Do you have any suggestion for a good topic for a Ph.D. in computer
science? TIA

--
  <?php echo 'Just another PHP saint'; ?>
Email: rrjanbiah-at-Y!com    Blog: http://rajeshanbiah.blogspot.com/

"R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah" <ng4rrjanbiah@rediffmail.com> writes:

> Do you have any suggestion for a good topic for a Ph.D. in computer
> science? TIA

What subfield are you in?
-- 
"Sanity is not statistical."
--George Orwell

"R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah" <ng4rrjanbiah@rediffmail.com> wrote in message news:
> Do you have any suggestion for a good topic for a Ph.D. in computer
> science? TIA
>
Parallel programming. barriers to parallelisation of standard desktop 
applications.

Discuss why most apps are hard to parallelise, and what the benefits would 
be, in terms of cheaper / less energy intensive chipsets or enhanced 
performance. If you can suggests strategies for parallelisation, so much the 
better.

-- 
Free games and programming goodies.
http://www.personal.leeds.ac.uk/~bgy1mm

"Malcolm McLean" <regniztar@btinternet.com> writes:

> "R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah" <ng4rrjanbiah@rediffmail.com> wrote in message news:
>> Do you have any suggestion for a good topic for a Ph.D. in computer
>> science? TIA
>>
> Parallel programming. barriers to parallelisation of standard desktop
> applications.
>
> Discuss why most apps are hard to parallelise, and what the benefits
> would be, in terms of cheaper / less energy intensive chipsets or
> enhanced performance. If you can suggests strategies for
> parallelisation, so much the better.

Have a look at functionnal programming languages, including Erlang and
Clojure, and transactional memory, etc.

-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__

On Feb 22, 10:02 pm, Ben Pfaff <b...@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
> "R.RajeshJebaAnbiah" <ng4rrjanb...@rediffmail.com> writes:
>
> > Do you have any suggestion for a good topic for a Ph.D. in computer
> > science? TIA
>
> What subfield are you in?

    I don't have any specialization yet. I'm just lurking to see which
topic would be more useful and relatively challenging or need of the
hour in CS. TIA

--
  <?php echo 'Just another PHP saint'; ?>
Email: rrjanbiah-at-Y!com    Blog: http://rajeshanbiah.blogspot.com/

"R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah" <ng4rrjanbiah@rediffmail.com> writes:

> On Feb 22, 10:02 pm, Ben Pfaff <b...@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
>> "R.RajeshJebaAnbiah" <ng4rrjanb...@rediffmail.com> writes:
>>
>> > Do you have any suggestion for a good topic for a Ph.D. in computer
>> > science? TIA
>>
>> What subfield are you in?
>
>     I don't have any specialization yet. I'm just lurking to see which
> topic would be more useful and relatively challenging or need of the
> hour in CS. TIA

Then it is too early to pick a dissertation topic.
-- 
Ben Pfaff 
http://benpfaff.org

On Feb 24, 11:16 am, Ben Pfaff <b...@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
> "R.RajeshJebaAnbiah" <ng4rrjanb...@rediffmail.com> writes:
>
> > On Feb 22, 10:02 pm, Ben Pfaff <b...@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
> >> "R.RajeshJebaAnbiah" <ng4rrjanb...@rediffmail.com> writes:
>
> >> > Do you have any suggestion for a good topic for a Ph.D. in computer
> >> > science? TIA
>
> >> What subfield are you in?
>
> >     I don't have any specialization yet. I'm just lurking to see which
> > topic would be more useful and relatively challenging or need of the
> > hour in CS. TIA
>
> Then it is too early to pick a dissertation topic.

    When do you think, it would be more appropriate to think about a
topic? TIA

--
  <?php echo 'Just another PHP saint'; ?>
Email: rrjanbiah-at-Y!com    Blog: http://rajeshanbiah.blogspot.com/

R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah wrote:
> On Feb 24, 11:16 am, Ben Pfaff <b...@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
>> "R.RajeshJebaAnbiah" <ng4rrjanb...@rediffmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> On Feb 22, 10:02 pm, Ben Pfaff <b...@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
>>>> "R.RajeshJebaAnbiah" <ng4rrjanb...@rediffmail.com> writes:
>>>>> Do you have any suggestion for a good topic for a Ph.D. in computer
>>>>> science? TIA
>>>> What subfield are you in?
>>>     I don't have any specialization yet. I'm just lurking to see which
>>> topic would be more useful and relatively challenging or need of the
>>> hour in CS. TIA
>> Then it is too early to pick a dissertation topic.
> 
>     When do you think, it would be more appropriate to think about a
> topic? TIA
....

