I have an MSc in Computer Science but lack a BSc or A-levels.
I was homeless and sleeping rough when my peers were in secondary education, I was living in squats and hitch-hiking around the UK when they were in university.
Being self-taught, I applied for the MSc after 15 years experience as it was a source of personal anxiety for me to lead large technical projects in which almost every other person was highly educated (MSc or PhD) and those that were not had a BSc. I felt a constant career vertigo in my position, due to not feeling sure in my abilities.
During the MSc I struggled with revision technique and exam skills, having never sat any before. But where I was weak at exams I frequently scored above 95% for coursework, research projects and coding tests.
Mostly I felt that the MSc taught me the language with which to communicate and argue the things I already knew.
When I completed the MSc I reflected that I would've been more competent at a PhD than the MSc. But I didn't know in advance how I would fare at the MSc and that a PhD might interest me. Mostly I was just 'checking boxes' to improve confidence in my existing work, but I found myself very seriously debating whether I wanted to pursue a PhD when I got to the end of the MSc. I really enjoyed the research work in the MSc.
Mostly I felt that the MSc taught me the language with which to communicate and argue the things I already knew.
That's a fascinating story and a great perspective. One thing that's hard to communicate with those who've decided to pass up on higher education is how many different (and different kinds) of tools it gives you in your field.
It's not just the theoretical bits, or the formalism, but also the language of the field...something which has a surprising number of uses beyond just talking to a peer. A decade after my undergrad, I'll be working on a problem and remember a handful of possible algorithms from my undergrad days that might apply to it, but have no clue about the particulars (they may have not even been covered). But because I learned the language of the subject, I can usually drive into google for an hour or so and quickly triage the algorithms to find the one I want to relearn. It's easy to look things up when you know what they are called -- and more importantly can understand the instructions!
I have a number of friends who decided to focus purely on their development skills and skip school, and they've definitely expressed frustration at finding and understanding the literature, or have spent many hours reinventing the wheel because they didn't realize it had already been built!
As did Wittgenstein http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittgenstein who was an engineering drop out and wrote the Tractatus whilst a WW1 PoW in Italy, only to be given a PhD as an afterthought by Russell. I have known of an academic in a teaching and research position at a major university who did not complete high-school & was hired based on the merit of their published papers.
These are of course the very small minority to the general rule.
There are also cases of it working the other-way: PhDs that have made a lifelong contribution to their field without an academic post. Paul Erdős comes to mind... the most prolific mathematician of all time (by number of published papers) was a vagabond. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erdos
(Interesting fact: both Wittgenstein and Erdős were disciples of the thought of Frank P. Ramsey: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_P._Ramsey I am finding it hard to discover which degrees, if any, he had.)
Even after the Tractatus was published, Wittgenstein was still teaching secondary school in Austria (though this was of his own choice). He didn't even take a position at Cambridge until 1929 (eight years after the Tractatus was published).
I know a few cases of researchers who don't have PhDs, but I've never seen this before.
Probably the best known researcher in CS who doesn't hold a PhD is Simon Peyton Jones. He is very well known in the field of programming languages and one of the main implementors of the main Haskell implementation GHC. I think he might have started a PhD in the last few years, but he was appointed a professor at Glasgow without one.
There are many many more than that, but we don't typically bother with those details; if the guy/gal knows their stuff, who cares what their degree level is?
When I visited grad schools junior year (1975), I was told I did not need an undergraduate degree. Armed with that knowledge, I held firm in my negotiations about undergrad requirements, and the Dean of the Honors Program later thanked me for bothering to graduate.
When I did get to grad school, a couple of professors didn't have PhDs. One was my eventual thesis advisor, which was awkward in that he didn't really seem to empathize with certain stresses I was going through. ;)
--------------
Specifics on that include:
Undergrad -- Ohio State
Grad -- Harvard, mathematics
Adviser -- Andy Gleason; I realized he didn't have a PhD in that pre-web era only after I saw his bio for the presidency of the American Mathematical Association
I have a feeling that this was more common in the past.
Except, 1993 is not that long ago and University of Durham is one of the best universities in the UK, especially in his chosen subject. There is no way he could have got into that university on a PhD programme without passing rigorous academic tests.
Oh, and he did it all with English to a high level.
So, indeed, that is quite (art of British understatement) impressive!
I think it is worth noting he would have been born in the decade after the Cultural Revolution - so he grew up most likely in abject poverty - and into a society recovering from hideous losses. That is one reason why the work would have been undertaken outside of China. (It's probably no exaggeration to say the exceptionally large numbers of Chinese foreign students from 70s onwards in western universities contributed to Chinas recovery.)
Anyway, impressive personally, impressive for the social and family support needed and impressive as part of a society recovering.
