<p>OK, the “grad rat”, that’s weird :-P. That’s an optional aside though, your alumni card is yours by right and free of charge. That would have to list a year, and perhaps your student ID. How do student ID numbers work at MIT? Standard procedure in Oz is the year, followed by five digits. Although a 7-digit version omitting the first two digits of the year is also common.</p>
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<p>Actually I’d go the other way around. I think the high school system is better in the States, you have things like the SATs which are uniform metrics that apply nationwide. Australia’s system differentiates dramatically between the states, so going to a university in another state is needlessly complicated, because no measures exist to contrast students interstate, only intrastate.</p>
<p>Our university system, as I’ve already said, is very streamlined. It’s based off the system in England, although we’ve tweaked it to make it a little more contemporary. Sydney Uni would probably be Australia’s “Harvard”, the first university and the one that gets all the prestige and holds to the traditions. But many others, while lacking international acclaim, do offer some interest things that have started to turn some heads in the Asia Pacific.</p>
<p>Grad students refer to themselves by the number of years they’ve been in graduate school – I’m a G4, for example, because I entered my PhD program in the fall of 2006.</p>
<p>Actually, that’s what I wanted to ask. What’s the difference between a PhD and an ScD? Down here in Australia, the latter is actually a higher doctorate, which often requires the former and a lifetime of work in an industry. But in the US, they’re interchangeable.</p>
<p>There must be some reason there’s a difference, and you can be awarded one in favour of the other. What determines it?</p>
<p>As for degrees, some institutions in the US award both bachelor’s of art and bachelor’s of science degrees to undergraduates. MIT only awards bachelor’s of science. There’s not really a systematic difference across schools. My guess is that the PhD and ScD are similar.</p>
<p>Pfft, you guys, always ogling at a Googling. I always prefer the human touch. I still can’t find a half descent reason to award both interchangeably if there equivalent to one another. All honourary doctorates are usually denoted with Hon. in Oz, and I believe all commonwealth countries.</p>
<p>Although I think its cute that you can actually nominate which of the two you get. Maybe one day you’ll be able to just name your own. Doctor of Techie Stuff, anyone?</p>
<p>Well Aussie, I guess what I meant I liked about some foreign systems for high school is that somewhere midway, often, you sort of decide vaguely what you’d like to study, and go from there. For instance, if you’re going to be an engineer, you’d take math, physics, chemistry, and such things as your main subjects, and have multiple courses in each. </p>
<p>I feel like that would have been fun – in the U.S. system, we keep it super, super broad in high school (with the exception of a few privileged ones). Then, in some schools like Caltech, you study a core full of different math/science/engineering type classes, all relatively substantial. Most of us, though, just go straight from high school to our majors. And rightfully so, because there is enough to do in our majors (which is what we love most after all) once we’re already in college, as opposed to before, when we’d probably be much more naturally inclined to getting a broad education in the various sciences/math.</p>
<p>And as for why I like the college system in the U.S., it’s that it seems incredibly flexible, not at all, as you call some other systems, streamlined. </p>
<p>And now I leave all to carry on with the Googling…</p>
<p>The human touch is useful in things that are more story-telling in topic - but for pure information, it’s better not to waste someone else’s time doing something you’re fully capable of doing ;).</p>
<p><em>shrug</em> The doctorate awarded by the Harvard/MIT Health Sciences and Technology used to be a D.HST (Doctorate of Health Sciences and Technology), although I think they now award a Ph.D. like most other departments at Harvard and MIT.</p>
<p>As far as I know, US research doctorates are usually PhDs. ScDs are relatively rarer.</p>
<p>I think at a school like Caltech, yes, but I think I ultimately didn’t end up getting much of such breadth, and just learned lots of math in college. Maybe MIT’s GEs are substantial, but you know – I’m talking everyone getting exposure to a bunch of physics, biology, everyone taking O-Chem just for the heck of it…kind of sounds fun. I would hate if these were required in college, because in the short 4 years, I’d want to work on my major mainly, but that’s why I think it’s so nice to be taking multiple such classes in high school. I even think it helps one experiment more than making high school as broad as it is to us today. </p>
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<p>But why? Even my career goals changed sometime after high school. But I sure as heck wouldn’t have minded getting a broad math/science education from 11th-12th grade.</p>
<p>I don’t know, maybe some of you are just suicidal (in a good way) and tack on random things of interest to already crazy schedules.</p>
<p>I think in most schools (though I’m mainly thinking of UCs and Calstates, systems I’m familiar with), GE’s are more extensive and people don’t jump into their majors right away.</p>
<p>Well, given I go to one of the schools you mentioned, I’ll basically say the GEs are to me just a bother to get by, and most of us just do the easiest thing we can to pass. I basically don’t even know I’m taking mine except for a few days of the year when I have to hand in something, and basically am just a math student. I’m sure MIT’s GEs would be more fun :)</p>
<p>Oh yes it does!!! That means denying you have them until the end of college…going all out on one’s major for 4 years, and then wondering if you’ll graduate or not because you’re so screwed for those requirements (begging your Anthro teacher to pass you), or spending precious mental energy finding loopholes in the system so you can basically forget they exist and still graduate! Sounds pathetic, but go figure.</p>
<p>Ah, fair enough. I thought that you were trying to imply that in college the only thing you had was your major :). (It’s not as though people at MIT don’t do the same thing, punting things until the end :D.)</p>
<p>Yup, we understand each other; whether or not one has to do things outside the major is very different from what one actually ultimately does outside the major, at whatever risk. For instance, the odd CS folk doing 2 humanities classes, technical writing, and that dreaded hands-on project class in their last year are really quite amusing.</p>