dr. versus , Ph.D.
I, like many of my academic colleagues, have been extremely busy these past few weeks (hence the lack of posts) with finishing the semester. There’s final projects to be turned in, finals to be graded, last minute faculty meetings, and things like commencement weekend which really eat into your time. Since this is my first semester as an assistant professor and I teach a required senior level course for all mechanical engineering majors, I decided to attend commencement weekend. For those of you that don’t know, when you receive your PhD (Doctorate of Philosophy), you’re hooded as part of the commencement ceremony. When you’re a faculty member, you’re supposed to were the academic regalia of your university (where you received your Ph.D.) and your hood. I ran into two small problems while preparing for commencement: 1) I was never hooded as part of the formal ceremony and 2) my university…
Considering grad school? Don’t (unless you’re a civil engineer)
When finishing up my MS, I went to talk to my advisor to discuss the possibility of doing a PhD. He told me that, unless I had a very good reason, he never recommended going for a PhD. In engineering, someone with a master’s is usually considered a bit more experienced and knowledgeable than someone with a bachelor’s…but a PhD has just plain had too much schooling (or they’re too expensive…maybe both!). In the past, I’ve had students ask me about grad school, and I’ve generally responded favorably. However, my thoughts on it have been changing based on my advisor’s advice: don’t go for a PhD unless you have a good reason. Why? There’s a good chance you won’t finish…especially in electrical engineering. Your chance of completing a PhD in ECE is about the same as flipping a coin and getting heads. Granted that the data is a bit old,…