This Professor only has a PhD degree | Hacker News Reader

This Professor only has a PhD degree

earthsciences.hku.hk

196 pointsformatjam83 comments

I have an MSc in Computer Science but lack a BSc or A-levels.

I was homeless and sleeping rough when my peers were in secondary education, I was living in squats and hitch-hiking around the UK when they were in university.

Being self-taught, I applied for the MSc after 15 years experience as it was a source of personal anxiety for me to lead large technical projects in which almost every other person was highly educated (MSc or PhD) and those that were not had a BSc. I felt a constant career vertigo in my position, due to not feeling sure in my abilities.

During the MSc I struggled with revision technique and exam skills, having never sat any before. But where I was weak at exams I frequently scored above 95% for coursework, research projects and coding tests.

Mostly I felt that the MSc taught me the language with which to communicate and argue the things I already knew.

When I completed the MSc I reflected that I would've been more competent at a PhD than the MSc. But I didn't know in advance how I would fare at the MSc and that a PhD might interest me. Mostly I was just 'checking boxes' to improve confidence in my existing work, but I found myself very seriously debating whether I wanted to pursue a PhD when I got to the end of the MSc. I really enjoyed the research work in the MSc.

Mostly I felt that the MSc taught me the language with which to communicate and argue the things I already knew.

That's a fascinating story and a great perspective. One thing that's hard to communicate with those who've decided to pass up on higher education is how many different (and different kinds) of tools it gives you in your field.

It's not just the theoretical bits, or the formalism, but also the language of the field...something which has a surprising number of uses beyond just talking to a peer. A decade after my undergrad, I'll be working on a problem and remember a handful of possible algorithms from my undergrad days that might apply to it, but have no clue about the particulars (they may have not even been covered). But because I learned the language of the subject, I can usually drive into google for an hour or so and quickly triage the algorithms to find the one I want to relearn. It's easy to look things up when you know what they are called -- and more importantly can understand the instructions!

I have a number of friends who decided to focus purely on their development skills and skip school, and they've definitely expressed frustration at finding and understanding the literature, or have spent many hours reinventing the wheel because they didn't realize it had already been built!

This is commonly characterized as "knowing what you don't know." You know what's out there, even if you don't know it, but the power is that when you need to, you can learn it.

Contrast this with not knowing what you don't know. You can't learn it, because you don't even know it exists. I think this is a major benefit of an undergraduate education. You get a broad enough exposure to a field that you know what's out there, so you know what's possible.

Interesting. What reputable universities waive the MSc's pre-requisites based on life experience? Any in the UK?

I think this is a great idea as I find myself in the same boat. Very experienced and can do the job but no paper to impress people with.

Apparently most do.

There is no standard application process when you have little or no education. You have to get in touch with the admissions department and state that you have the experience and from there each university has a different process.

I went for Birkbeck, University of London ( http://www.dcs.bbk.ac.uk/courses/ ). They specialise in degrees in the evening, aimed at Londoners who are in work and yet want to pursue a degree without sacrificing their employment.

The entry test was trivial (not much beyond basic pointer work and FizzBuzz in C++), and the expectation during the course was that you find 24 hours per week for study time (comprised of 2 or 3 evenings per week of 3 hour lectures, and the rest of the time was research, assignments and reading). If you have ample experience you won't find the work outside of the evening lectures too taxing.

As did Wittgenstein http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittgenstein who was an engineering drop out and wrote the Tractatus whilst a WW1 PoW in Italy, only to be given a PhD as an afterthought by Russell. I have known of an academic in a teaching and research position at a major university who did not complete high-school & was hired based on the merit of their published papers.

These are of course the very small minority to the general rule.

There are also cases of it working the other-way: PhDs that have made a lifelong contribution to their field without an academic post. Paul Erdős comes to mind... the most prolific mathematician of all time (by number of published papers) was a vagabond. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erdos

(Interesting fact: both Wittgenstein and Erdős were disciples of the thought of Frank P. Ramsey: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_P._Ramsey I am finding it hard to discover which degrees, if any, he had.)

And not just any PhD, a Cambridge PhD, using said Tractatus as the dissertation. Astonishing.

At that time the Ph.D. was something new in European universities; it was basically imported from the US.

Many professors didn't welcome the novelty, including one of Wittgenstein's examiners, who wrote in his report:

"The Tractatus is a work of genius, but it otherwise satisfies the requirements for a Ph.D."

EDIT: I should have said "British" instead of "European", see comments below.

You have things the wrong way round. The Ph.D. degree originated in Germany.

