Here is a comment Dr. Ella left:
About European PhDs: they apply for funding with their dissertation proposal, or tag along with an existing funded research program. Teaching responsibilities are often very limited, if there are any at all. In contrast, many US PhD programs require up to 2.5 years of coursework, comprehensive exams that take a semester or a year to prepare, and only then you can start on your actual dissertation research.
For those who are not very familiar with the US system of higher ed, here is why a PhD includes at least 2 years of coursework*: almost nobody does an MA before coming to a PhD program. BAs are very watered down precisely because, as I keep saying, so much remedial learning needs to take place. There were people in my grad program at Yale who’d come to the PhD after taking 5-7 courses in our discipline. Everything else they took was part of the General Education requirement, a second Major or 1-2 Minors, electives, etc. In contrast, after a Canadian BA and MA, I had 36 courses in our discipline (plus a dissertation) under my belt.
I an profoundly convinced that nobody can or should approach doctoral research after 5, 7, or even 10 courses in one’s discipline. Such a person will have such enormous lacunae in his or her knowledge that there is practically zero possibility he or she will manage to become a research scholar. Yes, they can manage to squeeze out a dissertation in their extremely narrow specialization but they end up having a very limited understanding of the field as a whole.
This is why my proposal for the reform of American higher education is: there should be no acceptance into a PhD program without an MA. The practice of admitting people into doctoral programs fresh from their undergrad studies is a profoundly pernicious one. Master’s degrees would also allow people to reconsider whether they need or want a PhD at all.
What do you think about this idea?
* I’m only familiar with how things work in the Humanities. Maybe this differs in STEM, I just don’t know.
Clarissa's Blog 
This is an interesting idea. It will work well at some universities and be perhaps pointless at others, since U. S. universities are very different from one another, but it is a good place to begin. I like it!
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In Canada you have to complete a Masters before enrolling in the PhD program. Some universities allow a transfer to the PhD program after one year in the Masters program but only after very specific requirements are met AND the student is exceptional enough to warrant it.
You can similarly short cut the Masters sometimes by doing a “combined Bachelors/Masters” program. This typically involves extra courses in the last year of undergrad and will usually trim one year off the length of the Masters program. Once again, this option is only available to the very best students.
The point of view I’ve heard about US graduate schools is that you enter a graduate program and “those that can” get a PhD and the Masters is kind of a “thanks for coming out” degree. That’s definitely an over-generalisation but I’ve heard the same thing from numerous people in the US so there must be some kind of truth to it.
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“The point of view I’ve heard about US graduate schools is that you enter a graduate program and “those that can” get a PhD and the Masters is kind of a “thanks for coming out” degree.”
– That’s exactly how it is in the universities I’m familiar with. And that’s hugely problematic. You can’t create a scholar based on 7-10 courses in his or her discipline.
By the way, back at Yale, having had a Master’s actually worked against me. Professors said they preferred people with no MA because those students who had an MA and had done some research already “have been taught the wrong stuff and now we have to re-train them.” What that means I still don’t know.
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This is how it works in the UK. I did a one year MA at SOAS which had three classes. A major, a minor, and a research methods class. My major, History, Politics, and Religion of Central Asia taught by Shirin Akiner basically required us to read just about every book published in English on the subject at the time (2001-2002). After that the PhD was easy.
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I read 463 works of fiction plus relevant criticism on each of them for my comprehensive exams. There is no course in the world than can cover this mass of information.
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Fair enough the history of Soviet Central Asia and Spanish language literature are different enough subjects that the amount of material in them is considerably different.
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I entered the PhD program (with you!) straight out of undergrad, so while I initially take offense at the idea that I shouldn’t have been allowed to, I actually think I might agree with you. While you might have been told that the professors prefer students without MAs because they haven’t been somehow spoiled, I felt at a huge disadvantage, with some professors more than others, because of the holes in the undergrad curriculum (mostly in theory- undergrad literature classes focus far more on close readings and, at least in my experience, disdained theory). I had taken a lot more than 7-10 classes in the discipline, though, and, being as special as I am, was a crowning success for the program. Oh, wait. I dropped out. I always thought that I was a pretty decent mark of both the successes and failures of the department, having done both undergrad and grad there.
I do know that there is an option to graduate with both a BA and MA in 4 years, but I think it is fairly unusual. I know of someone in Italian who did it and then went on to the PhD program.
Oh, and I’m totally coming to visit you for your birthday. We will plan.
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No, but you did your BA at the same department, so they knew you were qualified for their PhD because you were their own star student. However, that Russian woman who had no idea what the MLA was in the second year of the PhD and had taken exactly 5 courses in Hispanic lit, well, that was a monstrosity.
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I’d say it’s a mixed bag in STEM. I’ve seen students enter PhD programs and eventually being forced by the department to re-take *undergrad* classes due to gaps in knowledge. The flip of that is students who come in having taken a good portion of the grad level courses as an undergrad. With STEM degrees, generally it costs money to get a masters and you get paid for the PhD (and at least at my institution, it’s enough money to live comfortably). So generally, the masters students want to go into industry where they can make more money and pay off their student loans. But even then, many will play the game of applying for a PhD with the intention of dropping with a masters, making their education free… I’d have to think a bit more about whether a pre-req of a masters is a good idea in STEM. I certainly don’t want people to take on huge student loans and take away two years of pay, so I think that would need to addressed.
