Let me add to the list of ailments in PhD education that lead to leading to
Terra Horrendus:
1. Universities that require that students have published N papers in a
peer-reviewed, quality journal, in order to get a PhD. (N varies with
theinstitution and department: I have seen N = 1, 2, and 3.)
2. Requirements that the PhD thesis must be at least X pages long.
Both are stupid - and worse, harmful. I am pleased to say that I got a PhD
with zero publications. And immediately got a job (at Harvard)
The requirement to publish papers in journals has led to the horrible
overload of work for paper reviewers, which also, I suspect, has led to the
lowering of the quality of reviews by overburdened reviewers.
As for length. Who can read the thousand-page theses that result? I now
make it a rule, when I am asked to be on a PhD committee, to ask how long
the thesis is. If it is over 100 pages I say no.
(It is a bad thing to teach students -- that length matters. My rule of
thumb: The number of readers decreases by the square of the length of the
paper: double the length, get 1/4 as many readers.)
When I was a faculty member at Harvard, a student got a PhD that was around
5-pages long (that was several lifetimes ago, so I don't recall the
exact number). Yes, everyone, especially the thesis committee, thought this
was most unusual, but they also saw no reason not to approve the thesis. Why
does length matter? It is quality that matters.
This is why I stop this note. Now.
Don N
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