Quote:
Originally Posted by mldavis2
Yes, the degrees, especially doctorates, are very misleading. For example, I have one daughter with a J.D. which she obtained in 3 years following college (U.S.). My other daughter is married to a Navy physician who is still "in school" having obtained his M.D. in 4 years, board-certified in Ob-Gyn, then his specialty in Gyn-Oncology in 6 additional years of specialty fellowship which is nearly finished.
In my case, I was a chemistry major which required five years for a PhD plus a year of post-doc work. So I learned to read slowly and carefully, somewhat unlike a literature or political science or education major who could rip through text books. Consequently, my background in 'literature' is very weak and I'm still a relatively slow reader, so despite my terminal degree, I'm sure I'm far behind most readers here in terms of 'literature.' 
Interesting poll for fun, but hardly definitive or even significant. There are a lot of highly brilliant school dropouts - Bill Gates and Michael Dell come to mind ... |
I think it's obvious that technical books require a completely different mode of reading from that required for literature or history. I ought to know -- my degree is in mathematics! But one can develop different techniques for different types of reading. In fact, I wonder whether people with humanities degrees are as adventurous in their reading as we techies are more or less forced to be.