Getting a good job

From: Eric J. Korpela <korpela_at_ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu>
Date: Fri Jun 30 18:42:45 2000

> I love pointing out to employers that the primary skill of a Phd is the
> ability to stretch a simple project out to two years, and make it "seem"
> reasonable to the boss.

That's funny, cause here we see the primary skill of a PhD as taking an
impossible task and managing to get two monkeys and an engineer who should
never have been given a degree to complete it on time, on budget, and without
additional assistance.

We also expect that a PhD should be able to perform any task that might
require a mechanical, electrical, software or civil engineer, an MBA,
economist, lawyer or priest. They better have learned more in that extra 4+
years of school than they did in the 16 previous.

Of course, that doesn't mean most engineers should have a PhD (or that they
could get one if they wanted one.) It just means that there are problems
I can drop in the lap of a typical PhD that would take a week to explain to
the typical programmer. It's a different skill set, and should be treated as
such.

Eric
Received on Fri Jun 30 2000 - 18:42:45 BST