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On 10/28/2013 12:33 PM, Daniel Barrett wrote: > On October 27, 2013, Rich Braun wrote: >> The diploma that seems to be drying up in recent years is the >> Master's. Major universities are steering people directly into PhD >> programs, and not many jobs out there target master's degree holders. > Masters degrees are also extremely variable, ranging from 1-year > diploma mills (even at some well-known universities) to multi-year, > near-Ph.D. research. And even within the same school, you can have 5-6 > different computer-related masters degrees with similar names but > wildly different levels of technical emphasis (hello Carnegie-Mellon). > >> However the problem with the PhD is it pigeon-holes you into a >> specific career path, one which may not be the highest-paying in >> future years. > Perhaps that's what you have encountered, but in my experience, it > varies tremendously from employer to employer. The guy who coded the > most innovative manufacturing system in our company has a Ph.D. in > cognitive science, a largely unrelated field. On the flip side, I've > walked into (and out of) interviews when the first words out of the > idiot manager's mouth were, "So, you've been in school all your > life. Have you ever done anything?" (I have a Ph.D. + 15 years > of industry.) > > At a good company, "Ph.D." on a candidate's resume implies "smart" and > "able to work independently." There's a lot of variability within > those descriptors: someone who works well independently might be good > OR bad at working on teams, for example. And one does meet the > occasional "ivory tower" stereotype who is all ideas and no > practicality. But Ph.D's come in all shapes & sizes, just like any > other group. A senior VP at IBM mentioned last year after IBM acquired Algorithmics that they doubled the number of math PhDs in IBM. (additionally the company president also has a math PhD). When I joined the Boston office 3 out of the 5 employees had PhDs. Our company is a financial risk-management software company. -- Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org> Boston Linux and Unix PGP key id:3BC1EB90 PGP Key fingerprint: 49E2 C52A FC5A A31F 8D66 C0AF 7CEA 30FC 3BC1 EB90
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