Re: Rising Above The Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future


Threeducks wrote:
> Kamal R. Prasad wrote:
> > elephantcelebes@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> >
> >>Kamal R. Prasad wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>If the bar is raised higher, the end result will be either no phds or
> >>>phds of good calibre. When industry or govt sees good calibre as
> >>>opposed to junk with a phd tag, they will not hesitate to reward them
> >>>suitably and the rewards will result in people striving harder for
> >>>phds.
> >>
> >>It depends on how you raise the bar. What criteria do you propose? How
> >>would those criteria increase demand for PhD's?
> >>
> >
> > criteria is to award a phd only on making a siginifacn t breakthrough.
>
> And who defines what a "significant breakthrough" is? In many cases,
> the significance of the research is not fully understood until years
> after it was published. How many noble prizes are awarded for work that
> was done 20+ years ago?
>
Emperically speaking -if it can be published in a major journal it
would represent significant work.

> > better would be to ask employers who post ads for phds -what would they
> > like their prospectover candidates to have achieved in school?
>
> Most departments (engineering) have an industrial advisory board where
> they already ask those kinds of questions.
>
so they tell the univ wht type of phds they would like to hire -and
when they produce that type of phd -the employers lose interest in
hiring them?

> > btw -I don't have a phd so my suggestions are probably not the most
> > ideal ones.
> >
> >
> >>I am betting that I would not pass your criteria, yet I am quite
> >>successful in a job that other PhD's have told me is a "dream job."
> >>
> >
> >
> > if you have made some breakthrough research -then you would have passed
> > my criterion, but innumerable phsds who have achieved nothing in life
> > would not. Actually, one of the reasons why people get phds is that
> > putting in hard work may not always result in a breakthhrough and the
> > univ rewards effort.
>
> No it isn't. There are large numbers of students who achieved nothing,
> including a PhD. Their work was not deemed significant, and they were
> shown the door. The attrition rate for PhD students is quite high.
>
well -if the criterion for getting a phd is known, only serious
candidates will apply.
> >
> >
> >
> >>The flaw of your idea is that there is practically no specific demand
> >>for PhD's in industry, and those who get weeded out of doctoral
> >>programs would still be able to compete for the same jobs. Also, when
> >>you get into the upper echelon, you don't know how to predict who will
> >>be the most successful.
> >>
> >
> > well -why do so many foreigners get scholarships and then good jobs?
> > That was the original pt being debated -that foreigners take up good
> > jobs after coming to the US for education and many a times taxpayer
> > funded jobs. If americans work hard and avoid importing foreigners for
> > whatever little jobs exist for phds -they will be able to fill the
> > positions themselves without cursing anybody.
>
> My experience is that foreign students have a very difficult time
> finding true PhD level employment, much more so that US citizens in the
> USA. However, what many of those foreign students do is take a job that
> is well below what they would be (should be) doing with a PhD. I have

you should check up with lawrence livermore national labs or NASA. They
have scores of Indians on board. Not just that, back when I was a
student and there weren't many MNCs in India -NASA was something of an
urban legend. Anybody with a good paper could get hired and end up as a
hero in the neighbourhood. If its true that they weren't anything but
cheap labour 0then maybe you could tell the govt not to waste taxpayer
money on foreigners.


> seen foreign students take $30-$40K temp jobs doing web design, or
> something similar, when they should be going after a $80-$90K/year job
> in their field.
> >
that is worse than what the sweatshops pay. Wy get a phd at all if that
is what it pays?
> >
> >>On the other hand, a decade or so ago, a chemist named Rustum Roy made
> >>a stir by suggesting that a good selection criterion would be the
> >>ability to pay tuition for graduate education.
> >
> >
> > sounds familiar -is he from india?
>
> If you made engineering students pay for graduate school, you wouldn't
> find anyone dumb enough to do it. Stipends are required to have any
> hope of attracting students to the program.

it may be a case of corruption -but education is not that costly in
india.

regards
-kamal

.

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