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When my grandfather got his MS in chemistry, there were funding sources (not loans) specifically for master’s students in STEM. So it can be done without forcing the MS students to “take on huge student loans” and lose “two years of pay,” if the right institutional incentives are in place. I think my grandfather’s grant was through the Atomic Energy Commission; today it would probably have to come from something like NSF or NIH. (This was right after WWII, when we were collectively worried that the Soviets were going to be doing better science than us.)
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Cool – I have heard of training grants on the Bio-side of STEM (although I’m not certain on what all they cover), but since I went straight to PhD in physics I never had to look into these sorts of things. And as Clarissa has mentioned a number of times, there are places where an education is more affordable.
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I went straight to a PhD in a STEM field, but I ended up working with my undergrad advisor (maybe not the best choice career-wise, but in terms of everything else, we make a phenomenal pairing, work extremely well together, and do really awesome science. So it was the right choice. But that’s kind of irrelevant here). He’s always said that my undergrad thesis was more than most masters theses, so I feel like I probably did do the “masters” (I took grad courses as an undergrad) before I started my PhD even though I didn’t have the degree.
For me, going straight to PhD was probably the right choice. Most stand-alone masters programs are designed to be “here you go, now go into industry” – when I was applying to grad school, I had to work incredibly hard to find any masters programs that would support you financially even if you were TAing every term. This is a HUGE disincentive to me. In addition, had I done a masters, I would still have had to re-take the PhD courses at whatever institution I was at for my PhD, which is a waste of several years of my life. The only reason I would’ve done a masters is to have a different advisor and department on my CV. And I didn’t think that outweighed all the negatives.
Honestly, I think one of the biggest issues isn’t with the MA(MS)/PhD, but with the “watered down BA” you’ve discussed that is the source of the problem. I am a HUGE proponent of the community college system – I think that especially for STEM fields, most big universities do a horrible job with the basic classes, while community colleges (at least in my region) have great instructors, small classes, and in-depth labs that the big universities lack. AND they’re significantly cheaper. The students in my advanced classes who have come from community college are consistently significantly more educated, motivated, and have a better working knowledge of the basics than the students who came through the 4-year university track. They get a lot more out of the upper level university courses, and are just more interested in learning. I feel like these students are the ones who would do best going from a BA/BS straight into a PhD program, while the MA/MS as a stepping stone to the PhD concept is just more hand-holding of the poor little undergrads who didn’t learn how to learn in high school or college. Also, please don’t think I’m saying a masters is useless… it most certainly is not, and I think there are many very valid reasons to do a masters (want to go into industry, not sure if research is for you, etc) and there are some really phenomenal masters programs out there. But if you know you want to go into academic research, and you’ve already had some experience at doing it, then I think the masters can be redundant.
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I agree completely that community colleges are a brilliant concept. I’m seeing, however, an enormous prejudice against community colleges among many academics. People literally wrinkle their noses in contempt when they see “Community college” on a CV of a prospective grad student, let alone a prospective colleague. I don’t know why that happens, maybe it is some class-based prejudice that I don’t comprehend.
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Unfortunately, the prejudice is there for a good reason. I’ve taken 6 courses at a community college that is generally highly acclaimed, but the courses were unbelievably easy. They were easier than my high school AP courses.
I think community college ends up being a place where only remedial learning takes place. This is very helpful and I think many students should do this for at least year before going on to university, but as it stands today, these courses cannot replace university courses.
The concept of community college is great, but the courses need to actually be at the university level.
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I think it *truly* depends on location. I’m doing my PhD at a nationally ranked (actually very highly ranked) public university, and the community colleges around have better fundamental lower division courses, mostly due to the class size and format – the giant lecture halls full of professors who don’t care and 700 students are not conducive to learning. I do, however, think it is a regional phenomenon, and that community college, on the whole, is probably not there yet nationally. Where I grew up, community college was a complete joke, and it actually took me several years to get over that bias where I am now, and turn me into the proponent that I am.
And they are a great place, as you said, Ellie, for remedial learning to take place.
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I tend to agree. My wide-ranging knowledge with an M.A, is quite a contrast to the narrow specialization of my husband, who went straight from a B.A. to a PhD.
There is a catch, though. I majored in literature and language, and he majored in physical chemistry.
The academic and professional requirements of these two fields are quite different.
Having been together as long as we have, we make up a pretty powerful team. I keep him up on the latest, and he deepens his research, creates new products, and so on and makes us a good living.
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This is exactly what my husband and I are like. 🙂
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See, I think this only applies to top-tier schools. Most people I know in RL got their MA before going into a PhD program. None of them went to top-tier/Ivy schools. I’d be interested in seeing statistics on this question.
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These straight-to-PhD programs in humanities are new. Of course, it has long been the case that to get into any good graduate program in the humanities you needed to say you wanted to continue to the PhD. But you had to get an M.A. and often did not actually get into the Ph.D. program until you performed well enough on the M.A. for them to think it was a good idea. And if they didn’t, you still had a totally legitimate M.A. — not these consolation prize M.A.s the Ivies award to people that they have actually flunked out of the Ph.D. program.
I am for the M.A.
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