[ExI] the formerly rich and their larvae...

[Amara Graps]

Rafal Smigrodzki rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com :
>I am not sure to which post you refer but if you mean my comment on
>"ewige Studenten" in response to your analysis of the disciplining
>influence of PhD deadlines, I agree that it was not a straightforward
>answer.

No it wasn't, and it didn't help that you threw in as many sneers and
barbs as you could muster for that diatribe against German
government-funded PhDs. And you didn't address either of my two points:
reputation and time.

For a libertarian, I don't know how you could ignore the importance of
one's reputation. In the sciences, reputation is king. If a PhD advisor
chooses a slacker PhD student, then he/she must answer to that choice to
his own department and superiors, and in the process his/her reputation
is mud. Science research is not usually well-funded, anywhere, and that
advisor just wasted precious money and time.  On the student's side,
he/she has two years to finish that PhD, or three, if he/she applies
formally for an extension. Not only is student's reputation on the line
(because he/she must have a postdoc job lined up when that PhD is
finished), their money is gone on the day after the two or three years.
If he or she is in Germany on a student visa, that means that they must
leave the country, the day that PhD contract no longer applies, too. I
suggest you ask the people you know who have Physics PhDs if three years
is enough time for the research, writing, defense of a good Physics
PhD project and  for finding a postdoc position. No 50,000 dollar debt
is needed  to 'focus' these people.

Amara

P.S. The Physics PhD Universitaet Heidelberg students wouldn't relax on
the Haupstrasse, provided that they could find a free-time lunch period,
because there are too many tourists, such as yourself there. They would
be eating their lunch on the Neckarwiese, instead.

-- 

Amara Graps, PhD      www.amara.com
Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado