Yes, Marian, that happens. And ambitious people without those degrees find places to thrive that don’t require those credentials.
You could pay them with your travel and living expenses. What does it cost to get thirty people to (Appalachia) or Guatemala?
“I work for a government contractor. My group submits a couple of dozen proposals to government agencies each year. There are three of us in the group with essentially identical skills and experience. My employer always bids me on the proposals because I have better degrees. I’m more valued than the other two because I have those degrees – even though they’re more than 30 years old, which makes the whole thing ridiculous.”
Your employer thinks that they are more valued. I wonder if the person reading them cares.
@MomofJandL Interesting point about Boeing’s new CEO. Per the WSJ he could not have a more different background than his predecessor:
A good ol’ boy vs. an engineer. Under the watch of the good ol’ boy, Boeing struggled to launch the 787 Dreamliner. Since its launch it has been plagued by many technical problems from fuel leaks to battery problems, data recorder problems. Orders have not exactly been pouring in. Hopefully the engineer will help steer it back in the right direction.
Another Northwest company, Microsoft, is experiencing a similar turnover. The former CEO Steve Ballmer was a math major from Harvard. During his tenure Microsoft went from being on top of the world with the launch of WindowsXP to being an also-ran by missing the boat on streaming music to smartphone to tablet. The new CEO Satya Nadella did his undergrad in some little known school in India, got his Master’s in CS from UW-Madison and MBA from Chicago. So far he is doing a pretty good job and is far more popular than Ballmer.
My husband used to work for government contractor. No they take any degree. You don’t have to go to top school. Snowden was working for government contractor and he had zero degree.
Whatever - if some of these consultants had any common sense whatsoever, they’d realize that the people hiring them - the people without whom they have no business, the people who have the money hanging out of their pockets – are often from “no-name” schools. But they delude themselves into thinking that they care sooooo much. That’s right, Mr. University of Arkansas who runs this company is just salivating over your Harvard degree and wants soooo much to hire you because of that. Come off it. Industry experience, track record, word-of-mouth, and actual proposal contents are so much more compelling.
I’ve found that the people who feel they absolutely must go to a certain school, get a certain degree and work for a certain company are, by nature, very limited people. In general, they aren’t people who excel. They aren’t successful entrepreneurs, for example.
They want to fit a particular pigeonhole, and they do.
I’d make a comment involving being in and out of mental boxes, but I’m reaching my cliche limit for the day.
"Is there a difference in career prospects, though, for Harvard Med. vs. U of Arkansas Med. graduates who are interested in medical research rather than practicing medicine? "
-No difference. If one is interested more in Medical Research, there is no reason to attend a Med. School - this is a pretty torturous experience for those dedicated souls who actually want to work with the patients. There is no reason either to go thru the most cruel and difficult standardized examinations in a world - Medical Board tests (part of Med. School requirements) , if one just wants to do just a research.
I know that some Med. School graduates who do not match (to residency) consider the Med. Research Fellowships as a temporary measure to gain more chances at acceptance to some selective residencies in a later cycles. I do not think that this route is a competitive one. In fact, one of D’s faculty members at her Med. School mentioned to her that if she happen not to match, she can obtain such Fellowship at his place with not problem (a very reputable place). I guess, some of these (not matched) MDs may eventually choose to stay with research, but it is not satisfying for some who prepared themselves to be a physician. D. (thankfully!!) matched to her first choice. She was not at Harvard / Yale Med. School. Many in her Med. School class graduated from the Ivy / Elite UGs and as I mentioned previously, expressed regrets attending there. Well. they have an advantage of having Harvard attached to their name for the rest of their lives, is it worth some &300k in student loans after Med. School is up to each person to decide. There are no other advantages (again, I am discussing strictly career of the MD, nothing else).
Miami- you know very little about the very competitive world of medical research. With all due respect, the idea that an MD/PhD ends up in research because they didn’t match is ludicrous.
You may not think the route is competitive but you are wrong. And there is a boatload of Nobel prize winners (many of whom are MD/PhD’s AND board certified in their specialty) who can prove you wrong.
A friend’s son was in a 7 year BA/MD program but decided he’d rather do medical research so didn’t go on to med school after his undergrad completion… However, he has been told that to do that, he should get his MD. So, when he returns from his Fulbright scholarship year he will apply to med school.
I live in Maryland, near Washington, DC, and close to the National Institutes of Health. Perhaps for this reason, I have known quite a few young people who aspired to careers in medicine that would focus primarily on research. Some of these young people have worked in NIH labs in the summers since high school, and they know exactly what they want to do with their lives. Medical school may play a role in their plans.
Research is not a lesser career for those who couldn’t make it in clinical medicine. It’s simply a different choice that appeals to different people.
Some types of medical research pretty much require an MD because the researcher works with patients. A researcher who has a PhD instead of an MD would have limitations on what he/she could do. Often, the most desirable credential is a combination of MD and PhD, in which the prospective researcher gets both research experience and clinical experience during training.
Please don’t denigrate researchers, Miami. The new knowledge they develop will help your daughter and other clinicians provide better care for their patients.
Miami – congrats to your daughter. Derm? That means she’s smart and attractive. Good for her. The USMLE tests and the medical subspecialty exams are not the Bataan Death March. Yes, a lot rides on part 1 of the boards in terms of gaining a spot in a competitive ( lucrative) medical specialty and most of us studied hard for it ( but maybe not your daughter who was so well prepared by her HS an UG experience?) but after that they are all pretty much pass/fail. Spouse and I know of this all first hand. Do you have to go prestigious place for med school to do research? Not at all, but prestigious usually relates to money and research, so there are definitely more opportunities at those sorts of places. Are the researchers failed dermatology, ophthomology, orthopedic surgery wannabes? Not even close. A lot of medical research is ( surprise, surprise) medical/clinical in nature and the MD or MD/PhD types probably are better suited for that sort of work than the straight up microbio, biochem, biomed engineering PhD people.
How much do medical researchers typically earn?
However, the strongest students will be able to get a top-end GPA in the most rigorous courses without doing any particularly unusual grade-grubbing.
Hopefully they pay them well enough that they will want to do this research to identify disease processes and develop cutting edge treatments that benefit all of us.
I believe the MD/PhD program (8 years with stipend) was developed specifically to offer a path to those who want to do clinical research then apply the research results on patients(they still treat patients just not their main focus). Some applicants who were denied acceptance to med school were simultaneously informed that they will be put under consideration for the MD/PhD program. Not sure what different criteria adcoms use to evaluate these 2 groups of candidates.
Agree that volunteer labor from most high school students (as opposed to those with specifically useful skills that are in short supply in the area) is likely not valuable in many “mission trip” contexts. For building houses in poor areas, volunteer labor from a few construction tradespeople and civil engineers (with additional labor hired locally) would be far more valuable than a bunch of high school students.
Effectively, people are saying that they still value how well you did in *high school/i decades ago.
@ucbalumnus, that’s a great point. And you’re right.
Let’s be sure to stick to the topic. I deleted a couple of posts that were drifting a lot.