What Do You Get Out of a Ph.d?

People talk a great deal about college degrees--and say very little of value about them.

Certainly one misconception evident in thinking about the whole range of fields of study is that having a doctorate entails mastery of an entire subject area.

In reality it is a preliminary--a preparation to begin the work that is likely to be the main source of learning the actual practice of their profession.

In his Capital in the Twenty-First Century Thomas Piketty, recounting his educational experience, remarked that at the end of his formal training, in which he completed a thesis "consist[ing] of several abstract mathematical theorems," he still "knew nothing about the world's economic problems."

Such self-awareness is likely to lead to a search after more substantial knowledge--as it did in his case, leading up to that particular book. Unfortunately such self-awareness and such searches are all too rare, especially in an intellectual and political culture so prone to seize on any badge of authority to elevate "experts" into a priesthood, which then sets about strangling any real discussion.