From: platt@watson.ibm.com (Daniel E. Platt)
Subject: Re: a first year grad student freaks out.
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 15:56:27 GMT
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: IBM T.J. Watson Research Center

In article <92314.170255RVESTERM@vma.cc.nd.edu>, <RVESTERM@vma.cc.nd.edu> writes:
|> i'm a first year grad student.  i can do most of the homework assigned
|> to me.  i can pass tests i have to take.  i can usually understand
|> proofs of theorems that we're studying, given some thought.  i think
|> that with a lot of work, i can pass my orals.
|> 
|> however, what's the deal with this thesis thing? what happens if you
|> simply cannot prove whatever your advisor assigned?
|> 
|> bob vesterman.

The above comments indicate some expectations or attitudes that likely
don't reflect the attitudes of the community you're working towards
joining.  Let me get on the 'soapbox' and give the standard disucssion...

A PhD is a 'research degree.'  Basically, it means you've 'created new 
knowledge, or produced a significant re-organization of old knowledge.'  
More to the point, it means you are an authority at the cutting edge of
your field, and you can operate independently.  You should be able to
tell your advisor something about your field that he/she doesn't know
about, and which is interesting to your advisor and other researchers
in the area.  To some extent, its something that is strongly influenced
by a sense of community participation -- you see it and develop a feeling
for it at conferences and in the journals.  In the end, it should feel
something like a friendly but competative environment, where you know
the people who are working in the field and who are publishing.  Lastly,
getting a PhD is sort of like an enculturation process.  You develop
a set of values and expectations required for success, and you get
a sense of what failure means in that kind of environment.

Given the above, there's no test or tests that will turn you into a
researcher.  There's no theorem you'll find stated in a book whose
understanding will turn you into a researcher.  However, being able
to do that, and being familiar with your field is a necessary thing
to have in order to be successful -- which is why the tests are there.
They also serve as a marker or reality test.  You know when you've passed
them that you can likely process the material you'll need to do on
a daily basis if you want to do research.

Getting down off the soapbox now...  There's a lot of conflicting
expectations in society right now.  The academic community is
changing, around 100 years more or less since the first university
in this country (Johns Hopkins?) adapted the German research model;
public funding has fueled the development of a research-as-big-business
mentality in a lot of schools.  Now, with current economics, and the
push to try to make industry participate in R&D again (something that
has been falling off significantly in the last few decades -- and
particularly in the last decade or so) there's a push in a new direction.
Many of the attitudes in research communities will be changing.  In
the end, you'll just have to recognize the forces and try to respond
to them.  One of the things I found frustrating was that faculty tended
not to talk a lot about tenure requirements, or how jobs worked, or
how one got funding, with students who were seaking PhD's.  It seems
to be a taboo subject in many places (not the done thing).  I think
that's a mistake.  But its a part of the system.

Dan
-- 
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Daniel E. Platt                                      platt@watson.ibm.com
The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.
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