Re: Ph.D. Thesis Ideas and Material Available: Not a PhD?

Don E. Mullins (mmull@texoma.net)
Thu, 19 Sep 1996 17:30:17 -0500

Alistair wrote:
>
> Lapeplau@ucla.edu (Steve Gordon) wrote:
>
> ::>Whatever happened to that old tradition that a doctoral candidate is
> ::>responsible for developing original research ideas and collecting his/her
> ::>own research material? Do our universities need PhDs who cannot formulate
> ::>their own research ideas and material?
>
> Dunno about your universities, but here in SA we have a university
> that feels compelled to place advertisements in the press and on the
> radio (on the TV, too, for all I know) that stridently assert that a
> Wits degree is "worth more than the paper it's written on".
>
> Unfortunately, given the fact that many people have come to view Wits
> students as barbaric hooligans, and certain of their senior staff as
> fraudulent liars, this institution is gaining an increasingly
> unsavoury reputation.
>
> I'd say a lack of PhD who cannot formuklate their own research ideas
> and material is probably a relatively insignificant problem.
>
> Alistair Fall.

All depends on whether they can spell "formulate" I guess.

Moon