masters and phds

[geletine]

when someone achieves a good Bachelor's degree , and wants to study a
post graduate degree does it matter where they recieved it?

Ive looked at some post graduate prospectus and they mention a good
bachelor degree is the usual requirements. so one could get a good
result at a ex-polytechnic colledge turned university and go on to
study at a prestigious university?

Also alot of people finish a bachelor degree and do a phd without doing
a masters, i know there is nothing unusual about that, perhaps the
length of time to study a masters is shorter than a phd and the finance
being another.

[John Porcella]

Post by geletine
when someone achieves a good Bachelor's degree , and wants to study a
post graduate degree does it matter where they recieved it?

Maybe, but a candidate's ability to spell and punctuate are probably just as
important given the amount of writing necessary in a thesis.

Post by geletine
Ive looked at some post graduate prospectus and they mention a good
bachelor degree is the usual requirements. so one could get a good
result at a ex-polytechnic colledge turned university and go on to
study at a prestigious university?

There would likely be an interview and a presentation of what the PhD thesis
would be about.

Post by geletine
Also alot of people finish a bachelor degree and do a phd without doing
a masters, i know there is nothing unusual about that, perhaps the
length of time to study a masters is shorter than a phd and the finance
being another.

[John Porcella]

Post by geletine
when someone achieves a good Bachelor's degree , and wants to study a
post graduate degree does it matter where they recieved it?

Maybe, but a candidate's ability to spell and punctuate is probably just

as

important given the amount of writing necessary in a thesis.

Post by geletine
Ive looked at some post graduate prospectus and they mention a good
bachelor degree is the usual requirements. so one could get a good
result at a ex-polytechnic colledge turned university and go on to
study at a prestigious university?

There would likely be an interview and a presentation of what the PhD thesis
would be about.

Post by geletine
Also alot of people finish a bachelor degree and do a phd without doing
a masters, i know there is nothing unusual about that, perhaps the
length of time to study a masters is shorter than a phd and the finance
being another.

--
MESSAGE ENDS.
John Porcella

[Matthew Huntbach]

Post by geletine
Ive looked at some post graduate prospectus and they mention a good
bachelor degree is the usual requirements. so one could get a good
result at a ex-polytechnic colledge turned university and go on to
study at a prestigious university?

Yes, in my experience it's quite common for someone with say a 1st from
an ex-poly to go for a Masters at a more prestigious university.

Post by geletine
Also alot of people finish a bachelor degree and do a phd without doing
a masters, i know there is nothing unusual about that, perhaps the
length of time to study a masters is shorter than a phd and the finance
being another.

A Masters and a PhD are two completely separate things. A Masters, like
a BSc, is a taught degree, though usually with an extensive project
component.

A PhD is nothing like that - it's done by private study only, and is
only awarded for coming up with new knowledge. You should only do a PhD
if you enjoy doing research and really want to do it for the sake of
it. It's unlikely to help you in the jobs market, unless you want to
become a university lecturer. A practical Masters, however, often adds
useful extra skills wich an employer would value.

Matthew Huntbach

[Richard Smith]

Post by Matthew Huntbach
You should only do a PhD
if you enjoy doing research and really want to do it for the sake of
it. It's unlikely to help you in the jobs market, unless you want to
become a university lecturer.

Some of the PhD students around here are planning to get jobs at private
labs once they graduate. They claim that if you're willing to move to
the US a new PhD will start at $120000 working for a company like
Google. The UK salaries are supposed to be lower but still not bad.

I have no idea if this is true, but certainly people do PhDs without
intending to stay in academia.

One reason to go straight into a PhD and not do an MSc is that it is
much much easier to get funding for a PhD than it is for an MSc. If you
need to catch up on taught course material then they will often allow
you to spend your first year of the PhD sitting in on MSc lectures.
(But you won't take the exams and if you quit after one year you won't
have any qualification. If you quit after two years they will probably
give you an MPhil.)

[Matthew Huntbach]

Post by Richard Smith

Post by Matthew Huntbach
You should only do a PhD
if you enjoy doing research and really want to do it for the sake of
it. It's unlikely to help you in the jobs market, unless you want to
become a university lecturer.

Some of the PhD students around here are planning to get jobs at private
labs once they graduate. They claim that if you're willing to move to the
US a new PhD will start at $120000 working for a company like Google. The
UK salaries are supposed to be lower but still not bad.
I have no idea if this is true, but certainly people do PhDs without
intending to stay in academia.

Maybe, but for the purposes of the target audience of this newsgroup,
it's important to point out that a PhD is not like "more of a BSc".
It's a qualification gained by doing research, not a qualification gained
by being taught. So it's essentially specialist preparation for a
research career, and not general education for anyone wanting "a good job".
This doesn't seem to be widely appreciated in the world outside higher
education. In particular, having a "PhD in X", where X is some subject
area does not mean you have studied the whole of X for three more
years than you would have done had you done a a BSc/BA in it - it means
you have done some narrow research in one very specific area of X.

Yes, a PhD may be of help in careers outside academia which are
specifically research-oriented. But that's only a small part of the
general jobs market. In other employment areas there's a suspicion
that people with PhDs are "perpetual student" types who aren't
fitted to the "real world" of business and have spent three years
locked in a lab to try and escape from it. Thus my warning - don't
do one unless you really, really want to, and will enjoy doing it
for its own sake not because "it will get me a better job".

It's good to hear that Google are actively looking for people with
PhDs (presumably in Computer Science or similar). I suspect in practice
there's only a small number of big companies doing enough R&D in the
area to be doing the same. I know that the big drugs companies do
enough R&D to be good recruiters of Life Sciences and Chemistry
PhDs. Most employers, however, don't fall into this sort of category,
and even those companies that do aren't going to be looking for PhDs
for all the non-R&D jobs they have going.

