisors to have outsized influence on the students future (either for better or worse). So hopefully I have made the case for why external evaluation is necessary. With that convinced, let’s then ask how best can external evaluators gauge a PhD student? Written work might not work since you can never tell how much help they had. In fact I feel you can never trust anything that is “take home” Because at the graduate level it’s hard to evaluate an individuals’ contribution to a piece of research. Which only becomes harder in the more collaborative environments of today! So I’ll be curious what you think the solution here is if viva exams are not equitable. 2. You are correct that some people don’t do well under the time pressure of things like quals. But unless there’s a viable solution for problem 1 above, i feel this is an acceptable compromise. This is not an exam where it’s determined you get basic rights, it’s an exam to choose elite members of a society that should be meritoriously selective. And as grueling tests go this seems the lightest! Just an hour of grilling by 4 people in closed doors, and you get Multiple chances and infinite time to prepare! How much simpler can it get? Further, how sure are we that this skill doesn’t indirectly transfer to their future career? You are correct that phds can be productive without ever talking to another human being but doesn’t mean this skill isn’t important or helpful. This is like asking the navy seals training to become less strenuous because it could exclude people and maybe because carrying logs doesn’t directly apply to their future career! I’d argue it does tangentially help and given the lack of alternative testing methods this seems perfectly acceptable.