You are right, but it came to UK through US:

  From the United States, the Ph.D. degree spread to 
  Canada in 1900, and then to the United Kingdom in 1917.

(from Wikipedia)

Maybe the name Ph. D., but the Ph. D. itself is older in the USA and in Europe. There were Ph. D. in the 19th century both in Europe and in Universities like Yale or Harvard.

Could you clarify? Humboldt University started granting PhDs in the early 19th century, Yale in 1861, so yes, of course there were PhDs in the 19th century.

At the time, the PhD was not seen very highly in the department, and in the report on the defence of the PhD Moore famously said:

"It is my personal opinion that Mr. Wittgenstein’s thesis is a work of genius; but, be that as it may, it is certainly well up to the standard required for the Cambridge degree of Doctor of Philosophy’

So, it was not seen as an achievement at all!

So, it was not seen as an achievement at all!

I don't get that interpretation from that quote at all. To me, the quote is about contrasting the speaker's subjective view with a more objective "standard" requirement for a PhD degree. It's basically saying: "To me, his work as that of a genius. But YMMV. However, even if you don't want to go quite that far, you'll certainly admit that it's great and fulfills the requirements for a PhD."

Not being the work of a genius does not necessarily mean that it's not an achievement.

I think it's more along the lines of: the degree itself is a insignificant and unworthy of his work. It's like giving him a Kindergarten gold star sticker. Which says something about the quality of his work, or of other degree holders, or both.

Disagree. The quote reflects this observation:

Just because the thesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tractatus_Logico-Philosophicus) exceeds the requirements for the degree, does not make the degree insignificant.

Even after the Tractatus was published, Wittgenstein was still teaching secondary school in Austria (though this was of his own choice). He didn't even take a position at Cambridge until 1929 (eight years after the Tractatus was published).

At the outbreak of the World War, Wittgenstein left Cambridge to serve as a soldier in the enemy's army. Attitudes were different in the late 1920's than in the immediate wake of the war.

I know a few cases of researchers who don't have PhDs, but I've never seen this before.

Probably the best known researcher in CS who doesn't hold a PhD is Simon Peyton Jones. He is very well known in the field of programming languages and one of the main implementors of the main Haskell implementation GHC. I think he might have started a PhD in the last few years, but he was appointed a professor at Glasgow without one.

There are many many more than that, but we don't typically bother with those details; if the guy/gal knows their stuff, who cares what their degree level is?

Sssh, you don't want the grad students to hear! Without grad students who's gonna do all the prof's grunt work?

Yes

After all, how dare someone tell the grad students they can be someone without a PhD.

They are almost forgetting how's life outside the academic circles!

Now, you're late for CS 201 room 704 on that building across the campus, go and don't forget your TA notes.

The PhD gives us time and resources to become a researcher; it is actually a quite useful experience. If we can get the time/resources another way, great! I personally would have been lost on my own; I met people in my program who really set my path.

If you are young and inexperienced, it is also getting more difficult to get your foot in the door of a research institution without a PhD from a TOP program. Sure, there are other ways up, but getting the PhD is probably a reasonable way to approach things.

I agree. I have a PhD. While the process wasn't 100% sunshine and rainbows I enjoyed most of it, learned a heck of a lot, and I understand the utility of doing a PhD for most people who are interested in doing further research.

Well, your name is familiar :)

Help, I'm trapped in a research paper factory. If you can read this, send help to:

Taub Building Technion City Haifa, Israel 32000

I met my wife in Haifa. I know where that building is...

All credentials including PhDs are designed for getting into a job (I.E. research position, postdoc, etc.), and they are a very effective tool at it.

In scientific articles (At least from IEEE) notice there are no titles associated with authors. It's a common misconception that you need a PhD to publish an article, there are many papers with authors in high-school.

> All credentials including PhDs are designed for getting into a job

I don't think PhDs are designed for getting a job actually. Sure, you can get some jobs easier with them, but the value of the PhD is really about the close apprenticeship you have with your advisers and other professors/grad students in your orbit.

When you actually finish your PhD, its like...what am I supposed to do next? Your circle can advise you, but you've hardly been preparing for this at all during the 4-8 years you've been inside.

You could be in middle school and publish an article. You are even allowed to make up an institution, the PC won't care at all. Heck, many conferences do double-blind reviewing now, and you know its possible to accept a paper from someone in prison (who might get disqualified b/c they can't present it, but still...).

Are there papers in top-tier journals and conferences whose primary authors are still in high school? I would be curious to read these!

