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A PhD in the US requires a lot of coursework, aside from research. Perhaps, she is interested in that. Otherwise, some universities, especially in EU, offer PhD
by nextos 1y ago
A PhD in the US requires a lot of coursework, aside from research. Perhaps, she is interested in that. Otherwise, some universities, especially in EU, offer PhDs by publication. She could simply wrap up her counter-example publication (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2502.06137 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2502.06137) as a thesis and possibly graduate. Sometimes, you can even do this without a supervisor.
- xg15 1y agoSounds as if she even has a potential supervisor: > “It took me a while to convince Ruixiang Zhang [the professor of the course where the problem had been posed] that my proposal was actually correct,” Cairo says > At the University of Maryland, she will continue working under the supervision of Zhang. “He helped me so much, and I’m really grateful. Beyond his class, which I loved, he spent countless hours tutoring me,” she recalls.
- pclmulqdq 1y agoPhD by publication usually takes a bit more work. I think they tend to want 3 related papers in a field.
- stogot 1y agoWhat level or type of publication is required?
- pclmulqdq 1y agoThey must be peer-reviewed journal papers and I believe they tend to prefer if at least one is well-cited or significant, especially if you have only three papers. It is generally harder to get a PhD by publication than to get a PhD the normal way.
- almostgotcaught 1y agoThat's a rule of thumb for applied sciences. Plenty of theory PhDs graduate with 1 or 0 papers.
- pclmulqdq 1y agoNobody gets a PhD by publication with 0 publications. This is usually a backdoor for people who have done a lot of work in a field, certainly far more than a PhD thesis, and have just never gotten the credential.
- almostgotcaught 1y ago> Nobody gets a PhD by publication with 0 publications. Do you have a PhD from a theory department? I do. You're wrong.
- pclmulqdq 1y agoLots of people get PhDs with no publications. Nobody gets a PhD by publication without publications. It's literally axiomatic.
- almostgotcaught 1y agoIt's amazing how many people on hn are experts on things they do not have the qualifications to be expert on. > It's literally axiomatic. You've made up some axiomatic definition of "by publication" that does not bear any resemblance to the actual definition. Consider that it's possible to 1. Submit a preprint to arxiv and have it count 2. Submit a preprint to a journal and defend before it accepted (or rejected) 3. Not submit anything anywhere and have the PhD itself count (almost all PhDs get an ORCID)
- pclmulqdq 1y agoAre you aware that "PhD by publication" is a real thing that is a separate path than a normal PhD? It is relatively common for schools in some European countries to offer these, but not that common outside Europe. This is a process where you can write your "dissertation" by putting an intro and a conclusion on ~3 papers you have already published and get a PhD that way. You enroll in the school for ~3 months, write the missing parts, and that's it. This is a flexible path to a PhD for industry researchers or other people who have a lot of expertise and have pushed the boundaries of a field but did not do a formal PhD program. I have never heard of anyone doing this with ArXiV preprints or any school accepting this path if they are not referreed papers. I would love to see an actual counterexample if you have one.
- skissane 1y agoA PhD by publication sounds very similar to a higher doctorate (DSc, DLitt, etc). Substantive (as opposed to honoris causa) higher doctorates are awarded based on publication record only. To be eligible for a substantive higher doctorate, you generally are expected to have a PhD first - but it might not be an absolute requirement. You’d generally expect a bunch of papers, but in principle a single publication (if sufficiently groundbreaking) could be enough. While this is very impressive for a 17 year old (I wish I could have done that at 17, or at any other age for that matter), it probably isn’t significant enough for a higher doctorate all by itself. If she’d proved P=NP, different story. (Who knows, maybe she shall-well, probably not, but I’d be very happy to be proven wrong about that.)