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"the world’s most respected, business-savvy professors can misjudge companies’ valuations of the doctoral degrees they so thoughtfully hand out" It is impossib
by hapless 13y ago
"the world’s most respected, business-savvy professors can misjudge companies’ valuations of the doctoral degrees they so thoughtfully hand out"
It is impossible to convince a man of something when his salary rides on his not believing it. Your professors have certain incentives to hold particular beliefs about the value of a phD.
There is no polite way to say that, which must be why it was not included in the essay.
- glesica 13y agoThis just isn't true. If anyone was arguing that PhDs in general were worthless, then it would be a very reasonable point to think about. But in this case, it isn't really the PhD itself under discussion, it's the preparation and skills acquired through a course of a PhD. The difference is that the specific nature of a PhD program is pretty flexible. If professors see that their candidates aren't doing well in the job market, they can, and will, make adjustments to their programs.
- javert 13y agoFrom what I understand, professors' salaries normally do not depend on handing out PhDs at all. At least, not once they have tenure. You need to have students to have grants. But the reason you gets grants is to pay your students. So, anticipating that this issue may come up, I don't think that's it, either.
- ak217 13y agoActually, there is a set of incentives for professors to hand out PhDs. Before tenure, professors have to successfully graduate PhD students (or at least get most of the way there), otherwise questions will be raised in tenure review. After tenure, failure to graduate students equates to failure to attract new ones, loss of prestige, loss of connectivity to their academic network by way of a graduated student, etc.
- javert 13y agoRight, which makes my point that they are not handing out PhDs for the sake of their salary. (Settings aside pre-tenure people.)
- sliverstorm 13y agoYou need to have students to help you in your research, and you won't have students if you have a reputation for never ever awarding a PhD. It's a give-and-take relationship.
- javert 13y agoRight, which makes my point that they are not handing out PhDs for the sake of their salary. (Settings aside pre-tenure people.)