Yesterday in UE2, Lisa asked "all of you physics PhDs" if we each have a specialty. (She was addressing Hunter and Mac and me, and by the way in doing that she was seamlessly bringing videographers into the conversation, which I am really pleased about.) We explained our specialties, and asked why she wanted to know that. She said she was realizing that she has been thinking of physics PhDs as, "there is a bucket of knowledge, and having a PhD means your bucket is full. Of physics knowledge. You have all of it." To recognize that we had specialties was to recognize that our knowledge actually had some scope (and thus some limits to its scope).
episode: UE2 Wed AM 6/29/11 about 11:00am
Later in the conversation I said what a PhD means to me: documentation that you can sustain an original inquiry into a specific, thus narrow (and actually increasingly narrow as you go) question. I see it as being a lot more like what they might do in this class (studying the energetics of a plucked guitar string, for example) than like assembling a giant compendium of comprehensive knowledge (like the Benchmarks). On reflection I also think a giant significance of a PhD is that it symbolizes full entrance into a particular disciplinary community/culture/class.
What does a PhD mean to you?
I think getting a Ph.D. takes: willingness to significantly delay gratification and a willingness to work really hard. Do you agree?
ReplyDeleteYes, but I don't think that distinguishes it from many other professions. Do you have thoughts about what makes a PhD PhD-specific?
ReplyDeleteHmmm...good question.
ReplyDeleteAt least in the sciences, I think a PhD often means that you have understood the 'scientific method' well enough to do it yourself...over and over and over, constantly refining the question you're answering and how you're answering it. In that sense, I think I agree with the answer you gave in class.
But I guess I also tend to think about what a PhD is _not_. It seems to me that almost always, when someone asks me what I do and I say, "I am a physics professor," and they follow this with, "Does this mean you have a PhD in physics," something happens in the second after I say "yes" in which I suddenly become fifteen feet taller than them and they are in awe of my amazing smartness. (But before, they weren't.)
So I guess I'd say a PhD is not proof that you're smarter than someone who doesn't have a PhD, or proof that you're "really smart" at all. I _do_ think intelligence is a part of getting a PhD, but I think hard work and perseverance is a way bigger part.