PhD Quotes

Asian countries produce eight times as many engineering bachelors as the United States, and the number of U.S. students graduating at the masters and PhD levels in these areas is declining. (Mark Kennedy)

When I got my PhD, it was a time when there were just no jobs for PhDs. Period. PhDs were getting the lowest paid technician jobs, if they were lucky, in any kind of science.

Shannon Lucid

The final verdict will not be in the obituaries. The final verdict will be when the PhD students dig out the archives, read my old papers, assess what my enemies have said, sift the evidence and seek the truth. I'm not saying that everything I did was right, but everything I did was for an honourable purpose.

Lee Kuan Yew

Cambridge was my goal, so once I got admission and scholarship, I decided to go there - I went there after my B. Sc at 19, I did my Masters in 3 years, by age 22 and PhD in another 3 years, by 25 years of age.

Jayant Narlikar

In 1963, when I completed my PhD, it was mostly on the steady-state theory using mathematical formulations to describe creation of matter. People always argued that you cannot have matter coming out of nothing, what would happen to the law of conservation of matter. It is a normal criticism of the steady-state theory. One could answer it either in one sentence by saying what is the big-bang theory where the entire universe came out of nothing, so you are violating the law of conservation of matter and energy in a big way. But that would be to point out the weakness of the other theories and not answering your own theory.

Jayant Narlikar

I managed to get a quick PhD - though when I got it I knew almost nothing about physics. But I did learn one big thing: that no one knows everything, and you don't have to.

Steven Weinberg

By the end of my PhD I could swing a sledgehammer.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell

You don't need a PhD in climate science to understand what's going on, that we have overwhelming evidence that the climate is changing. That you cannot tie any one event to that is not the same as doubt about the whole thing.

Bill Nye

I then got a PhD in physics [from Ohio University] though it was hatt hatt and hatt not a very good one.

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan

What she did have, after raising two children, was the equivalent of a PhD in mothering and my undying respect.

Barbara Delinsky

I had no idea in 1933 what economics was, but I did well in the subject from the start, and when I graduated in 1937 with first class honours LSE gave me a scholarship to do a PhD in industrial economics. (W. Arthur Lewis)

I went to Brunel University and very much wanted to go on to do a PhD in management, but then my acting career started to take off. In those days when you switched on the box there were hardly any brown or black faces.

Archie Panjabi

I came from this very traditional background and I benefited hugely from feminism. I felt privileged going to university and doing a PhD. Most people of my background don't get to do that.

Denise Mina

By that time I was hooked on a career in academic research instead of one in the pharmaceutical industry that I had originally considered in deciding to get a PhD.

Paul Berg

The PhD system is the real root of the evil of academic snobbery. People who have PhDs consider themselves a priesthood, and inventors generally don't have PhDs.

Freeman Dyson

My advice to prospective PhD students is to follow your passion and pick a topic that interests you - don't do a PhD topic that you hate, but you think will be lucrative. Because the big picture is that it is the fundamentals learned and problem solving skills gained from your PhD that will open the real career doors. Topics come in and out of fashion - it is the investment in yourself and the person you become through your PhD experience that really matters in the end. Of course, if you happen to love a topic that turns out lucrative then great - but this is hard to predict.

Derek Abbott

I don't think I was funny until college. I lived with some Harvard MD/PhD students - they were so smart, and what I contributed to the house was, I was the funny one.

Wendy Liebman