You can learn things on your own if you have the proper foundation. You are NOT going to get that proper foundation in Physics or Math by just reading books. A person with a degree in English would NOT have that proper foundation to even understand what the prerequisites are. She was able to get the solid foundation in Math and Physics by just reading books? I say bull. Once you have the solid foundation then MAYBE you can go further and achieve the learn the prerequisites on your own.
What do I mean by prerequisites - Physics I&II, Calculus Analytical Geometry to start. Sheâs and English major. She wouldnât be taking those classes for her degree in English.
I stand by my statement - she would have to take course work to meet the prerequisites.
Perhaps the person with the degree in English and then was admitted and did earn a Ph.D. in physics did take some mathematics courses and physics courses while earning a degree in English.
I have known people who have been outstanding in two completely different areas. One famous person that stands out to me was the late Jerome Hines, the famous Metropolitan Opera star. He gave recital on the concert series in my city and the next day came to the mathematics department at the university where I taught and gave a presentation on a mathematical theory he had developed for the mathematics faculty. Jerome Hines was outstanding both as a musician and a mathematician. He had taken courses in mathematics.
There are people who are scholars in more than one area. I envy these people. I donât have any discipline where I excel.
I do think there should be more interdisciplinary courses in colleges and universities. Upper division physics courses should be counted as elective courses on a mathematics major. There are economics courses which are mathematically based. When I enrolled in a doctoral program in research design and statistics, I was offered an assistantship in the economics program after I had been on campus three weeks. I told the chair of the economics department that I had had only one undergraduate course in economics. He said that was no problems. He needed me for my mathematics knowledge. I was a full time student and would have had to drop a couple courses I was taking, so I turned down the assistantship.
I think one of the biggest mistakes I.made looking back on my career was fighting and winning the battle for a separate department of computer science. I saw the mathematics requirements weakened after the separate department was established.
I admire people that excel in more than one area. I donât excel at anything.
Hmmm. I think youâre being a bit hard on yourself. Accepted into a doctoral program in research design and stats and yet you donât excel at anything? At all levels of academics, sports, business, finances, etc., the more you excel or the further you progress, the more you realize there are a lot of very smart, talented and âsuccessfulâ people in this world. I have a feeling youâre comparing yourself to outliers like Jerome Hines. Outliers have their issues too. There are many people in this world that would give anything just to get accepted into a doctoral program like you, let alone be outstanding in multiple disciplines like music and mathematics.
That statement is true in the sense that if the south had been successful, then they would have enjoyed a huge economic advantage over the north as they would no longer have to play under the northâs rules. Since most of the planters (maybe all) came from the aristocracy, they would have enjoyed the family ties with England. This is why the Civil War is sometimes called the last battle of the Civil War.
As for states rights, that was an issue with every state, not just the southern states. The federal government was a compromise for everyone and every state had a few issues with that compromise.
While there was more industry in the north, 90% of the economy back then was agricultural, a little more in the south and west, a little less in the northeast. The north was determined that there would be no slavery in the west. If the south had been successful, there was a real chance that many of the western territories would join the south, further isolating the northeast.
The politics behind the Civil War are very complicated, but almost everything centers around the issue of slavery. The say that slavery had nothing to do with the war is just plane wrong. It is just that issue was the economics of slavery and not the morality. After the war, the morality was introduced into the textbooks as a way of further supressing the south economically. North good, South bad. I think that is the reason why so many white southerners are rallying around the Confederate Flag is because they are tired of being told how bad they are for owning slaves, even though 98% (more I believe) never owned a slave or benefited from that flag in the first place. In fact 98% of their ancestors suffered under that flag, almost as nuch as the slaves.
Yep, no slavery, no war. Slavery was a problem widely recognized at the revolution, and the leaders just âkicked it down the roadâ repeatedly until they couldnât any more.
The founders wanted a ban in the constitution when it was formed but South Carolina refused to go along with the ban. The founders caved for sc since it was an important state to keep in the union. Otherwise it would have been a done deal in 1797. They did not want to lose
South Carolina. Sherman I think was especially harsh to sc in their march up the coast for their original blocking of the ban and being first to attempt to leave the union. Yeah sure the banning of slavery in the territories and Missouri helped.
One question I have is how guys like hood, Bragg, Gordon, Jackson, got forts named after
Them?
@Rainflurry Thank you for the support. I have come to appreciate people that are able to do things I am not good at doing. I really like watching a good mechanic at work. I like to watch a master carpenter apply his skills. As a university professor, I got along better with the service staff than 70% of my colleagues. I am a member of a small church and chaired the house committee. I was often called on to do repairs. I did learn to do electrical and plumbing work at the same time so that the fire I started with my electrical repair was extinguished with the flood caused with my plumbing work.
As an undergraduate, I had as my goal to make a lot of money. In 1962, my senior year in college, computer companies were hiring math majors. At these interviews, I learned that I could have an even higher salary if I had a masterâs degree. I was able to get an assistantship which paid y tuition and a stipend of $200 a month. My duties as a graduate assistant were to teach two math courses. I had a student in the lowest level course that asked to see me. When I met with him, he said I had gotten him excited about math and he wanted to be a math teacher. I had a desk in a room with other graduate assistants. I explained to the student the courses he had to take and what these courses were about. When the student left my desk, the other graduate assistants laughed and told me I wasted my time. I had the last laugh. When I completed my masterâs degree, that student had completed the calculus courses and was taking linear algebra and was well on his way to being a math teacher. He changed my whole perspective about what I wanted to do for my career.
When I begin teaching a class, I explain my grading scale. I tell the students that if they donât know any more than I do at the end of the term, the highest grade they can get is a âCâ. The âAâ and âBâ grades are awarded to students who know more than I do. I ask them how they expect civilization to progress if their generation doesnât achieve more than my generation has.
