[Weezer]

I don't like how PhDs call themselves Dr. Whatever. I think the term Dr. should be reserved for physicians. If you want a special title, come up with something else.

[ghporter]

There's a balance that needs to be struck between highly focused technical expertise and the ability to actually communicate in a human manner. The trend is to make all non-core courses as close to core courses as possible. A pre-med major with a biology minor makes sense in a way, but how much help will that bio minor be when the doc finally has to talk to a patient? Not much. The focus here is wrong; there's lots of biology in a pre-med program, but how much philosophy (to help patients deal with life-changing conditions or events), history (to help patients understand how they are indeed better off than people in the 1920s), geography (to help put in perspective where an infectious disease comes from and why it's emerging now) or any other similar non-medical subject? Not bloody much, which cheats the student and his future patients.

Every undergraduate program there is builds well-prepared apprentices. They may have a huge amount of knowledge, but no experience in applying it, so they need mentoring and guidance as they actually learn their profession. Some professions are built to do that; medicine is one (but they still only focus on the disease, not the patient and his family, his history, his wants and goals). Others don't bother at all; it's all "on the job training." If you survive that, you usually wind up being smug because you saw plenty of people NOT survive it. That doesn't excuse the stock broker who doesn't know how to keep his VCR from flashing "12:00", it just explains that he worked hard to become "Johnny One Note" and he thinks everyone should applaud him for getting to where he is.

[MarkLT1]

Originally Posted by freudling 

MarkLT1:

You are missing the point: forget about discussing things with people in relation to what you studied, and start thinking about how you would react when you are put on a project with people from all different backgrounds working on something unrelated to all of these backgrounds. It is now not so much about what you studied, but how well you understand the project's objectives and how well you get on with people. The problem is that academic pricks map on their feeling of "authority" onto everything else they do.

But my question is this: what about the other people who do the exact same thing without any kind of advanced degree? Yeah, these guys sound like pricks, but I don't think that their degree makes them any more of a prick. I have run into countless people who map their feeling of (non-existent) authority onto everything they do. By far, the majority of these people had no advanced degree whatsoever.

As for the comments about "Creating suspense." It simply comes down to privacy. I run in relatively tight circles, and would rather not comment on what my specific field is, as there aren't a whole lot of people active in my field with PhDs, and even fewer with the name "Mark"

[Jawbone54]

Originally Posted by MarkLT1 

As for the comments about "Creating suspense." It simply comes down to privacy. I run in relatively tight circles, and would rather not comment on what my specific field is...

You're cloning humans, aren't you?

[MarkLT1]

Originally Posted by Jawbone54 

You're cloning humans, aren't you?

Close.. its actually more extra terrestrial in nature

[mindwaves]

However they act, people with PhDs generally make more money than people with "lesser" degrees.

[Jawbone54]

Originally Posted by mindwaves 

However they act, people with PhDs generally make more money than people with "lesser" degrees.

Except for college professors who decided to teach their field rather than practice it.

Most people would consider that noble, I suppose.

[hayesk]

Two anecdotes:

I once worked at a campus computer store. Back then we filled out the AppleCare forms for people when they bought their Mac. A coworker was filling out a form for a professor when he asked the customer "Are you a Mrs. or a Ms.?" She replied in a huff, "I'm a Doctor!". He looked at her, and with a straight face, said succinctly, "Well, there's no checkbox for Dr. so today you are a Ms.!" The look on her face as she shuffled out of the store with her Mac was priceless.

In a later job at the campus Help Desk, we got a voice mail "I can not figure out how to log out of my account. I have a PhD so your system is obviously defective. I suggest you rewrite the Help command on this system!"

So yes, academic elitists are everywhere and are a self-selecting group. Unfortunately, the academics who aren't elitist don't go around proclaiming they have a PhD, so we don't really get a representative sample.

[Railroader]

Tommy: Did you hear I finally graduated?
Richard Hayden: Yeah, and just a shade under a decade too, all right.
Tommy: You know a lot of people go to college for seven years.
Richard Hayden: I know, they're called doctors

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

And Jobs, Wozniak and Gates were dropouts.

Damn. That's where I blew it. I knew I should not have finished college.

-t

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by hayesk 

Two anecdotes:

I once worked at a campus computer store. Back then we filled out the AppleCare forms for people when they bought their Mac. A coworker was filling out a form for a professor when he asked the customer "Are you a Mrs. or a Ms.?" She replied in a huff, "I'm a Doctor!". He looked at her, and with a straight face, said succinctly, "Well, there's no checkbox for Dr. so today you are a Ms.!" The look on her face as she shuffled out of the store with her Mac was priceless.

In a later job at the campus Help Desk, we got a voice mail "I can not figure out how to log out of my account. I have a PhD so your system is obviously defective. I suggest you rewrite the Help command on this system!"

So yes, academic elitists are everywhere and are a self-selecting group. Unfortunately, the academics who aren't elitist don't go around proclaiming they have a PhD, so we don't really get a representative sample.

Try dealing with a medical school. A lot of MDs are also PhDs, and THEY have teh biggest heads around. Some of 'em anyway. If you want to name a category of academics to expect to be jerks, that's probably the first one. Fortunately, many of them surprise you, as do the immunologists, anatomists, cytologists, etc. But it's a red flag if you see both MD and PhD after a name-guaranteed.

[TheMosco]

I am elitist, not because I have a masters or a phd, but because in 2 weeks I will have a BS. Not some BA bulls***...

[turtle777]

Yeah, I have a bullsh!it in business as well.

-t

[MarkLT1]

Bullsh!t in business? The "S" is for Science man.. I know you don't have a PhD, but at the very least, get your animal dung categorization correct!

[turtle777]

Oh, my bad.

You are right, I have a BSh.

-t

[Chongo]

The worst are those with a JD/MD

[freudling]

What does Phd stand for?

Pretty. Huge. Dick.

[Dakar the Fourth]

Figuratively or literally?

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by TheMosco 

I am elitist, not because I have a masters or a phd, but because in 2 weeks I will have a BS. Not some BA bulls***...

I have a BA in Geography with a focus on Cartography and Climatology. (The "A" in my BA comes from all the options I took to get into the master's program I took next)
From there, I went and got a master's of environmental design in industrial design and now I'm a usability specialist/software designer. The usability specialist part makes me, by definition, about the *least* elitist people in my office.

[Mithras]

But it does make you plural?

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by Mithras 

But it does make you plural?

We don't think so ...