EDIT: spelling

Nature:

http://www.english.rfi.fr/node/142835

That was a very public case. I'm sure there are other not so public.

you mean "the best known researcher employed by a university as a professor"? Because a lot of VM researchers don't have a PhD.

I was simply sharing with HN what I thought might be an interesting anecdote about SPJ within the context of this post. Feel free to split whichever hairs are of interest to you.

Another well known CS researcher without PhD was Robert (Bob) Floyd, of graph algorithms fame:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._Floyd

Robin Milner is another notable CS research without a PhD, but with a Turing award.

Tony Hoare, another Turing award winner, also doesn't have a PhD.

When I visited grad schools junior year (1975), I was told I did not need an undergraduate degree. Armed with that knowledge, I held firm in my negotiations about undergrad requirements, and the Dean of the Honors Program later thanked me for bothering to graduate.

When I did get to grad school, a couple of professors didn't have PhDs. One was my eventual thesis advisor, which was awkward in that he didn't really seem to empathize with certain stresses I was going through. ;)

--------------

Specifics on that include:

Undergrad -- Ohio State

Grad -- Harvard, mathematics

Adviser -- Andy Gleason; I realized he didn't have a PhD in that pre-web era only after I saw his bio for the presidency of the American Mathematical Association

I have a feeling that this was more common in the past.

Except, 1993 is not that long ago and University of Durham is one of the best universities in the UK, especially in his chosen subject. There is no way he could have got into that university on a PhD programme without passing rigorous academic tests.

Oh, and he did it all with English to a high level.

So, indeed, that is quite (art of British understatement) impressive!

"passing rigorous academic tests"

I don't know what this chap did but I would think the "easiest" way to prove that you are up to the level to start a PhD programme (which in the UK at that time were pure research - no class component) would be to have a few publications.

I think it is worth noting he would have been born in the decade after the Cultural Revolution - so he grew up most likely in abject poverty - and into a society recovering from hideous losses. That is one reason why the work would have been undertaken outside of China. (It's probably no exaggeration to say the exceptionally large numbers of Chinese foreign students from 70s onwards in western universities contributed to Chinas recovery.)

Anyway, impressive personally, impressive for the social and family support needed and impressive as part of a society recovering.

Plus research into develoent of agriculture outside of Mesopotamia - cool stuff!

The number theorist, Ramanujan, had only one Cambridge degree, "B.A. by Research", which was later renamed as "PhD". It was awarded after he had published important work with two of the greatest English mathematicians, Hardy and Littlewood.

If you delve into history, there are innumerable examples of achievement through non-traditional channels. Lincoln didn't have a law degree, for example. In the 20th century, auto-didacticism (teaching yourself) became less common .. here's hoping that that trend is reversed in the 21st.

I am a math Ph.D. student, and one of my professors went straight to Princeton after 3 years of college without his degree. He impressed a Princeton professor enough to have him offer a position there, which he could apparently do. My professor took the offer, not only because it was fantastic in its own right, but also because he only took math courses as an undergrad, and getting his bachelor's degree would have meant taking a year of humanities -- a nightmare!

This isn't that strange. A lot of universities are private institutions, so they can accept whom they please.

I doubt the public-or-private distinction matters in hiring choices.

PhD by Publication isn't uncommon. I know a number of people who have worked as researchers in NGOs. After a decade of that it can take just a few months to tidy up the work you have already done, submit it to a university, and be awarded the qualification.

The former german education minister Annette Schavan(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annette_Schavan) also had only a PhD-Degree, which was taken back last year due to plagiarism, leaving her with no academic degrees whatsoever.

I get that this reads funny, but I think it's fairly clear what he means...like, reworded it might say:

"I essentially have a BSc and MSc, through self-studying, but the only degree I got from an academic institution was my PhD."

The term 'self study' is strange here. He was trained to MSc level by his employer. The army do this all the time. The Chinese government do it very often.

My dad earned 'the equivalent of' an MSc in the air force in the 70's. Those qualifications didn't translate well in to the real world back then.

Shock! Horror! Gasp! You mean someone can be accomplished in academics without following the Standard Academic Track That Is Designed By Our Benevolent Government And Their Patriotic Comrades In University To Provide Thou With A Most Efficient And Complete Education?!

Google cache:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...

Impressive to get the equivalent of an MSc while working in a butcher shop.

To be fair he was "a technician in Guangzhou Institute of Geography" as well. Still quite a feat.

Surely many of us HN addicts could have an MSc in rhetoric and logical fallacies by now.

This is a side effect of the Cultural Revolution, a terrible time for "intellectuals" in China. There must be many others like him.

That's what I suspected, thanks for making this observation. I wonder if others can chime in with anecdotes?

Certainly I've known several people who were held back by forced labor in the countryside, but later went to grad school in the US. They were a little younger than the professor in the OP, so it didn't affect them as much.

I think we're definitely in a wave of education bubble. Soon enough, paper degrees wouldn't matter. Udemy, Udacity, etc may look like 'for fun' type of schools, but I'm sure they'll democratize institution heavy traditional schools.

In some states, including California, you can practice law without having any type of law degree -- as long as you pass the Bar Exam.

I've always been tempted to study & take it.

This is only sort of true - if you don't want to get a law school degree, you have to apprentice for four(?) years with a lawyer or judge who "sponsors" you to the bar, and you have to pass multiple tests. So you can't just walk up, take the bar, pass, and practice.

Engineering, atleast in Canada, is similar.

You can write a series of tests instead of getting a university degree. Though you still need to do the 4 year engineer in training before you become a PEng.

Source? I'm aware of programs which allow internationally educated engineers to earn equivalency in Canada (ie. without having to re-do their entire degree), and there is certainly a test to write before you may be a member of a province's professional organisation (and thus eligible for a PEng), but that test is about ethics and engineering law.

I've never heard of any system by which someone without any formal engineering education could write a series of tests to become eligible for a PEng, unless that "series of tests" is accompanied by several years of painstaking study and a bachelor's degree at the end ;)

Many states (and provinces I assume) will allow one to sit for EIT or PE exams given you can provide over X years of experience doing professional levels engineering work under the direction of a licensed professional, where X is generally on the range of 15 years.

I was interested as well, and found this:

http://www.engineerscanada.ca/e/files/guideline_admission_wi...

From my cursory reading it looks like if you went to a school that isn't accredited you can take the examinations instead, but it doesn't look like you can just take the exams and be licensed, they still want you to have some academic qualifications.

I'm a little foggy since I haven't been in school for a few years, but I remember that anyone with a technical degree from a college could write a series of exams rather than enroll and get a 4 year Eng degree.

I'll see if I can dig up a source but I'm pretty sure this is accurate as I actually know someone who has done this and is a practicing P Eng right now.

When I was a student at Berkeley, I had took a linear algebra class with grad student who was admitted to PhD program without any previous degrees granted. He also was a genius and won the Putnam competition IIRC.

http://math.cmu.edu/~sevakm/

Is it possible that he did not had a chance to go to college because he grew up in the midst of the cultural revolution? He seems a middle age man, who could be in his late teens/early twenties in the late 1960's, when for the regime any academic degree was suspicious.

now you made me feel bad. I have the wall decorated with a Bsc. in engineering, a graduate diploma, and Masters degree in IT and no Job!. a Degree Is Worthless, you get a piece of paper after spending 4+ or more years of your life; Collaborate!.

I believe that, for once, formally you don't need MA/MSc to get a PhD.

Another example could be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Banach

I don't think a Masters has ever been a requirement in the UK - I started a PhD without one and that was fairly common (at least in the 80s/90s).

You often don't need MA/MS to get a PhD. Many PhD programs in the US grant them as a matter of course "along the way" during PhD programs, with them really not mattering so much and students obviously applying to the program without the Master's under their belts already.

Not quite the same, but a few years ago I met an HCI professor who had started his career as a male nurse and had worked his way up through the academic system.

Barry Mazur, a professor at Harvard, only has a PhD from Princeton. He attended MIT for undergrad and just never graduated.

Ive seen something similar to this.

My friend has a BS in Chemistry, and the head of the academic NanoTech lab where he worked said, "I really want you in our NanoTech PhD program. Just try it for a couple years. If after 2 years you don't like it, You can walk away and I will grant you a Master's for your trouble"

I thought this is the way it typically works... students are admitted to PHD programs after a BA/BS, and they get a terminal master's if they drop out but it's definitely not a prerequisite for the program.

I feel like such a loser reading this...

:) ... :( same here.

More power to him. He's pretty straightforward about it and probably has unique perspectives on life which the other faculty are lacking. I might have enjoyed my own PhD work more if I had been one of his graduate students instead.

Tis concept is new to me. Are there many universities in the US and Europe that accept students (and grant degrees) into MSc and PhD programs without requiring the prior degrees or is this particular case an anomaly?

Then there's Ed Fredkin, who joined MIT as a full professor with no degree.

Loved the " only " part.

Maybe I should stop my BsC studies, it might be easier to go directly for the PhD :D

How will you develop and prove your theories in <field> if you never learned how?

His numbers are there, did somebody call him?

salute

Respect

Reply on news.ycombinator.com