Category: 3. Academia
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Why we shouldn’t grade dissertations
tl;dr — A quality mark of a dissertation is that its reviewers don’t all come from the same university. However, different universities have different grading systems, making average grades meaningless at best and hurtful to the careers of young researchers at worst. So we should move to a pass/fail system of grading. A dissertation (a.k.a.…
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How to get a Ph.D. in Germany
In this 10min. video, I explain ways of getting a doctoral title (Ph.D.) in Germany. I specifically explain the individual doctorate and its differences to the structured programs of Anglo-Saxon universities. This talk is scheduled for Jan 24th, with 165 registrations for the live event one week before already.
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Documenting a lead author’s contributions for a cumulative dissertation
Since 2021, my Ph.D. students have been able to submit cumulative dissertations for promotion rather than the traditional monographs. A cumulative dissertation is a set of published research papers, logically stapled together, and lead by an introduction that puts the research papers into context. This way, a graduate-level researcher can work incrementally towards their dissertation,…
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The state of digitization in the state of digitization
Some impressions from today’s home office work (for the state).
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Price for value, not for costs
If there is one thing I wished more of my fellow academic peers would understand when working with industry, it is this: You should Price for value created, not for costs incurred. Many professors, when asked about the price of some proposed work, will calculate the direct labor costs needed for the project, add some…
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The place of professional certificates and the significance of an academic degree
My Twitter feed is alight with comments on Google’s six-month “career” certificate, which, according to this SVP, Google will treat as equivalent to a four-year Bachelor’s degree. Predictably, a large number of comments are from students who conclude from their own disappointed experience that all college programs are crap. They cheer on Google. Also predictably,…