3 ms·
Stil pretty ubiquitous, though there are lovely exceptions like tenured MIT professor Ed Fredkin (passed away last month) with no college education at all! Ed
by gumby 3y ago
Stil pretty ubiquitous, though there are lovely exceptions like tenured MIT professor Ed Fredkin (passed away last month) with no college education at all!
Ed passed away in June month, but he's been mentioned frequently on HN: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=fredkin https://hn.algolia.com/?q=fredkin
- nextos 3y agoLess extreme, but Simon Peyton Jones never did a PhD. Yet he eventually became a Lecturer and a Professor at UCL and Glasgow, respectively: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Peyton_Jones#Education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Peyton_Jones#Education
- 13of40 3y agoConsider the old joke... Q: What do you call a person with 18 years of education and a freshly minted certificate declaring them a distinguished Master in their field? A: That new guy.
- cafard 3y agoIf I remember the obituary correctly, Saul Kripke's terminal degree was a B.A.
- gs17 3y agoUnfortunately, accreditation can make that difficult now.
- gumby 3y agoInstitutions like MIT (where Fredkin was) don't really care that much about accreditation. Is anyone going to doubt your degree (or deny you a PE) if MIT decided to swap out a class that the accreditation society thought should be a requirement? I was on the board of a private (primary) school and accreditation was make or break for it. But one of the values of the high reputation institutions is that they can afford to take chances: having faculty with "out there" opinions, some unorthodox faculty choices etc. Honestly they should be taking more chances.
- gs17 3y agoHard for it to be "ubiquitous" when 99% of schools would be risking everything to attempt it.