Reply to Do you think you are smarter than me because you have a graduate degree?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous] [b]I have no idea how you got this idea from DCUM, incidentally. [/b]  Hopefully it isn't projecting.

But to answer your question, no, I don't.  I am a PhD scientist and a professor at one of the best universities in the country in a really technical field, but the smartest person I've ever worked with (in industry) was a college dropout, and no not Bill Gates.  Degrees are personal betterment but jobs can be too and neither really changes your core smarts.

And just to reinforce the point I should say that I prefer to work with students as I find that my postdocs (who have PhDs) actually are often more brittle in their thinking and not necessarily more knowledgeable.

[/quote]

Well I do spend a lot of time on the money and schools forums which tend to be full of braggarts. Perhaps it's less true of the rest of the site.[/quote]

Ah, now this thread makes sense. I'm not on those much and was wondering where this characterization came from. IME DC area is one of the best places to have advanced degrees because they're so common that people don't have too many weird perceptions. Back home (major Midwestern city) the standard response on finding out is "you must be SO SMART!" (Not in a friendly way either) I had 2 stock answers to defuse their discomfort.  "Well, I am, but not because of that" and "having a old doesn't mean someone is smart, it means they are a stubborn MFer."  Here I don't need any stock answers and its WONDERFUL. I can just be myself because people know just what it does and doesn't mean to have one. [/quote]

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