A true story.
I’m sitting on the graduate admissions committee for the physics department at a major research university. Across the table, fellow committee member Prof. A is perusing the file of an applicant who is on the bubble. Prof. A turns to Prof. B next to him and says, “Did you see this one? The student has a Masters degree in Divinity.”
Now, you know me. Not really the Divinity-School type. But still, I’m thinking, that’s interesting. Shows a certain intellectual curiosity to study religion and then move on to physics. There’s some successful tradition there.
But Prof. A shakes his head slowly. “I would really worry about someone like this, that they weren’t devoted enough to doing physics.”
Prof. B nods sagely in assent. “Yes, you have to be concerned that they just don’t have the focus to succeed.”
The student didn’t get in.
I have a friend who was a biology postdoc when he decided that he just didn’t like biology and he really wanted to be an astronomer. So, he applied to grad school in astronomy, and if I remember correctly, the majority of top astronomy programs refused to consider him because he already had a PhD in a different field. He did get accepted by a top program, however, and he now has two PhDs, so he’s twice as smart as the rest of us….
If someone is on “the bubble” it makes sense to ask questions. A department invests in the student as well as the student investing in their studies.
It may be that the person is a strong proponent of the scientific method and a potentially fantastic physicist, but unlikely given the bubble statement. The student should have written a statement describing the nature of their master’s degree and what it means to them – they should recognize that this raises a red flag in most reputable science departments.
Sourav, how do you know that Ed Witten was not on the bubble? Were you on the committee that considered his application? It’s easy to look back on the career of a successful person and “see” evidence of his brilliance early on. It’s much harder to make that call in “real-time.”
My heart goes out to this student; hopefully other schools will not be as myopic.
Honestly, this seems as silly as the spiel I was given by my grad school advisor (a multidisciplinary medievalist) when I said I wanted a combined English/History degree that people in English can “do” history, but people in history can’t “do” English. Wha?
What is it about academics that makes them so nervous about people switching fields? Are we all supposed to be programmed from birth? Sheesh.
I hope similar things will not happen to me. I have a masters degree, except it is in physics.
As an undergraduate, I oscilllated between majoring in Engllish literature and in physics. I eventually decided to major in physics and minor in English lit (I had to do a major/minor rather than a double major), on the theory that even if I took the same courses, if I applied to grad school in physics, they wouldn’t let an English major in, while an English grad department would not be put off by a physics major.
I now know that English departments are more conservative than I gave them credit for, but still might have let me in. I think I was quite right about the physics departments though – not being an Ed Witten, it could have been fatal. (I did eventually do a physics degree.)
On one level, this story is evidence of the blinkered attitude of academic departments, and I also doubt it had anything to do with the fact that the masters was in divinity. However, let me also be provocative and say that this blinkered and conservative attitude might be encouraged by the rigorous but extremely intellectually conservative physics programs we now have, where the material and the method taught in many first year grad courses (mechanics, E&M, quantum) hasn’t really changed in the last 30-40 years.
Hope,
You have to ask yourself, how does a history major get into the applied math PhD program at Princeton? And then transfer to theoretical physics, and do a PhD in less than 5 years? I’d be shocked if he wasn’t dripping with talent, head and shoulders above the rest of the applicant pool.
Did they look at the rest of his record? Did he show interest in physics classes and succeed in it for an undergrad degree?
Physicists can be smart and driven, but not necessarily smarter and more driven than anyone who may not have a physics degree.
Hope wrote:
I don’t know Witten’s early history, but somehow I think he was always clearly brilliant. Heck — he completely trounced an Italian friend of mine in Scrabble. In Italian.
True story: I am currently doing a study abroad for a semester, something not usually done at my uni especially in physics, and before I left I had a few professors and students alike sternly warn me that I might miss out on irrecoverable GRE studying/ lab experience time. The first time this happened I was about to laugh until I realized the person was serious- these people really thought that going off to see the rest of the world and expanding my horizons beyond the physics department at one university was an egregious error. Funny, I thought the point of a university education was to expand your horizons…
So I guess between study abroad, the history minor, and the extensive writing/ music performance I’ll now have reason worry about percieved “lack of focus” when applying to graduate school next year. Grrrr.
Yvette and others: For what it’s worth, another part of my story is that I took a couple of years off before going to grad school. A professor at another school told me that I would surely ruin my career by taking a year off. (That’s almost a direct quote.) I thought that was ridiculous, and indeed, nobody cared about that, as far as I know. If I were sitting on a committee, I would assume that somebody who took time off and then decided to apply was _more_ committed because they knew what they wanted, rather than just applying because they had no better idea during senior year of college. So don’t feel you have to avoid doing anything interesting.
As for Ed Witten, I bet he had letters of rec that would get a frog into princess school.
what does “on the bubble” mean?
Revolting. No wonder I find the attitudes of my physics colleagues toward other intellectual fields more closed-minded and condescending by the day.
Few people who are truly good at what they do are solely and only interested within the confines of their fields. What does it say about scientific academia that we choose to shut out those who are evident polymaths? What does it say about how we value interdisciplinary brilliance?
Sean, did you speak up? And if so, what did you say? And if you didn’t, why not?
At the risk of bringing up a dead horse to beat, I wonder if these attitudes negatively affect certain groups entering the sciences more than others. Anecdotally (disclaimer: I am speaking as a white male) I’ve noticed that the women in our graduate program tend to have broader interests than the men, are more interested in interdisciplinary work, and I’ve been told privately that it shows that not many women are sufficiently committed to physics. For a while I thought that it was a true weakness to come into physics without that singlemindedness. Now I’m not so sure.