I have had some outstanding students over the years. I had one student, a petite, very feminine woman who started out as a piano performance major. She then moved into music technology and took a computer science course I was teaching. She then decided to major in computer science. She was an outstanding student and a fine pianist. She accompanied me on the French horn when I played a couple of solos for a church service. I chaired her masterâs thesis committee where her thesis was on computer music. I learned a lot from her research. She knew a lot more about computer music than I did.
To keep this auto related, this student had an old Ford Fiesta. I wouldnât ride around the block in that car. The student took a job in California. Before she left, she rented tools, pulled the cylinder head off the engine, took the cylinder head to a machine shop and had the valves ground, and then put the car back together. She drove the car from the Midwest to California. When I heard from her a couple years later, she was still driving the Ford Fiesta. She said that rather than buy a new car, she bought a new grand piano.
As Mame said in the movie âAuntie Mameâ, âLife is a feast and most poor devils are starving to deathâ. My career has made me rich without making a lot of money just through the students I have had through the years.
The ironic part of the whole deal is that the constitution allowed slavery where it was. Until the end of the war and the southern states no longer had representatives in congress, the anti slavery amendments were passed. This never would have been possible without the south gone from congress. So if they would have not seceded, slavery would have continued for decades in the future until the constitution could be amended. So the whole thing was a massive backfire, killing the young, ruining the economy, and raising havoc with the land. As sowell pointed out, the southern settlers from the northern highlands were quick to anger and fight though as a matter of culture. Donât know about the aristocrats. Even Davis lost everything.
Possibly - but why? I had to take English and History classes as part of my BS in Computer Science. But Higher level math and Physic classes are NOT part of the core classes for a BA in English. Wouldnât even be part of the elective.
@MikeInNH Msybe the situation was similar to that of my wife. She started her undergrad as a math major. She was in 2nd semester calculus and was having difficulty working a homework problem. She went to see her professor and he told her that women didnât have the mental capacity to do mathematics. Mrs. Triedsq, being a country girl, believed him and dropped the class and became a history major. I met her when she was a doctoral student. I paid the tuition and had her take the calculus, linear algebra and probability and statistics. She excelled in these courses. She could have been a math major. She even taught a couple of courses for the math department. She also has published in peer reviewed history journals and published a book as well. I think she has more innate ability in math than I have.
He dropped out of Oxford when he was 17. He was admitted to Caltech to pursue a PhD in physics immediately and received one when he was 18. I doubt he wasted any time on course work. Feynman was on the doctoral committee. I wasnât around by then, but itâs a good guess.
Both. See Stephen Wolfram. Heâs not unique, at least in this experience.
The faculty run Caltech, at least the academics. They can do anything they want. Had you claimed that you had graduated from Rice when you were 18 and admitted to doctoral candidacy at Caltech immediately I would have been impressed and believed you. The masterâs degrees you say industry likes so much are vocational degrees in specialties, not something Caltech or Stanford aims to do.
I just looked at Stanfordâs ChE. They donât admit masterâs candidates now, except for:
âThe Honors Cooperative Program is our part-time Masterâs program that allows students the flexibility to complete a MS degree at Stanford completely online. The program also allows the flexibility to work towards a MS degree while continuing professional employment.â
which may not have been around in 1978.
Were you working professionally as a ChE and were sponsored by your employer? Or did you own your own business?
Iâve made no claims about what industry likes. And the masters program I was admitted to at Stanford was in petroleum engineering. The masters program there is clearly defined, with a number of graduates that had no intention of a phd. I got the thesis masters after two years.
But you refuse to answer why we should believe you regarding the âno courses required for a phdâ, while Caltech clearly lists the courses needed to receive one, in both physics and chemical engineering.
Hereâs what the physics department says:
" Advanced Physics Requirement
Students must establish a broad understanding of modern physics through study in six graduate courses. The courses must be spread over at least three of the following four areas of advanced physics."
You werenât responding to me, but Iâm just trying to be helpful. The roots of the conversation were about requirements for admission to a physics grad program. Not requirements to finish one. Obviously, if you enter a program in physics, the program will require course work. No one has said you can get a MA or PhD in Physics without doing course work.
But by the same respect, any Masters/PhD ends with an assessment of competency. The normal route is through the formal channels of coursework followed by thesis/dissertation in typical cases. (Though sometimes just coursework and exams in the âvocationalâ programs - more training toward industry than basic science). Assessments of competency, especially for admissions can be done on the basis of substantive evaluation rather than merely looking for formal prerequisites. The faculty canât really do whatever they want without bounds - it should remain within professional standards. But they do set up the formal requirements and can substitute professional, substantive judgments of competency and potential for technical, formal requirements.
Iâm the one that made the claim. And yes industry (in some disciplines) does like a person with Masters over just a BS/BA. Pay will usually reflect this.
No worries. It started like a whole week ago when @RandomTroll brought up France CĂłrdova who got a degree in English and ended up a PhD physicist. And @MikeInNH got all uppity about it and continues to insist that it canât happen - and Iâd guess on the basis of her being an English major who would have only learned by âreading books.â (? Still donât get that).
Meanwhile, as the troll wrote, she âtook a job technical writing for the Space Radiation Lab at Caltech (sheâs now a trustee) (I think she was following her husband.) took an interest in physics, took courses (she was in one of my classes), got a PhD in physics.â
I donât have her transcripts. But she âtook coursesâ. And she got into a grad-level physics program, but without going the conventional route. And it wasnât just by âreading books.â And good for her, I say - whatever she did.
The unconventional routes are getting harder though. Too many people looking to grad school. In that case, the formal transcripts become more important just on the basis of sorting out the volume. Itâs VERY different in many ways than it was in the early 70s when she went through.