I read the memo and my immediate reaction, aside from that the guy who wrote it is woefully uninformed, is that it was a mind-bogglingly naive move to write and send that memo. Of course you don’t just spill your guts about everything you think when you’re at work. If he had a supervisory position, he would have to be fired because of the possibility that women would work under him. And if not, he could never be promoted. The guy may be able to program, but he is an idiot.
I don’t think Damore expected to stay at Google. I view publication of his manifesto as a Swan Song of sorts. He seems intelligent enough to realize that there would be fallout.
Also, regarding the fact that he may have dropped out of his PhD program, not finishing degrees is pretty common in tech since so much money is thrown at programmers. Zuckerberg, Jobs, Gates…
I don’t see dropping out of a Ph.D. program as a problem-it’s claiming that he did the work to get that Ph.D. when he did not that truly disgusts me.
However, none of the other famous tech industry folks you named publicly lied about earning degrees they didn’t earn on their resumes/CVs like Damore did on Linked-in before inquiries from reporters and Harvard’s confirming he didn’t earn a PhD from them forced him to change his entry to the consolation Masters he did earn.
If anything Zuckerberg, Jobs, Gates, etc made no bones about the fact they dropped out and publicly said so several times.
“To a lot of friends in academia of who were academic grad students, that’s a sign one was either a serious academic laggard or he wasn’t seriously committed”
I was responding to this point as stated by @cobrat, making the point that there are other reasons CS people drop out.
^ ^
Damore wasn’t pursuing a CS graduate degree. He was pursuing a degree in Systems Biology.
And leaving to pursue lucrative job offers from places like Google WOULD be considered by many in academia…especially the old school Profs/advisors that the grad student leaving wasn’t really committed to the PhD program.
And he made it worse by implying he earned the PhD when he actually left after 2 years with a consolation masters which prompts the question…why did Damore feel the need to mislead by saying he earned a PhD he actually never earned?
Oh please. There is no need to make it sound like Damore was some academic loser. As much as its not hard to disagree with his line of thinking or his decision to write the memo, it harder to disagree with his academic, research and employment competences. Harvard, Princeton, MIT, chess champion, etc. Maybe he was an odd duck who had trouble finding his niche. Don’t know. Don’t care. But even with failing to remove his PhD pursuit and making it sound like he’d completed it- which is as off-putting as those who put “ABD” on their resume (for “all but dissertation” - um, that’s not a degree and all it says is you didnt finish your degree), who knows why he didnt finish. Better opportunity and excitement at Google? Maybe his major professor left or grant funding dried up. Who knows. It’s no matter. https://everipedia.org/wiki/james-damore-1/. He made personal choices that look like good opportunities. Well, until Google showed him the door. And he has apparently had other opportunities , though Wikileaks may not exactly be the employer of choice. People take breaks from Ph.D. programs or decide to go in a different directions for all sorts of reasons. There is absolutely o indication he was an “academic laggard”. Sounds like the green eyed monster may be afoot.
Actually, listing ABD is a well-accepted practice within academia as it signifies one is much further along in one’s PhD program than someone who left after ~2 years.
Takes a lot more work to complete one’s grad classes, pass comps/core skill exams(i.e. foreign languages, quant skills, etc), and have one’s dissertation proposal submitted and approved to start/continuing to conduct dissertation research than it is to drop out after taking a couple of years worth of grad classes with some research.
Considering some PhD programs don’t have grad students completing all required courses/comps until the 3rd year or sometimes even later, leaving after two years shows the grad student either failed them or left before even getting to that stage unlike an ABD who has not only passed all those…but also submitted a dissertation proposal which was approved by the advisor/department.
And some of that may have played a part in why Damore felt the need to lie about earning a PhD he didn’t actually earn on an online resume equivalent(Linked-In) because he dropped out at a very early stage in his program.
If there was no shame in his leaving his PhD program after ~2 years, why didn’t he do what Jobs, Zuckerberg, and Gates did when they made no bones about dropping out and NOT misleading people on a resume/CV/Linked-In that they earned degrees they didn’t actually earn?
By misleading people into believing he earned a PhD he didn’t and allowing his defenders to use that as the basis for deeming his arguments had serious scientific cred before it was found he never earned the PhD he listed on his Linked-In, that calls into serious question his cred not only in the academic/scientific realm, but also whether one can take him at his word when he’s mislead prospective and likely his former employers through such a listing.
ABD is NOT accepted as a “well accepted practice”. There is no such delineation. Do you have an advanced degree? Are you in academia? Are you in a profession that requires an advanced degree to be licensed? Moving on…
Relatives who hire Phds/advanced PhD students routinely come across CVs/resumes with ABD on them and considering some of them went through and earned Phds themselves/worked stints as tenure-track/tenured Profs, thought nothing untoward about prospective hires doing so.