It depends partly on where you are, and which model of Ph.D. program you
will be following. Do you expect to be taking a significant number of
courses, or to go straight into research?

Patricia

On Feb 22, 11:50=A0am, "R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah"
<ng4rrjanb...@rediffmail.com> wrote:
> Do you have any suggestion for a good topic for a Ph.D. in computer
> science? TIA
>
> --
> =A0 <?php echo 'Just another PHP saint'; ?>
> Email: rrjanbiah-at-Y!com =A0 =A0Blog:http://rajeshanbiah.blogspot.com/

Are you currently a graduate student? If not, the question is a bit
premature - you should be thinking about general fields rather than
specific topics. If so, your choice will be constrained by the
available dissertation advisors.

Having said that, it is hard to resist the temptation to make a
suggestion. I find the general topic of hueristic algorithms (genetic
algorithms, swarm optimization, simulated annealing, ant algorithms,
etc.) to be fairly fascinating. There are at least a dozen types of
such algorithms and hundreds of problems that they could be applied
to. Every ordered pair (a,p) where you have a hueristic algorithm, a,
and a problem, p, is a possible thesis topic. Not even counting topics
where you compare several different algorithms applied to a problem or
one algorithm applied to several different problems, this template
generates thousands of potential topics for study. Admittedly, not all
our sufficiently interesting and it is fairly picked-over  (things
like the traveling salesman problem have been beaten into the ground)
- but there should still be hundreds of topics that are both
relatively unstudied and sufficiently interesting to comprise a thesis
topic. Furthermore, if there is a topic that *has* already been
studied extensively but that you are really interested in you can
potentially find a new wrinkle such as how to implement the algorithms
effiently in functional languages.

This is what I find fascinating. The important question is - what do
*you* find fascinating (or at least interesting)?

hth

-scattered

R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah wrote:
> Do you have any suggestion for a good topic for a Ph.D. in computer
> science? TIA
> 
> --
>   <?php echo 'Just another PHP saint'; ?>
> Email: rrjanbiah-at-Y!com    Blog: http://rajeshanbiah.blogspot.com/

For good university you may have a lot of publications in magazines.

Toshakins wrote:
> R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah wrote:
>> Do you have any suggestion for a good topic for a Ph.D. in computer
>> science? TIA
>>
>> -- 
>>   <?php echo 'Just another PHP saint'; ?>
>> Email: rrjanbiah-at-Y!com    Blog: http://rajeshanbiah.blogspot.com/
> 
> For good university you may have a lot of publications in magazines.
I told about MIT, Berkeley, etc.

R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah wrote:
> On Feb 24, 11:16 am, Ben Pfaff <b...@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
>> Then it is too early to pick a dissertation topic.
> 
>     When do you think, it would be more appropriate to think about a
> topic? TIA

People often spend the first year of their PhD doing extensive literature
reviews and end up tweaking or even completely changing the topic of their
PhD. I did physics but that seems to be even more common in comp-sci. I
don't think any of my friends ended up writing a thesis on what they set
out to: they all found more valuable problems to solve along the way.

-- 
Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy Ltd.
http://www.ffconsultancy.com/?u

R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah wrote:
> Do you have any suggestion for a good topic for a Ph.D. in computer
> science? TIA

ARM are already the dominant 32-bit architecture, the Linux netbook market
is exploding and there will be even greater demand for low power but still
high performance CPUs in the coming years. However, little research has
been done on optimizing compilers to generate code that minimizes power
consumption. Today's compilers either maximize speed or minimize code size
but not power.

Microsoft have made tremendous advances with .NET like F# and the Task
Parallel Library, giving Windows much better prospects than any other OS in
the context of multicore computing. However, their Cilk-style wait-free
work stealing deques are extremely inefficient because they are implemented
in managed code for a VM that was not designed with parallelism in mind.
Can you leap frog their technology by inventing a better language-agnostic
VM that offers the same state-of-the-art foundation for parallel
programming at its core in order to avoid the overheads? You would probably
build a working VM on top of LLVM using its atomic intrinsics and
algorithms derived from Cilk and then port some existing languages to it.