Post by Richard Smith
One reason to go straight into a PhD and not do an MSc is that it is much
much easier to get funding for a PhD than it is for an MSc. If you need to
catch up on taught course material then they will often allow you to spend
your first year of the PhD sitting in on MSc lectures. (But you won't take
the exams and if you quit after one year you won't have any qualification.
If you quit after two years they will probably give you an MPhil.)

As I said, an MSc is extra taught material, and is thus much more just
an extension of the BSc. So the choice between doing an MSc and doing
a PhD should be on the grounds of whether you just want to be taught some
extra material on the subject, or whether you want to train to be a
researcher in that subject.

An MPhil is generally a sort of consolation prize for someone who's
started a PhD, but just hasn't come up with the new knowledge required
to get the degree. Sometimes research is like that, you start it off
but just don't get anywhere. So a PhD is risky as well, sometimes
whether you hit on a good research topic and get something going in
it is a matter of luck rather than skill.

Matthew Huntbach

[Dr A. N. Walker]

[...] In particular, having a "PhD in X", where X is some subject
area does not mean you have studied the whole of X for three more
years than you would have done had you done a a BSc/BA in it - it means
you have done some narrow research in one very specific area of X.

Yes. The expectation is that you are now a "world expert"
in that very narrow topic, but you would typically still have an
awful lot to learn to be a "world expert" in X at large. Indeed,
these days X's like maths or CS are so large that *no-one* is an
expert in the whole subject, and it's pretty hard just to keep up
with your own specialism.

Post by Richard Smith
One reason to go straight into a PhD and not do an MSc is that it is much
much easier to get funding for a PhD than it is for an MSc. If you need to
catch up on taught course material then they will often allow you to spend
your first year of the PhD sitting in on MSc lectures. (But you won't take
the exams and if you quit after one year you won't have any qualification.
If you quit after two years they will probably give you an MPhil.)

All of this is very possibly true, but needs qualification.
The availability of PhD/MSc funds varies *a lot* between subjects,
as does where these funds come from -- research councils, industry,
charities, univ or departmental funds, other govt agencies, ....
Also, the relationship between MSc [and also 4-yr u/g masters, etc
-- MMath, MSci, MEng, MRes] and MPhil/PhD varies a lot between univs
and between subjects. It's a very tangled tale. But see below.

An MPhil is generally a sort of consolation prize for someone who's
started a PhD, but just hasn't come up with the new knowledge required
to get the degree. Sometimes research is like that, you start it off
but just don't get anywhere. So a PhD is risky as well, sometimes
whether you hit on a good research topic and get something going in
it is a matter of luck rather than skill.

This is true. But it's not *just* luck -- basically, you are
a fool if you embark on a PhD that requires you to solve some problem
that lots of [other] very clever people have worked on for ages and
failed to solve. Your supervisor should be steering you towards topics
that "pick off" some problem that just needs a "dogsbody", or where
you're part of a team that is making serious inroads into some problem
and can share in the glory. This is not a recipe that leads to *good*
research, however; that nearly always has to wait until you have an
established post.

But times are changing. Somewhat. Firstly, the Bologna Process
[qv] is slowly changing and unifying the way all univs across Europe
award degrees, by standardising what is meant by [eg] an MSc, or a PhD.
This is pretty-much along extant UK lines, so is a case in which Europe
is falling into step with us; but there will still be some changes here.
Secondly, one of the important recent changes to the whole structure is
that [many? all?] PhD programmes are now *required* to include an element
of "taught course". At the least, this should include instruction in
the processes of research, how to use libraries/IT/etc, how to write
papers, give presentations, perhaps how to mark u/g work, give tutorials,
etc. It may well also include "conversion" material or other subject-
specific material [eg from a nearby MSc course] to enable you to get
started.

Thirdly, I think it is becoming recognised that the old-style
"do lots of original research or else ..." was too draconian. One
friend from my time as a PhD student was hung out to dry when, a couple
of days before his PhD viva, some new observational results came out
which blew his research sky-high. Three years down the drain, and he
essentially had to start again. A few years later, I was on an appeal
cttee when a student appealed because her thesis had been held up by
the examiners -- not her fault at all -- and by the time of her oral
the external said that her results [in sociology] were too old to be
useful. It was obviously very unfair, but the external couldn't be
shifted, and there was nothing we could do. But it's not really in
anyone's interests that a student should work away for three years or
more, do competent work, and then be told "sorry, no PhD for you, go
away". So increasingly the regulations are moving towards the notion
that a PhD is *training* in research, not *necessarily* leading to
"new results". But the precise rules still vary a lot between univs.

[Ian/Cath Ford]

On Tue, 25 Oct 2005 13:24:52 +0100, Matthew Huntbach

Post by Matthew Huntbach
Yes, a PhD may be of help in careers outside academia which are
specifically research-oriented. But that's only a small part of the
general jobs market.

There's some element of advantage in teaching actually - more so
scientists I think. Some schools seem to quite like have a Doctor or
two on their staff.

Mind you, a pulse is the main prerequisite for science teachers :-)

Post by Matthew Huntbach
In other employment areas there's a suspicion
that people with PhDs are "perpetual student" types who aren't
fitted to the "real world" of business and have spent three years
locked in a lab to try and escape from it.

Which perhaps says something about teaching being not quite the real
world...

Ian
--
Ian, Cath, Eoin and Calum Ford
Beccles, Suffolk, UK

I loved the word you wrote to me/But that was bloody yesterday

There's no e-mail address. We can talk here and go back to your place later