Plus research into develoent of agriculture outside of Mesopotamia - cool stuff!
I don't know what this chap did but I would think the "easiest" way to prove that you are up to the level to start a PhD programme (which in the UK at that time were pure research - no class component) would be to have a few publications.
The number theorist, Ramanujan, had only one Cambridge degree, "B.A. by Research", which was later renamed as "PhD". It was awarded after he had published important work with two of the greatest English mathematicians, Hardy and Littlewood.
If you delve into history, there are innumerable examples of achievement through non-traditional channels. Lincoln didn't have a law degree, for example. In the 20th century, auto-didacticism (teaching yourself) became less common .. here's hoping that that trend is reversed in the 21st.
I am a math Ph.D. student, and one of my professors went straight to Princeton after 3 years of college without his degree. He impressed a Princeton professor enough to have him offer a position there, which he could apparently do. My professor took the offer, not only because it was fantastic in its own right, but also because he only took math courses as an undergrad, and getting his bachelor's degree would have meant taking a year of humanities -- a nightmare!
This isn't that strange. A lot of universities are private institutions, so they can accept whom they please.
PhD by Publication isn't uncommon. I know a number of people who have worked as researchers in NGOs. After a decade of that it can take just a few months to tidy up the work you have already done, submit it to a university, and be awarded the qualification.
The former german education minister Annette Schavan(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annette_Schavan) also had only a PhD-Degree, which was taken back last year due to plagiarism, leaving her with no academic degrees whatsoever.
The term 'self study' is strange here. He was trained to MSc level by his employer. The army do this all the time. The Chinese government do it very often.
Shock! Horror! Gasp! You mean someone can be accomplished in academics without following the Standard Academic Track That Is Designed By Our Benevolent Government And Their Patriotic Comrades In University To Provide Thou With A Most Efficient And Complete Education?!
That's what I suspected, thanks for making this observation. I wonder if others can chime in with anecdotes?
Certainly I've known several people who were held back by forced labor in the countryside, but later went to grad school in the US. They were a little younger than the professor in the OP, so it didn't affect them as much.
I think we're definitely in a wave of education bubble. Soon enough, paper degrees wouldn't matter. Udemy, Udacity, etc may look like 'for fun' type of schools, but I'm sure they'll democratize institution heavy traditional schools.
This is only sort of true - if you don't want to get a law school degree, you have to apprentice for four(?) years with a lawyer or judge who "sponsors" you to the bar, and you have to pass multiple tests. So you can't just walk up, take the bar, pass, and practice.
You can write a series of tests instead of getting a university degree. Though you still need to do the 4 year engineer in training before you become a PEng.
When I was a student at Berkeley, I had took a linear algebra class with grad student who was admitted to PhD program without any previous degrees granted. He also was a genius and won the Putnam competition IIRC.
Is it possible that he did not had a chance to go to college because he grew up in the midst of the cultural revolution? He seems a middle age man, who could be in his late teens/early twenties in the late 1960's, when for the regime any academic degree was suspicious.
now you made me feel bad.
I have the wall decorated with a Bsc. in engineering, a graduate diploma, and Masters degree in IT
and no Job!.
a Degree Is Worthless, you get a piece of paper after spending 4+ or more years of your life; Collaborate!.
You often don't need MA/MS to get a PhD. Many PhD programs in the US grant them as a matter of course "along the way" during PhD programs, with them really not mattering so much and students obviously applying to the program without the Master's under their belts already.
Not quite the same, but a few years ago I met an HCI professor who had started his career as a male nurse and had worked his way up through the academic system.
[+] [-] buro9|13 years ago|reply
I was homeless and sleeping rough when my peers were in secondary education, I was living in squats and hitch-hiking around the UK when they were in university.
Being self-taught, I applied for the MSc after 15 years experience as it was a source of personal anxiety for me to lead large technical projects in which almost every other person was highly educated (MSc or PhD) and those that were not had a BSc. I felt a constant career vertigo in my position, due to not feeling sure in my abilities.
During the MSc I struggled with revision technique and exam skills, having never sat any before. But where I was weak at exams I frequently scored above 95% for coursework, research projects and coding tests.
Mostly I felt that the MSc taught me the language with which to communicate and argue the things I already knew.
When I completed the MSc I reflected that I would've been more competent at a PhD than the MSc. But I didn't know in advance how I would fare at the MSc and that a PhD might interest me. Mostly I was just 'checking boxes' to improve confidence in my existing work, but I found myself very seriously debating whether I wanted to pursue a PhD when I got to the end of the MSc. I really enjoyed the research work in the MSc.
[+] [-] bane|13 years ago|reply
That's a fascinating story and a great perspective. One thing that's hard to communicate with those who've decided to pass up on higher education is how many different (and different kinds) of tools it gives you in your field.
