On Thu, Oct 31, 2019 at 4:21 AM Nch via agora-discussion <agora-discussion@agoranomic.org> wrote: > On Wednesday, October 30, 2019 1:59 PM, Kerim Aydin <ke...@uw.edu> wrote: > > > > Hi Jason Cobb, I'm really sorry I've been delayed about your thesis. I keep > > thinking "this falls between Masters and PhD and I keep meaning to look back > > for ais523's theses to get advice" and then not getting around to it. > > > > One thing for everyone: do we want to support the idea of "academic > > progression"? That is, your first "really long/challenging thesis" is a > > masters, and the next one (even if the same level or slightly lower) is a > > PhD? > > I prefer it being progressive. IRL you could theoretically produce a much > better Masters thesis than your PhD thesis. The PhD doesn't represent just > the final product but also the training and experience you have. > > Reserving the PhD for players that have contributed 2+ great theses makes it > a marker of consistent contribution and effort, rather than a potential > 1-off, and gives it more distinction.
That's a really good point - it reminded me of something my advisor told me when I was suffering through quals: "the point of a PhD isn't your dissertation or original research, it's so you can be hired to start a program in your field in a new university, and know enough to teach the basics of your whole discipline." For a masters', the point was really the research - I've been on a couple grad committees where, in terms of work time put into the thesis, the masters thesis was greater than the dissertation. -G.