Many academic friends who are currently tenured/tenure-track Profs in a variety of fields(Humanites, Social Sciences, STEM(including engineering/CS) listed ABD without any issues.
Some Profs I’ve had did the same and recommended I and other classmates do the same when we got to that stage of our PhD programs if applicable.
What’s more funny is that some universities actually confer a “degree” of sorts for those on ABD status such as C.Phil, M.Phil, etc…and actually encourage ABD PhD students to list those “degrees” on their CVs. In practice, those “degrees” aren’t viewed any differently than the ABD designation.
To clarify, “ABD” is an artificial term that suggests a student has done coursework and probably quals, but they have not met the research requirement for their degree, so have not completed the requirements to get the Ph.D. They might not have even submitted a dissertation proposal, they may have fallen off the rails and not done the research, or they may not have analyzed the data and/or written the dissertation. Or, they failed their orals (dissertation defense). Who knows. But in my field it is disingenuous. Students have to complete an internship, which is sometimes done before the dissertation is complete, sometimes during and sometimes after. But I have seen our licensing board issue cease and desists to people working under supervision (they can’t be licensed with that) who listed ABD as if it was a degree. Its misleading, especially to the public.
In the fields I’m familiar with, an ABD means one must have at the bare minimum passed all comps/core skill exams(i.e. foreign languages, quant skills, etc), and submitted a dissertation proposal AND have it approved by the advisor/department.
Am actually surprised some programs allow one to list oneself as an ABD without the last as THAT would be considered as misleading as what Damore pulled when he listed a PhD he didn’t earn to academics in the fields I am familiar with or employers who hire PhDs/advanced PhD students for non-academic employment.
Psychology does have unique requirements above and beyond those of other PhD programs precisely because of the additional licensing requirements which aren’t applicable to most other PhD programs without such requirements whether academic or professional(Professionally oriented CS/IT degrees).
Those “degrees” are “candidacy” degrees. The “c” says they are doctoral candidates. They are not PhD.s Sometimes they will give a masters delineation.
Having come across plenty of PhD. resumes personally (not a friend or relative or cousin), this is never, ever used in my field. Moving on.
It is used in many other fields and accepted by academic and non-academic employers.
And I know it’s accepted in the computer tech industry…including Google as the HS classmate who worked there for a dozen years and was in a supervisory position came across many resumes with the ABD designation and neither he nor his Google colleagues looked askance at the practice.
Falling on deaf ears. And its irrelevant to this situation. If a job doesn’t require a Ph.D., it matters not. If a job requires a Ph.D., then the application fails to meet the minimum standard. Using ignore. Long overdue.
In my work and academic world, you either have a PhD or you don’t. ABD is meaningless.
Bingo, @SlitheyTove
It matters not whether one’s job requires a PhD or not if one falsely lists one has earned it when one actually hasn’t as Damore was found to have done when reporters made inquiries after his defenders cited his PhD as evidence of his scientific cred backing up arguments advanced in his memo.
Last I checked, listing degrees one didn’t earn…even if not required for the job concerned is alone sufficient grounds for termination from employment in most places including Google.
Moreover, this further undermines any credibility of him and his arguments. He would have been better off following the examples of Jobs, Zuckerberg, Gates, etc who made no bones about dropping out of their respective colleges and not list degrees they didn’t actually earn on their CVs/resumes/linked-in.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if most prudent employers end up being leery of hiring him because he’s already demonstrated an inclination mislead others on his Linked-In about a degree he didn’t earn along with the demonstrated biases/lack of critical thinking/logic in that memo.
The only use I can think of for ABD is for someone applying for an academic job which requires you to show that the degree is almost in hand. In some academic fields you could be working as an instructor while finishing writing the dissertation–this is more for humanities than STEM or possibly social sciences.
For CS purposes, including at Google, you want to explain any gaps in employment. Plenty of CS folks start grad school and then realize there’s no need for the PhD. Having the grad school experience on your resume and an ABD designation is simply to fill in that gap. It does not add anything to the resume in terms of people thinking someone with an ABD somehow offers higher value; it does not subtract value in terms of people thinking you are a slacker for not having finished.
However, saying that you have a PhD when you don’t is a stupid douchey maneuver–in non-technical terms, a “lie”.
I’m sure Damore will be addressing PhD issue in the near future, given pending lawsuits and media attention. In the meantime, I prefer to wait and hear what he has to say, rather than jumping to conclusions. People on social media are too quick to condemn and I’d rather give someone the chance to explain themselves.