Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!ihnp4!zehntel!hplabs!sri-unix!Hoffman.es@XEROX.ARPA From: Hoffman.es@XEROX.ARPA Newsgroups: net.ai Subject: Re: Ph.D. and 'understanding' Message-ID: <493@sri-arpa.UUCP> Date: Fri, 27-Jul-84 11:42:24 EDT Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.493 Posted: Fri Jul 27 11:42:24 1984 Date-Received: Mon, 30-Jul-84 01:06:17 EDT Lines: 14 >From H. E. Booker in a piece in "Science" magazine (maybe around summer 1973): "At the conclusion of an ideal undergraduate education, a man's brain works well. He is convinced, not that he knows everything or even that he knows everything in a particular field, but that he stands a reasonable chance of understanding anything that someone else has already understood. Any subject that he can look up in a book he feels that he too can probably understand. On the other hand, if he cannot look it up in a book, he is uncertain what to do next. This is where graduate education comes in. Unlike the recipient of a Bachelor's Degree, the recipient of a Doctor's Degree should have a reasonable confidence in his ability to face what is novel and to continue doing so throughout life." --Rodney Hoffman