-- 
Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy Ltd.
http://www.ffconsultancy.com/?u

On Feb 24, 9:04 pm, Patricia Shanahan <p...@acm.org> wrote:
> R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah wrote:> On Feb 24, 11:16 am, Ben Pfaff <b...@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
> >> "R.RajeshJebaAnbiah" <ng4rrjanb...@rediffmail.com> writes:
>
> >>> On Feb 22, 10:02 pm, Ben Pfaff <b...@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
> >>>> "R.RajeshJebaAnbiah" <ng4rrjanb...@rediffmail.com> writes:
> >>>>> Do you have any suggestion for a good topic for a Ph.D. in computer
> >>>>> science? TIA
> >>>> What subfield are you in?
> >>>     I don't have any specialization yet. I'm just lurking to see which
> >>> topic would be more useful and relatively challenging or need of the
> >>> hour in CS. TIA
> >> Then it is too early to pick a dissertation topic.
>
> >     When do you think, it would be more appropriate to think about a
> > topic? TIA
>
> ...
>
> It depends partly on where you are, and which model of Ph.D. program you
> will be following. Do you expect to be taking a significant number of
> courses, or to go straight into research?

    If possible, could you please let me know the "models" of Ph.D.
program in your place? My googling skill isn't helpful to find the
right place for knowing number of models and differences.

    (I'm sorry for very late follow-up and many thanks for everyone
replied here)

--
  <?php echo 'Just another PHP saint'; ?>
Email: rrjanbiah-at-Y!com    Blog: http://rajeshanbiah.blogspot.com/

"R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah" <ng4rrjanbiah@rediffmail.com> writes:

>     If possible, could you please let me know the "models" of Ph.D.
> program in your place? My googling skill isn't helpful to find the
> right place for knowing number of models and differences.

Stanford requires only a minimal number of courses (4, I think),
a few exams, and the rest is research.  Some details:
        http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/phd/

Many other U.S. universities require a much larger number of
courses (a few years' worth, I think).
-- 
Ben Pfaff 
http://benpfaff.org

On Feb 24, 2:09=A0am, "R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah"
<ng4rrjanb...@rediffmail.com> wrote:
> =A0 =A0 I don't have any specialization yet. I'm just lurking to see whic=
h
> topic would be more useful and relatively challenging or need of the
> hour in CS. TIA

I don't have a CS degree myself, or even expect to get one in the next
ten or fifteen years, but I'll offer an observation.  The need of the
hour today may be a solved problem in five years or ten.  What will
you do then?

Pick a field that interests you, and that you find fascinating. (And,
obviously, that you will continue to find fascinating after having
spent thousands of dollars on classes and put in way too many late
nights' work on.)

"Ben Pfaff" wrote:

> "R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah" <ng4rrjanbiah@rediffmail.com> writes:
>
>>     If possible, could you please let me know the "models" of Ph.D.
>> program in your place? My googling skill isn't helpful to find the
>> right place for knowing number of models and differences.
>
> Stanford requires only a minimal number of courses (4, I think),
> a few exams, and the rest is research.  Some details:
>        http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/phd/
>
> Many other U.S. universities require a much larger number of
> courses (a few years' worth, I think).

So how is that working out for you? 

"R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah" <ng4rrjanbiah@rediffmail.com> writes:
> If possible, could you please let me know the "models" of Ph.D.
> program in your place? My googling skill isn't helpful to find the
> right place for knowing number of models and differences.

In the University of Minnesota's CS department, we have to take 6
"breadth courses" (2 each from 3 categories), 12 out-of-department
credits (approx 3-4 courses), and a few additional courses (probably
somewhere around 3).  Most students seem to take courses full-time their
first couple years.  Students are encouraged to use their first year to
look around and find a specialty and research lab; the second year, they
should be getting involved in a research program and hopefully working
through a project.  Third year, the classes start backing off and
research ramps up more aggressively.  Of course, there are exams in
there (written prelim in the first two years, oral prelim sometime
thereafter).

- Michael

-- 
mouse, n: A device for pointing at the xterm in which you want to type.

"osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> writes:

>> Stanford requires only a minimal number of courses (4, I think),
>> a few exams, and the rest is research.  Some details:
>>        http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/phd/
>
> So how is that working out for you? 

