Well, after a 6 hour written and 2 hour oral exam, I found out that I have officially passed my physics PhD qualifying exam... CRAP that was hard!!!

maybe I should sleep now... sleep, I seem to recall it...

Prouda you, boy. Where do you intend to go from there (aside from your bed, I mean)?

To think that at age 25, I'm still struggling with grasping Calculus . . .

Congratulations.  After two years of grad school, when it came time to do orals, I realized that I just didn't have it in me.  I took my MS and left.  I've got mad respect for anyone that is able to stick it through to the end.

Hopefully you can land some type of job with it.

It could be that a Masters or PhD degree is the "new Bachelors" (being the equivalent of what a Bachelors USED TO BE), because for many people just having a bachelors hasn't meant finding any job in their field.

my bachelors in aviation administration set me up for owning my own doll store...
to be honest, in retrospect i'd hate airport management

and just yesterday i gave fedex my 2 week resignation notice. WHEEEE!!!
next friday is my last day. right before peak week,, you know they had to love that one.

(edit) oh crap,, i almost forgot my latest joke:

7 years after the fall of the Taliban, the Afghanistan government is finally relaxing it's strict control of the media and allowing cartoons for the first time on public tv... the Iraqi and Kabulwinkle show debuts friday at 8pm...

What I laughed about in this joke was the phrase "the fall of the Taliban". LOL, what "fall"? They seem to be doing better than ever...

That's good news. I'll be "watching" in Scientific American for your articles.

Kudos, man. I've seen plenty of people beside me who just couldn't cut a PhD, and had to "Settle" for a Master's degree in their field...it's no easy feat, especially with regards to Physics...never was any good with Physics...had to figure out how to transform given information into equations or variables; just a language too difficult for me...

YES. Eventually, I'm sure we'll be moving onto being a PhD society (much like India), and those with only Master's will seem like half-asses...what with Obama really pushing an education agenda, and all...

Uh? India is a PhD society? In what way?

Thanks everyone! The qualifying exam was brutal, but I persevered
My current plans are to continue with my research of course, and push on through. As for the devaluation of the bachelor's degree, this has been a hot topic in academia for many years. Here's a recent article:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20091209/u … 9194608800

My view on the subject: first of all there are many people admitted to college who should not be there. I think this stems from the problem that high schools today are very pressured to make sure all their students graduate. Many states have basic skills tests, and if students fail that, apparently they don't graduate. So many teachers teach just so students can pass the exam, and basically the students do not truly learn. When these students get to college, many don't know basic rudimentary math which you are supposed to learn in junior high! It's really scary...  Don't get the wrong idea, I've also met some brilliant undergraduates, and overall most of the undergraduates I've taught are "decent" students, nevertheless I'm surprised that not all have basic high school level science and math. Across the US many do not have the basic science and math skills which are necessary for many jobs. Rather than learn these skills, many undergraduates get their degrees in psychology, English, political science, or some other such degree in the humanities. This creates a HUGE surplus of such degrees, and not enough jobs for them. To be honest, people who get degrees in the sciences and engineering rarely have trouble finding jobs. However, relatively few people get an engineering or science degree, because the curriculum is very difficult (as it should be). Even a PhD in the humanities does not at all guarantee a job. In fact, a PhD in the humanities can be a burden, since typically a PhD means you're going to be working in academia. However, there are very few academic positions in the humanities. As an example, a professor told me that for every political science position available, you should expect about 400 applicants (all with a PhD of course). As for people with a PhD in physics, engineering, math, computer science... most of these people do NOT stay in academia. Most are hired by companies, or go work for an investment firm, start-up, or the government. Nearly all my friends who finished a PhD had a job or post-doc lined-up months before they graduated. However, as I said, the sciences are brutal. Myself, I enjoy the challenge (most of the time), and I definitely love the material, so I think I'm very fortunate
At any rate, those are my thoughts as to why degrees are becoming less and less valuable. They're still necessary for a decent job in general, but are no longer sufficient. Also, I don't think PhDs will ever become the norm, simply because they're too specialized.

cheers,

-avatar!

cause it takes some mad skillz to work at ebay's call center...

You mean something like this?