You're the Dr!

[Mike Oltmans <moltmans@>]

"You're the Dr.: What's as Easy as ABC,
Only a Little Farther Up the Alphabet? A PhD."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A42186-2002Mar17

Apparently you are all wasting your time.  I in particular have been 
wasting lots of my time recently and now, apparently "These days, PhDs 
are like opinions and pie holes -- pretty much everybody's got one."

Strong words coming from someone who advertises in his bio[1] that he 
graduated with "a major in English and a minor in table shuffleboard." 
Oooohh.  Now that's some serious scholarship.  Did he have to discuss 
strategies with his fellow students in Latin or Ancient Greek?

Apparently part of the problem is that there are too many people going 
for PhD's especially since they started giving them to women and 
foreigners (oh, the horror).

According to "Theodore Ziolkowski, past dean of Princeton's graduate 
school ... 'There has been a very distinct change in the requirements, 
and a person getting a PhD today could sometimes not have gotten a PhD 
30 years ago.'"  This point actually seems true to me.  I mean 30 years 
ago I wasn't even 2 yet and many of you just plain weren't.

"And there are fresh fields, such as microbiology, ecology and the 
neurosciences. 'PhDs in computer sciences would have been unheard of 30 
years ago,' says Allen Sanderson of the National Opinion Research 
Center."  Uhhh.  Yeah.  The National Opinion Research Center?  Ok?  Does 
that make him an expert on giving his opinion?  Or did he have to 
research other's opinions on the number of CS PhD's in the 70's?

"So many people have the degrees and they are offered by so many 
different kinds of institutions, maybe the time has come for a new 
degree -- the PhD Plus or the PhD Extreme."  To my advisor and my 
committee, can I please have a PhD Extreme?  Please please pretty please 
(I'd beg in Latin if I knew how)?  I'll be your best friend?  I'll even 
treat you at tonights EXTREME PhD edition of ...

           +-                                                  -+
             girl scout benefit -+-  5:30 pm  -+- 32-G9 lounge
           +-                                                  -+

              For those coming from elsewhere: Building 32 is
               <http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg?selection=32>
          Once you are in 32, just take the G-elevator to the 9th
      floor and we will be in the lounge that you will be looking at
                    <http://projects.csail.mit.edu/gsb>

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/navigator/weeks.htm

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