It worked out fine for me.  I graduated in 2007.
-- 
"The road to hell is paved with convenient shortcuts."
--Peter da Silva

"Ben Pfaff" wrote:

> "osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> writes:
>
>>> Stanford requires only a minimal number of courses (4, I think),
>>> a few exams, and the rest is research.  Some details:
>>>        http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/phd/
>>
>> So how is that working out for you?
>
> It worked out fine for me.  I graduated in 2007.

Obviously, I missed the announcement, if you made one on the news froups. 
Well done, good show and all that! 

On Apr 11, 8:40 am, Ben Pfaff <b...@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
> "R.RajeshJebaAnbiah" <ng4rrjanb...@rediffmail.com> writes:
>
> >     If possible, could you please let me know the "models" of Ph.D.
> > program in your place? My googling skill isn't helpful to find the
> > right place for knowing number of models and differences.
>
> Stanford requires only a minimal number of courses (4, I think),
> a few exams, and the rest is research.  Some details:
>        http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/phd/
>
> Many other U.S. universities require a much larger number of
> courses (a few years' worth, I think).

   Thanks for the link to wonderful page. I was thinking that Ph.D.
grads will invent something and never expected that they'd need
courses.

--
  <?php echo 'Just another PHP saint'; ?>
Email: rrjanbiah-at-Y!com    Blog: http://rajeshanbiah.blogspot.com/

R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah wrote:
> On Apr 11, 8:40 am, Ben Pfaff <b...@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
>> "R.RajeshJebaAnbiah" <ng4rrjanb...@rediffmail.com> writes:
>>
>>>     If possible, could you please let me know the "models" of Ph.D.
>>> program in your place? My googling skill isn't helpful to find the
>>> right place for knowing number of models and differences.
>> Stanford requires only a minimal number of courses (4, I think),
>> a few exams, and the rest is research.  Some details:
>>        http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/phd/
>>
>> Many other U.S. universities require a much larger number of
>> courses (a few years' worth, I think).
> 
>    Thanks for the link to wonderful page. I was thinking that Ph.D.
> grads will invent something and never expected that they'd need
> courses.

My nephew's chemistry Ph.D. program, at Imperial College London, was
pure research. On the other hand, the program I am in, at UCSD, requires
substantial coursework and some experience as a teaching assistant, as
well as research:
http://www.cse.ucsd.edu/gradedu/degreeprograms/PhD/phd.html

The best way to get a feeling for this is to examine the web pages for
the universities and departments you are considering.

Patricia

On Apr 11, 11:57 am, Michael  Mol <mike...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Feb 24, 2:09 am, "R.RajeshJebaAnbiah"
>
> <ng4rrjanb...@rediffmail.com> wrote:
> >     I don't have any specialization yet. I'm just lurking to see which
> > topic would be more useful and relatively challenging or need of the
> > hour in CS. TIA
>
> I don't have a CS degree myself, or even expect to get one in the next
> ten or fifteen years, but I'll offer an observation.  The need of the
> hour today may be a solved problem in five years or ten.  What will
> you do then?
>
> Pick a field that interests you, and that you find fascinating. (And,
> obviously, that you will continue to find fascinating after having
> spent thousands of dollars on classes and put in way too many late
> nights' work on.)

    Good advice--similar to Paul Graham's

--
  <?php echo 'Just another PHP saint'; ?>
Email: rrjanbiah-at-Y!com    Blog: http://rajeshanbiah.blogspot.com/

On Apr 13, 8:57 pm, Patricia Shanahan <p...@acm.org> wrote:
> R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Apr 11, 8:40 am, Ben Pfaff <b...@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
> >> "R.RajeshJebaAnbiah" <ng4rrjanb...@rediffmail.com> writes:
>
> >>>     If possible, could you please let me know the "models" of Ph.D.
> >>> program in your place? My googling skill isn't helpful to find the
> >>> right place for knowing number of models and differences.
> >> Stanford requires only a minimal number of courses (4, I think),
> >> a few exams, and the rest is research.  Some details:
> >>        http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/phd/
>
> >> Many other U.S. universities require a much larger number of
> >> courses (a few years' worth, I think).
>
> >    Thanks for the link to wonderful page. I was thinking that Ph.D.
> > grads will invent something and never expected that they'd need
> > courses.
>
> My nephew's chemistry Ph.D. program, at Imperial College London, was
> pure research. On the other hand, the program I am in, at UCSD, requires
> substantial coursework and some experience as a teaching assistant, as
> well as research:http://www.cse.ucsd.edu/gradedu/degreeprograms/PhD/phd.html
>
> The best way to get a feeling for this is to examine the web pages for
> the universities and departments you are considering.

