Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!amdahl!uunet!wucs1!conrad
From: conrad@wucs1.wustl.edu (H. Conrad Cunningham)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Advice ...
Keywords: part-time
Message-ID: <669@wucs1.wustl.edu>
Date: 30 Jan 89 16:07:57 GMT
References: <2008@lcuxlm.ATT.COM> <00JuC36BGP1010IEdew@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> <2015@lcuxlm.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: conrad@wucs1.UUCP (H. Conrad Cunningham)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Washington University, St. Louis, MO
Lines: 45

In article <2015@lcuxlm.ATT.COM> ram@lcuxlm.ATT.COM (Miani Rich) writes:
>> > but I would like to do it part-time.

I haven't been following all of this discussion, but has anyone
addressed the "social" or "cultural" aspects of part-time vs.
full-time doctoral study?  (By the way not all research doctorates are
Doctor of Philosophy--Ph.D.-- degrees;  a few engineering schools grant
Doctor of Science degrees--D.Sc. or Sc.D. instead.)

It seems to me that a very important and large component of education 
at any level is the "socialization" into an "educated culture".  I think
that this is especially true of doctoral level study.  I have
personally benefited as much from my non-classroom interactions with
professors and fellow students (during informal discussions and as a
part of assistantship work assignments) as from more formal classes and
seminars.  Part-time students are often "outsiders."

To me the research for and writing of a doctoral dissertation is an
"apprenticeship" to a "master."  It seems to me that part-time
doctoral students have greater difficulty in forming such close
working relationships.  Of course, persons who have the good fortune
to overlap their "day job" assignments with their doctoral research
may have the best of both worlds!

Perhaps my experiences are unique, but, in my five years of full-time
employment preceding my return for doctoral study, my work too often
tended to concentrate on relatively short term objectives.  These
objectives were usually determined by others or by external events.
We had to complete the program that our boss promised for last last week or
handle the disk crash or make a presentation to "customers" or soothe
an irate user who called while you were trying to handle the previous
items.  Doctoral research involves largely self-defined and
self-motivated work toward a goal that is a "couple" of years away.
Moving from externally motivated "fire fighting" to internally
motivated and disciplined "deep thinking" :-) was not easy for me.  
Trying to work full time in the environment I described and completing
doctoral research probably would not have been possible.

Another social aspect is "hunger".  I have found it easy to drift off
course in my doctoral program.   This tendency might have been worse
had not been for the "economic deprivation" that usually accompanies
being a full-time student. :-)

Conrad Cunningham
A I-hope-soon recipient of a D.Sc. in CS