Hacker News Reader

Comment by udp | Hacker News Reader

> What you're describing as what you didn't expect is how PhDs were done traditionally. It's the more recent US model to have classes and exams.

Classes and exams in a PhD programme? I've never heard of this anywhere - I had no idea that was a thing in the US.

There is an ugly trend in the UK to having "credits" for attending workshops as part of your "personal development". You basically have to go and sit in a workshop pretending to listen to someone talking about academic writing so that some admin can tick a box. Considering even postdocs and RAs have to write reports on how their "personal development" is progressing I don't think the powers that be will be happy until everyone can be placed into a spreadsheet.

View on HN

I think the UK thing is wrapped up in the idea of a CDT, which seems to be trying to make our PhD programme more like the American style.

I really don't like it!

I don't think PhD students should be sitting in a class or going through as a cohort. You're supposed to be a professional, independent researcher.

My first day of my PhD, I was shown my desk at 9 am and told 'get researching, mate'.

It's still the same in the UK as it always was, just plus this credit thing. If you're maverick enough you can dodge it by being a good enough researcher that they aren't going to kick you out for not attending workshops, but that's probably going to get harder. Most people cram enough workshops into one week at the end of each year to get the necessary credits to "progress".

You can also get credits for publications and attending conferences, but the credits you can get like that are capped at about 20% of what you need. So you can have 10 publications in a year and still need to attend workshops.

> It's still the same in the UK as it always was, just plus this credit thing.

CDTs are also causing centralised admissions and making all students start at the same time in a year.

In the US, this is the case because most US PhD programs do not require a master's degree. From my understanding, you are expected to come in with a master's in many European countries.

Also, many first year students do productive research in the US. It very much depends on you're relationship with your advisor and your familiarity with the subject matter.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com