    Thanks for the info. Do you mean to say that Ph.D. from UK is
better than one from US?

--
  <?php echo 'Just another PHP saint'; ?>
Email: rrjanbiah-at-Y!com    Blog: http://rajeshanbiah.blogspot.com/

R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah wrote:
> On Apr 13, 8:57 pm, Patricia Shanahan <p...@acm.org> wrote:
>> R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Apr 11, 8:40 am, Ben Pfaff <b...@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
>>>> "R.RajeshJebaAnbiah" <ng4rrjanb...@rediffmail.com> writes:
>>>>>     If possible, could you please let me know the "models" of Ph.D.
>>>>> program in your place? My googling skill isn't helpful to find the
>>>>> right place for knowing number of models and differences.
>>>> Stanford requires only a minimal number of courses (4, I think),
>>>> a few exams, and the rest is research.  Some details:
>>>>        http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/phd/
>>>> Many other U.S. universities require a much larger number of
>>>> courses (a few years' worth, I think).
>>>    Thanks for the link to wonderful page. I was thinking that Ph.D.
>>> grads will invent something and never expected that they'd need
>>> courses.
>> My nephew's chemistry Ph.D. program, at Imperial College London, was
>> pure research. On the other hand, the program I am in, at UCSD, requires
>> substantial coursework and some experience as a teaching assistant, as
>> well as research:http://www.cse.ucsd.edu/gradedu/degreeprograms/PhD/phd.html
>>
>> The best way to get a feeling for this is to examine the web pages for
>> the universities and departments you are considering.
> 
>     Thanks for the info. Do you mean to say that Ph.D. from UK is
> better than one from US?

Just different. They have similar research content - my nephew took 3
years to get his Ph.D, and most US Ph.Ds would involve at least 3 years
full time equivalent research. The US Ph.D. has coursework in addition,
to varying extents depending on the school.

Which is better depends on your own objectives. Do you just want to
practice learning all about a narrow subject, or do you want to do that
plus get a general graduate education in CS?

If the former, you should pick a school that only requires research, or
one that requires research plus minimal coursework. If the latter, pick
a program with substantial coursework.

If you are in any doubt about research area or choice of adviser, you
would be better off going to a program with substantial coursework. I
got to know several professors, and their research interests, during the
first year while taking courses. The second year, I picked a professor I
thought I could work with, and did a small research project with him as
well as continuing coursework. Based on how that went, we agreed that he
would be my adviser for my dissertation research.

Patricia

On Apr 13, 9:10 pm, Patricia Shanahan <p...@acm.org> wrote:
> R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Apr 13, 8:57 pm, Patricia Shanahan <p...@acm.org> wrote:
> >> R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah wrote:
>
> >>> On Apr 11, 8:40 am, Ben Pfaff <b...@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
> >>>> "R.RajeshJebaAnbiah" <ng4rrjanb...@rediffmail.com> writes:
> >>>>>     If possible, could you please let me know the "models" of Ph.D.
> >>>>> program in your place? My googling skill isn't helpful to find the
> >>>>> right place for knowing number of models and differences.
> >>>> Stanford requires only a minimal number of courses (4, I think),
> >>>> a few exams, and the rest is research.  Some details:
> >>>>        http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/phd/
> >>>> Many other U.S. universities require a much larger number of
> >>>> courses (a few years' worth, I think).
> >>>    Thanks for the link to wonderful page. I was thinking that Ph.D.
> >>> grads will invent something and never expected that they'd need
> >>> courses.
> >> My nephew's chemistry Ph.D. program, at Imperial College London, was
> >> pure research. On the other hand, the program I am in, at UCSD, requires
> >> substantial coursework and some experience as a teaching assistant, as
> >> well as research:http://www.cse.ucsd.edu/gradedu/degreeprograms/PhD/phd.html
>
> >> The best way to get a feeling for this is to examine the web pages for
> >> the universities and departments you are considering.
>
> >     Thanks for the info. Do you mean to say that Ph.D. from UK is
> > better than one from US?
>
> Just different. They have similar research content - my nephew took 3
> years to get his Ph.D, and most US Ph.Ds would involve at least 3 years
> full time equivalent research. The US Ph.D. has coursework in addition,
> to varying extents depending on the school.
>
> Which is better depends on your own objectives. Do you just want to
> practice learning all about a narrow subject, or do you want to do that
> plus get a general graduate education in CS?
>
> If the former, you should pick a school that only requires research, or
> one that requires research plus minimal coursework. If the latter, pick
> a program with substantial coursework.
>
> If you are in any doubt about research area or choice of adviser, you
> would be better off going to a program with substantial coursework. I
> got to know several professors, and their research interests, during the
> first year while taking courses. The second year, I picked a professor I
> thought I could work with, and did a small research project with him as
> well as continuing coursework. Based on how that went, we agreed that he
> would be my adviser for my dissertation research.