I just read some of the last ten or so comments on the post about ‘the message that is sent” and the odds of physicists and astronomers getting actual academic jobs. Do you think these attitudes about focus are harmful to academia in the efforts of academia to “weed out” the weaklings, the insufficiently committed ones who read novels instead of ApJ on Sunday afternoons, who may actually have a refreshing and flexible intellectual sensibility?
More importantly do you think these attitudes will ever, ever, ever change?
What a stupid job track I’ve signed on for, I keep thinking. Better jump ship while I still have my dignity.
As a little undergraduate Physicist from England I am not too familiar with the system in American Universities.
However the post seems to me to be showing the foundations of a much bigger problem. Us scientists are very keen on emphysising the value of our own work and de-emphysising the good work that goes on in more humanity-based academic areas. Profs A and B are clearly of the opinion that studying religion or philosophy or whatever is somehow worth less than a science.
Personally, I take lectures with students who take additional modules in physics (and maths) who do philosophy as their main degree and they are often the most rigarous and questioning of the lecturer.
Now, I love my subject but I have first hand experience of the way in which other subject areas can allow thought from different angles. It is important that we do not disregard questions and ideas from other points of view and non traditional ‘athiest-scientist’ types. Surely it will be these people who are pioneering within the field. It is unfortunate that your admissions Professors missed the chance to have a student like this.
Hmmmm… Caltech has/had (he’s leaving to Madison this summer) Michael Ramsey-Musolf as a senior researcher in their theory group. He’s a great scientist and person, and an Episcopal priest holding an M. Div!
See his CV here: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~mjrm/bio.htm
So I assume Sean is in the graduate admissions committee at a major research university not too different from where Mike is… So the profs in the committee should know better!
Here’s another reason to be upset by this kind of attitude about “focus”: like it our not, the same system that trains its graduate students to become academics, and nothing else, can only provide academic careers to a small fraction of those students.
Those who obey all the advice of those who made it into the realm of professorhood to “focus” on physics (or whatever field they are pursuing) to the exclusion of everything else will also find themselves much more adrift if they don’t happen to be one of those few who are able to have an academic career.
I know, because I’ve been there — I followed the advice of those who told me (for example) not to take time off before graduate school, and I aspired to academia to the exclusion of all else. If I had had less focus, and spent more time learning and doing things other than physics, I’d probably have had an easier time pursuing other options when the postdocs petered out.
(I might even have been more committed and more successful in my scientific career, knowing more about what else was there. I don’t want to emphasize this point, though, because the raw number of graduate-students-trained-per-professor remains the same, and because it furthers the notion that “success” means success in academia, and nothing else.)
I can think of at least two HEP expermentalists who are tenured faculty members at research universities, who would have been turned down by this criteria.
Although, if this student was “on the bubble”, it probably became a search for reasons not to accept. There are, in the end, only so many slots.
Quasar:
“Funny Sean, imagine if a ‘physics’ student or a ‘physics’ post grad were refused a place because he/she did not believe in a god or gods.
Imagine if a ‘physics’ student was turned down because he/she did not believe in strings. Perhaps one could joke they had “no strings to pull” ”
Touche!
I also would like to learn what “on the bubble” means. Does it have to do with one’s “social capital”?
More and more I reach to the conclusion that “PhD” is an anachronic term to the title. Nowadays, for a successful career in science, apart from building a high social capital in the first place, one has to show that he/she is essencially a technician, above all.
In my opinion, the notion of having “focus” is much related to the profile of someone who will most probably submerge completely into the technicalities of the subject area in question. Someone who has been showing signs of this from his/her CV. Something that, e.g., could naively be related to the fact that he/she has not shown previous signs of having pursued interest in other areas of knowledge.
Being a technician is good, but is not all. It is not the most important issue. And it is definitely not the most certain mean to attain an end. It is just a very poor notion of what constitutues the profile of a good scientist.
In my opinion, the student in question should at least have been asked for an interview.
Well,
my idea was that the decision was deeply wrong, for at least two reasons.
First, professors are making decisions about the future with little (if any) good data. There is no reason why a good theologist could become a very good mathematician, or whatever else scientist.
For example, they could remember the history of Bletchey Park, where people from really different backgrounds were able to work jointly to break german codes.
But the second point is that lots of people, both in mathematics and in theoretical physics, are saying that we need researchers with a broader vision. People that are able to see beyond their own field, make connections and so on….
I believe that there are not lot of connections among theology and string theory.
Also, I doubt that there are lots of theologist interested in studying mathematics.
But I believe that some researcher from a completely different background can provide some new idea, some new way of thinking that, even if it is completely wrong, can be useful and stimulating to the field.
Paolo Bizzarri
“On the bubble” just means that they were close to the line between “admit” and “don’t admit.”
Thanks! I was completely wrong in my guess of what “on the bubble” meant…
But, for what is worth, I maintain my previous assertions…
I suppose you don’t worry about this in physics, but as a biologist I read this and I think of Jonathan Wells, advocate of Intelligent Design Creationism, who sought a PhD in biology specifically so he could use it to battle “Darwinism.”
I’ve been in the same boat — and was punished for it. In grad school, when I was on the bubble — I was told I had too many outside interests. Partially that was true — I was very interested in a lot of things — and partially it was dictatorial restrictions on focus. I don’t think I truly understood as a grad student the level of exclusionary focus that is expected in academic physics — both in the good and bad sense that I spent time studying Chinese or writing fiction instead of reading ApJ, and as well as the truly limiting mentalities and social capabilities of some of those who are blindered by academic research.