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Re:Consider applying for grad school by newen on Saturday August 25, 2018 @12:12AM (#17839486)
Not everyone is a certified genius like Grigori Perelman who can do great research while living in a vacuum. You need great advisors who will guide you, and fellow grad students who you can ask for help and bounce ideas off. The academic enviroment is invaluable for someone doing their PhD, and it's pretty much impossible for someone with somewhat above average intelligence (and let's face it, most PhD's are not geniuses) to do good research with just a computer.

The "all information is free and you can study anything using just a computer" is a stupid meme that doesn't work for the vast majority of people.

Re:Consider applying for grad school by TTPrograms on Saturday August 25, 2018 @12:19AM (#17839514)
My statement is not that people can't benefit from a PhD, but that it is not a strict requirement. You are presenting a strawman.
Re:Consider applying for grad school by newen on Saturday August 25, 2018 @10:10AM (#17840823)
What is that strawman exactly? You are saying that anyone can do PhD level research with just a laptop and the internet. I am saying that that is extremely difficult and impossible for the vast majority of people.
Re:Consider applying for grad school by coolwhhip on Saturday August 25, 2018 @10:31PM (#17843890)
Maybe I’m misreading, but the strawman seems to be that research can be done in a vacuum without collaborating.

The parent commenter seems to be suggesting that a PhD isn’t a requirement to work successfully on interesting research problems. It’s possible to go online and read the same papers everyone’s reading. You can still talk to people to get guidance and find out known things that are not published.

Re:Consider applying for grad school by newen on Sunday August 26, 2018 @10:48PM (#17849152)
Ya I guess it was something of a strawman. But it's pretty close to the truth since it's very hard to get good guidance outside academia or places like google with lots of phds around.
Re:Consider applying for grad school by p1esk on Saturday August 25, 2018 @02:21AM (#17839815)
Perelman had great advisors and peers at every stage of his education.
Re:Consider applying for grad school by newen on Saturday August 25, 2018 @10:15AM (#17840840)
Like the main guy in Good Will Hunting then ;)