[Discuss] OT degrees Re: SEO

[gaf at blu.org (Jerry Feldman)]

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
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