Re: The (long) future of paleontology

[Phil Bigelow <bigelowp@juno.com>]

Some U.S. universities place a time limit on graduate programs.  Other
U.S. universities don't.

So why should a university care how long it takes a student to finish? 
IMHO, the university's impetus is a financial one.  If a student has
finished his/her course work, and is writing the thesis and is signing up
for only a couple "thesis/dissertation" credits per quarter, then he/she
is paying the university only a small amount of money.

In contrast, a brand-spanking-new Masters/PhD student is usually taking a
full course load at the university.  Hence the university makes more
money off of the new student.

In order to increase the efficiency of the "get 'em in - push 'em out"
style of graduate education, some U.S. universities have implemented what
is called a "No Thesis Masters degree" option.  It involves only a couple
years of course work, no research, no written thesis, and no resulting
professional publication.

The grad student loses out on what could have been a good education,
while the university gets newer students (along with their full course
load tuition payments) into the department quicker.

I certainly hope that this post didn't reveal my bias on the matter.  ;-)

<pb>
--

On Tue, 17 Jan 2006 13:38:45 +0100 Thomas de Wilde <thomas@dinoforum.net>
writes:
> Doesn't a License/master's thesis always have a deadline, they do in
> Belgium, and I find that rather logical, as they have to be finished 
> within
> that year, since most people tend to leave university the year after 
> the
> last year
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "David Marjanovic" <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>
> To: <dinosaur@usc.edu>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2006 1:19 PM
> Subject: RE: The (long) future of paleontology
> 
> 
> > > --- Ursprüngliche Nachricht ---
> > > Von: Ken.Carpenter@dmns.org
> > > Datum: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 20:54:35 -0700
> >
> > > But then when the ultimate deadline of submission of a written 
> thesis is
> > > hanging overhead, reality sets in, and suddenly the thesis topic 
> is
> > > smaller than the original proposal. Where did all the time go?
> >
> > Deadline?
> >
> > Are there deadlines on dissertations in the USA? If so, my 
> decision to
> > write mine in France (where I get everything organized for me) was 
> better
> > than I thought, even though it'll be about placodonts and maybe 
> some
> > general sauropsid phylogeny (for simple lack of dinosaurs 
> <sniff>)!
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu on behalf of Andrew A. Farke
> > > Sent: Mon 1/16/2006 7:24 PM
> >
> > > Let someone else do the phylogeny--I'll just use it as context 
> for my
> > > funky morph work.
> > > ;-)
> >
> > And _then_ comes _evolutionary functional morphology_! HARR HARR! 
> =8-)
> >
> > -- 
> > Lust, ein paar Euro nebenbei zu verdienen? Ohne Kosten, ohne 
> Risiko!
> > Satte Provisionen für GMX Partner: 
> http://www.gmx.net/de/go/partner
> 
> 
> 


--
"Am I crazy, Jerry?  Am I?  Or, I am SO sane that you just blew your
mind?!" - Kramer