Edsger Dijkstra – The Man Who Carried Computer Science on His Shoulders

Re:Edsger Dijkstra – The Man Who Carried Computer Science on... by jleyank on Saturday October 31, 2020 @03:25PM (#24954427)

In chemistry "then", and I assume still "now", a MS is viewed as a "failed to complete the PhD" degree unless it comes from a smaller school lacking a PhD program. Or, "wanted to go to Med or Law school and didn't get in". When hiring, BS/MS chemists are seen as a pair-of-hands/technicians. There's a noticeable rank difference in how they enter Pharma - BS/MS with several promotions end up where PhD's walk in the door. Is this right or fair? Probably not, but PhD's are seen as somebody who can work (more) independently than a technician. Ironically, a significant fraction of the lab work is done by the BS/MS as PhD's graduate out of the lab if they learn medchem properly. So the best lab hands have the lowest status to outsiders.

It might be different in Process Chemistry, which is where the best lab work is work. Perhaps those who have the magic in scaling up a reaction into production are like those who can debug anything? I've never worked with those groups or with the Analytical chemists in Development.

Disclaimer: I have a PhD, but never wished to go into academia due to the politics. And yeah, it's a union card.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Edsger Dijkstra – The Man Who Carried Computer Science on... by Delk on Sunday November 01, 2020 @01:47PM (#24961508)

> In chemistry "then", and I assume still "now", a MS is viewed as a "failed to complete the PhD" degree unless it comes from a smaller school lacking a PhD program.

I don't know which country GGP (or his wife) is from, and you might well be correct about your assessment, but there are some countries where master's degrees are viewed differently than in the U.S.

Where I live and did my degree (Northern Europe), it's commonplace to do a master's rather than just a bachelor's degree. In fact, in many fields the master's used to be considered the basic "undergrad" degree here. A bachelor's degree existed, but in many fields you'd have been considered to have dropped out of completing a master's if you only had bachelor's. That might be slowly changing, with a higher emphasis given to bachelor's level degrees, but the sentiment probably still remains.

[ Parent | on HN ]