<p>a PhD is also not some “other” type of degree that is held at the exclusion of a BS. A PhD has already gone through the BS process and must have gotten at least a moderately high grade and hands on experience. The self selection of PhDs alone would increase their average skill beyond that of the average BS holder.</p>
<p>I don’t know how to put it but I’ll just say this: A GCMS is the same instrument whether you use it for cutting edge research, or you use it for analyzing cake samples for QC. The exact same organic reactions are used in preparation of cutting edge drug research, and in everyday chemical plant operations. You don’t need specific experience in analyzing cake samples with a GCMS, to know how to do that, if you already used a GCMS to analyze cutting edge cancer drugs - the principles are the same. They don’t magically change when you go from a lab located at a university to a lab located outside the university. Electrical engineers can design supercomputers, but who says someone that can design a supercomputer can’t design an electric watch? If someone went through their PhD they’ll know how to apply their new cutting edge knowledge, to problems at the BS level, that someone at the BS level would struggle to do with equal experience.</p>
<p>PhDs don’t just take courses. They usually take only 7-10 in fact. They have hands on technical training that is paid for. Most employers will not give you the same depth of technical training, and especially not creative research/design, for the first 5 years. Who will put a new graduate on the design team of a new nuclear power plant? Who will put a new graduate on the design team for a new cancer drug?</p>
<p>And yet, how does your example lend itself to your claim that a PhD can do the work of 100 BS engineers?</p>
<p>A PhD is certainly capable of doing the work of a BS engineer, after all, he/she has a BS. There is nothing to say that a PhD is better at a BS job than the a BS is at that same job. The simple fact is that those jobs don’t require a PhD so the person with the PhD would not really have that much of an advantage over a BS engineer in that case. They may have a few more experiences to draw off of, but there honestly won’t generally be anything that they have to do in that sort of job that a PhD would be better suited to do than a BS engineer.</p>
<p>The reverse, of course, isn’t true. The jobs typical of a PhD engineer would be nigh impossible for a BS engineer. No one is arguing that. Still, that does not make a PhD engineer intrinsically a better engineer than someone who has only a BS. It just makes them competent for the more advanced jobs.</p>
<p>I don’t need you to tell me what PhD engineers do to get their degree. I am fully aware of the degree requirements, as I am in a PhD program. Even as a (future) PhD engineer, I can still honestly tell you that it won’t necessarily make me a better engineer than my BS counterparts. It just gives me a unique set of competencies.</p>
<p>I am more interested in learning why bonehead pursues a PhD degree? Commonly I think a M.S is sufficient (M.S. allows you to concetrate further).</p>
<p>Why? Because I want to do research. Real research. I started engineering not just because I wanted to build things, but more because I wanted to know why things work and behave the way they do. The best way to experience that is to get involved in cutting-edge research where you are learning things that no one knows yet. You can’t do that with a BS, and not in a lead roll with and MS.</p>
<p>The only thing I regret is that I am living on a graduate assistantship stipend right now instead of a full salary like I would have had if I would have accepted a job offer. Easily worth it to me though.</p>