[extropy-chat] FWD (Got Caliche?) 'That Giant Sucking Sound'

[Terry W. Colvin]

From: Alan Shalette <AlShal at aol.com> Re: got caliche 040114 and 'That Giant
Sucking Sound' < http://chronicle.com/free/v50/i19/19a01001.htm> Something must
be wrong here. Every day I get offers for PhD degrees without tests, class
attendance, etc. Life experience is what counts, they say. Quoting from the
article: ("Start dealing with why people are leaving graduate school, she says,
and you'll fix a whole bunch of problems."). Maybe it has something to do with
students' inability to slide through and lack of remedial masters-level course
work to get their learning skills up to speed. Maybe it's their realization that
there are no jobs available that would justify their investments in the PhD
degrees. This (2/3) was the same drop-out rate experienced in my undergraduate
engineering class. I think that learning mattered more than social equity way
back then. The drop-out rate was a matter of natural selection to the school's
faculty and administration. Not well known, at the same time I went to school,
half the qualifications for a PhD were rooted in socialist dogma. This was still
the case about 10 yrs. ago. There must be a worthwhile lesson in this for the
puzzled administrators now complaining about drop-out rates: ("'If actual
attrition is really around 50 percent, then this is a scandal,' says Michael S.
Teitelbaum, a program director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. 'It's a
serious waste of resources and a terrible waste of time and energy on the part
of students.'"). Yup, learning doesn't matter nearly as much as the waste of
unproductive efforts. Anyway, double or triple the PhD graduation rate and where
will they work? Without dogma credentials, they couldn't even teach kindergarten
in my neighborhood. The sucking sound must be loss of revenues to the
complaining institutions. Alan Shalette 

Editor's Reply: No PhD should expect to be handed a job just because credentials
are achieved. One PHD recently told me that his PhD really gave him a "license
to do just about anything that he wanted and damn well pleased," but he still
had to go out and create the jobs that he performed as they were never just
handed to him or even advertised. It was good advice. I am close to earning my
doctorate (May 2005), and I fully expect that I will need to create my own work
opportunities rather than assume that I can apply for advertised positions in
existing institutions and bureaucracies. You state your belief that socialist
dogma credentials play a big role in doctoral programs. I have observed that
this dimension can be much more subtle since the collapse of the Soviet Union
and the Chinese quarter-turn pax de deux toward capitalism. Socialists and
Communists can now be made fun of openly, and the professors sit by without much
to say directly. It sometimes appears as if they are at a loss for words how to
respond. Secretly, however, they seethe and punish in subtle ways. What are more
hilarious than silent socialist sensei, are the back-handed responses of fellow
doctoral students. For example, when playing the Devil's Advocate, if one were
to state in a seminar on world (current) affairs a hypothetical believe in
'evil' and that 'some men are evil,' fellow PhD candidates will turn about to
say, "You know, that's a Conservatives approach to thinking," but without
actually calling the Devil's Advocate a conservative. This sucky-*ucky technique
really offers the Devil's Advocate a sharply discounted appreciation -- and a
put down -- all rolled together in one socially-constructed and highly
contingent verbal enema. This seems a cherished technique with which to clear
away any topic or method that sits jammed down the craw (up the sphincter?) of a
dogma-credentialed, long suffering, dedicated PhD candidate. Those who learn the
subtle technique to quell challenge and real debate are rewarded by their
professors. It is quite funny to watch.


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Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
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