[HN Gopher] Meteorology student submits Masters thesis, gets PhD
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Meteorology student submits Masters thesis, gets PhD
Author : herodoturtle
Score : 39 points
Date : 2021-10-04 09:50 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.news24.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.news24.com)
| fastasucan wrote:
| I don't understand how that is possible, and I quite frankly end
| up losing respect for the university system in the countries
| where I read about stuff like that. To get a phd you have to be
| accepted into a doctorate program, which means your master thesis
| should be delivered with good grades. To get your phd you should
| do your work requirements (publishing 3 papers and taking some
| subjects at phd level - where I am from). His master thesis might
| be wonderfull, but it is one body of work, not a position in a
| doctorate program, not published papers and not phd subjects. Is
| the student to skip the whole phd experience now and aim straight
| for tenure? He will miss out on a lot.
| denhaus wrote:
| Personally, as a phd candidate in STEM I think this is awesome.
| I do not care that he "skipped steps" in getting a PhD. His
| contribution to the body of scientific knowledge was deserving
| of a doctorate as determined by experts in the field, no? Who
| cares if you publish 3+ papers if each of those never got cited
| more than 10 times in 10 years and they never had any real
| scientific impact? I know PhDs who simply went through the
| motions at some of the best doctoral STEM programs in the US
| and never made a real scientific contribution despite checking
| off all the boxes.
|
| I guess determining if he "deserves" a PhD depends on what you
| think a PhD is for. If it's for checking off boxes, sitting in
| a room for N years, publishing K papers, taking M number of
| classes etc, then yes, he doesn't deserve it. If you think it's
| about learning how to be an independent researcher and making
| significant scientific contributions, it seems to me like he's
| done quite a bit.
| [deleted]
| fastasucan wrote:
| >His contribution to the body of scientific knowledge was
| deserving of a doctorate as determined by experts in the
| field, no?
|
| This is what I dont agree on. A doctorate is not a prize for
| the best scientific work from a student that year.
| chmsky00 wrote:
| Indeed, degree programs as we know them have a shady
| history where they were often just nonsense credentials the
| general public was too ignorant to invalidate, but they
| were secular, and gained popularity as religions has faded.
|
| There's a long history of payola in university. IMO our
| entire accreditation and credentialing system has so much
| corruption, anything but reproducible STEM education should
| be treated as being of suspect value.
|
| The credential is earned due to social hoop jumping, and
| very specific. It doesn't really say much about general
| intelligence or worker skill. I've worked with PhDs that
| were so obtuse nothing was accomplished.
|
| It's like trying to make a simple knife by first
| bootstrapping a universe to mine engineered carbon steel of
| the purest quality.
|
| In the end political network effects dictate reality. And
| that realm is clearly rife with delusions of grandeur.
| eftychis wrote:
| The guy as noted had/has already published papers in
| renowned journals, and that was a reason for the PhD (see
| last few sentences). I don't think this guy skipped any
| fundamental steps. He probably should have been
| admitted/applied to a PhD to begin with.
| bob229 wrote:
| And it clearly isn't that as they don't award them every
| year do they. Pathetic strawman
| _moof wrote:
| Not taking a position one way or the other here, but I'll point
| out that he has published three papers as primary author and
| coauthored five others.
|
| And from the article: "Barnes said he already had published
| papers in renowned journals by the time he submitted his
| dissertation - one of the reasons why he earned a PhD."
| fastasucan wrote:
| In that case it is truely astonishing, however I cant see why
| he wouldn't benefit from working as a phd under the best
| professors in his field, continuing his work.
| xemdetia wrote:
| Depending on his circumstance why would he stop working
| with professors or as a PhD in the research community? It
| feels like others on this comment thread are making an
| assumption he enrolled as an ordinary student and 'skipped'
| to PhD, and now is about to jettison from academia
| entirely. The article sounds like he has been working in
| his scientific field for some time and is just as likely
| that the master's program was sponsored by his work at that
| site in his field. If you had someone who was working FT
| and stopping/starting through a master's program and at the
| end was more a junior research peer with clear expertise
| than just someone who 'finished a program' and the work had
| enough merit why wouldn't you upgrade it?
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