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A comment on ACM Urges Obama To Include Computer Science in k-12 Education . Parent comment

Re:ACM Urges Obama To Include Computer Science in k-12 Educa... by yummyfajitas on Friday December 26, 2008 @05:01PM (#410462)
Most of those jobs don't require a PhD. Perhaps a few of the quants, a few crypto programmers and a few operations research people. But certainly not all of them. As I noted, even many academic jobs (teaching positions) don't really need it.

While having the degree helps you get the job ("omfg you have a PhD you must be so smart!"), it isn't necessary. The number of jobs where PhD level mathematical knowledge is necessary is actually quite small. Producing more PhDs will probably not be as helpful jmtame seems to think.

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Re:ACM Urges Obama To Include Computer Science in k-12 Educa... by gaius on Saturday December 27, 2008 @03:03PM (#411283)
Agreed. A PhD is an apprenticeship to become an academic. It doesn't actually say anything either way about how smart someone is (i.e. most people smart enough to get a good first degree could probably complete a PhD if they chose to). In industry a PhD is only of value when hiring into the R&D group (or in the case of investment banks, wanting to impress unsophisticated clients).
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