     Many thanks for wonderful information. Thanks again.

--
  <?php echo 'Just another PHP saint'; ?>
Email: rrjanbiah-at-Y!com    Blog: http://rajeshanbiah.blogspot.com/

"R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah" <ng4rrjanbiah@rediffmail.com> writes:

> On Apr 13, 8:57 pm, Patricia Shanahan <p...@acm.org> wrote:
>> R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah wrote:
>>
>> > On Apr 11, 8:40 am, Ben Pfaff <b...@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
>> >> "R.RajeshJebaAnbiah" <ng4rrjanb...@rediffmail.com> writes:
>>
>> >>>     If possible, could you please let me know the "models" of Ph.D.
>> >>> program in your place? My googling skill isn't helpful to find the
>> >>> right place for knowing number of models and differences.
>> >> Stanford requires only a minimal number of courses (4, I think),
>> >> a few exams, and the rest is research.  Some details:
>> >>        http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/phd/
>>
>> >> Many other U.S. universities require a much larger number of
>> >> courses (a few years' worth, I think).
>>
>> >    Thanks for the link to wonderful page. I was thinking that Ph.D.
>> > grads will invent something and never expected that they'd need
>> > courses.
>>
>> My nephew's chemistry Ph.D. program, at Imperial College London, was
>> pure research. On the other hand, the program I am in, at UCSD, requires
>> substantial coursework and some experience as a teaching assistant, as
>> well as research:http://www.cse.ucsd.edu/gradedu/degreeprograms/PhD/phd.html
>>
>> The best way to get a feeling for this is to examine the web pages for
>> the universities and departments you are considering.
>
>     Thanks for the info. Do you mean to say that Ph.D. from UK is
> better than one from US?

I am sure that is not what was meant!  The usual PhD degree program in
the UK has typically been all research with no taught component.  When
(in the UK) you want to study a field that has a large body of
existing knowledge, it can help to take a masters degree in that
specific area but it is not normally required that you do so.

In recent years there has been something of a move towards the US
model.  The preferred mechanism seems to be to provide other degree
programs that feed into the PhD (MRes for example) or to design a
program that includes a subject-specific masters degree as a precursor
rather than to change the structure of the PhD itself.

Formally, a PhD is usually awarded (in the UK) on the basis of
defending a thesis in an oral examination.  The work must have been
done whilst registered (i.e. you can't write a brilliant thesis and
demand that it be examined as a PhD) but there is usually no other
form of examination.  Again, formally, it is common to be registered
for a lesser degree first.  Progress to PhD registration is then
dependent of having shown progress in the first year or two.

[I have been out of the field for a while, so I may be a bit out of
date.  Corrections welcomed.]

-- 
Ben.

Ben Bacarisse wrote:
> "R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah" <ng4rrjanbiah@rediffmail.com> writes:
> 
.... snip ...
>
>> Thanks for the info. Do you mean to say that Ph.D. from UK is
>> better than one from US?
> 
> I am sure that is not what was meant!  The usual PhD degree
> program in the UK has typically been all research with no taught
> component.  When (in the UK) you want to study a field that has
> a large body of existing knowledge, it can help to take a masters
> degree in that specific area but it is not normally required that
> you do so.

Different schools (and areas and times) have different policies. 
50 years ago I had a roomate taking a PhD at a Boston area school. 
His first year I was tutoring him in things that I got in my 3rd
year of a Bachelors degree (at a different school, in a different
country).  His undergrad work had been at a third country.  At the
time I was working, and he had been laid off from my place of
business.

At any rate, after a year he got a Masters degree, which was the
mark of failure in the Doctorate program.  He was rather silly
about some things - he drove his car until the oil light came on,
and then looked at the dip stick.  It died.  Remember Studebaker?

-- 
 [mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net) 
 [page]: <http://cbfalconer.home.att.net>
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