Trego's Mountain Ear

I can, and occasionally do, put the letters Ph.D. behind my name. I know what the letters signify – and I just saw a commentary that Canada and Mexico have both elected leaders with Ph.D. behind their names, while the US has Trump.

So let’s look at what the letters Ph.D. actually imply – that I have done original research in a satisfactory manner while supervised by a Ph.D. holding faculty member. That’s all the title actually tells of what I, or anyone else who holds the Ph.D. has accomplished. I take some quiet pride in the fact that current researchers are still citing my dissertation – but that isn’t a necessary part of getting the letters behind your name. And, despite the fact I feel good about those citations, there aren’t nearly so many people citing the dissertation as read this blog. Most dissertations are filed away and never cited.

Einstein’s dissertation was “A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions.” In his thesis, he developed a methodology for calculating Avogadro’s number from the Brownian motion in sugar water. It was original research – which means that nobody had done it before. It was good quality research. But when we associate Einstein with research, we tend to recall his later research – the spot where he quantified Energy as equal to mass times the square of light speed. The point being, we don’t recall Einstein because of his first piece of original research.

Generally speaking, whenever someone tells you “If you want to know about X you should read my dissertation.” you probably don’t want to read it. The document represents several years work, and we tend to think of our dissertations as important – but most are not.

Research for a Master’s degree doesn’t need to be original. It doesn’t even need to be done – a Master’s can be awarded just for coursework. If there’s no thesis, the degree is called a terminal masters, not qualifying for admission into a Ph.D. program. (My M.Ed. was a non-thesis masters, so I had to research and write a separate thesis to make up for the lack of a thesis.)

Jill Biden’s Ed.D. thesis is available online (all 137 pages) at https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20407101-jill-jacobsbiden_dissertation/ and can be downloaded without cost – the title is Student Retention at the Community College: Meeting Students’ Needs. It is nice to have this available to help people understand what can go into a doctorate.

We (the United States) elected a guy with a Ph.D. to the office of President once – well, actually twice, over a century ago. Woodrow Wilson, Ph.D. Once he was elected, he segregated the federal work force. I don’t have any evidence that he belonged to the KKK – but they missed a great prospect if they didn’t recruit him. His dissertation – from back in 1885 – it titled “Congressional Government” and describes the government of the United States. There is nothing in Woodrow Wilson’s dissertation that you can’t get out of a high school government text.