It's not just the theoretical bits, or the formalism, but also the language of the field...something which has a surprising number of uses beyond just talking to a peer. A decade after my undergrad, I'll be working on a problem and remember a handful of possible algorithms from my undergrad days that might apply to it, but have no clue about the particulars (they may have not even been covered). But because I learned the language of the subject, I can usually drive into google for an hour or so and quickly triage the algorithms to find the one I want to relearn. It's easy to look things up when you know what they are called -- and more importantly can understand the instructions!
I have a number of friends who decided to focus purely on their development skills and skip school, and they've definitely expressed frustration at finding and understanding the literature, or have spent many hours reinventing the wheel because they didn't realize it had already been built!
[+] [-] SeanDav|13 years ago|reply
I think this is a great idea as I find myself in the same boat. Very experienced and can do the job but no paper to impress people with.
[+] [-] derrida|13 years ago|reply
These are of course the very small minority to the general rule.
There are also cases of it working the other-way: PhDs that have made a lifelong contribution to their field without an academic post. Paul Erdős comes to mind... the most prolific mathematician of all time (by number of published papers) was a vagabond. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erdos
(Interesting fact: both Wittgenstein and Erdős were disciples of the thought of Frank P. Ramsey: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_P._Ramsey I am finding it hard to discover which degrees, if any, he had.)
[+] [-] siglesias|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] bmj|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] noelwelsh|13 years ago|reply
Probably the best known researcher in CS who doesn't hold a PhD is Simon Peyton Jones. He is very well known in the field of programming languages and one of the main implementors of the main Haskell implementation GHC. I think he might have started a PhD in the last few years, but he was appointed a professor at Glasgow without one.
[+] [-] seanmcdirmid|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lkozma|13 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._Floyd
[+] [-] mark_h|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fijal|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CurtMonash|13 years ago|reply
When I did get to grad school, a couple of professors didn't have PhDs. One was my eventual thesis advisor, which was awkward in that he didn't really seem to empathize with certain stresses I was going through. ;)
--------------
Specifics on that include:
Undergrad -- Ohio State
Grad -- Harvard, mathematics
Adviser -- Andy Gleason; I realized he didn't have a PhD in that pre-web era only after I saw his bio for the presidency of the American Mathematical Association
[+] [-] drucken|13 years ago|reply
Except, 1993 is not that long ago and University of Durham is one of the best universities in the UK, especially in his chosen subject. There is no way he could have got into that university on a PhD programme without passing rigorous academic tests.
Oh, and he did it all with English to a high level.
So, indeed, that is quite (art of British understatement) impressive!
[+] [-] lifeisstillgood|13 years ago|reply
Anyway, impressive personally, impressive for the social and family support needed and impressive as part of a society recovering.
Plus research into develoent of agriculture outside of Mesopotamia - cool stuff!
[+] [-] arethuza|13 years ago|reply
I don't know what this chap did but I would think the "easiest" way to prove that you are up to the level to start a PhD programme (which in the UK at that time were pure research - no class component) would be to have a few publications.
[+] [-] argumentum|13 years ago|reply
If you delve into history, there are innumerable examples of achievement through non-traditional channels. Lincoln didn't have a law degree, for example. In the 20th century, auto-didacticism (teaching yourself) became less common .. here's hoping that that trend is reversed in the 21st.
[+] [-] celerity|13 years ago|reply
This isn't that strange. A lot of universities are private institutions, so they can accept whom they please.
[+] [-] tantalor|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] curiousdannii|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ekurutepe|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] malcolmmcc|13 years ago|reply
"I essentially have a BSc and MSc, through self-studying, but the only degree I got from an academic institution was my PhD."
[+] [-] shubb|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] moron4hire|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ximeng|13 years ago|reply
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...
Impressive to get the equivalent of an MSc while working in a butcher shop.
[+] [-] petercooper|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jjcm|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] auctiontheory|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mturmon|13 years ago|reply
Certainly I've known several people who were held back by forced labor in the countryside, but later went to grad school in the US. They were a little younger than the professor in the OP, so it didn't affect them as much.
[+] [-] rdipasup|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pud|13 years ago|reply
I've always been tempted to study & take it.
[+] [-] mattzito|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chollida1|13 years ago|reply
You can write a series of tests instead of getting a university degree. Though you still need to do the 4 year engineer in training before you become a PEng.
[+] [-] gastke|13 years ago|reply
http://math.cmu.edu/~sevakm/
[+] [-] ruycer|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] edgar_di|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wwosik|13 years ago|reply
Another example could be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Banach
[+] [-] jdotjdot|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arethuza|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m2mapps|13 years ago|reply