Tag: Doctor of Philosophy

The Illustrated Guide to a Ph.D.

via Open Culture by Dan Colman,

Matthew Might, a computer science professor at the University of Utah, writes: “Every fall, I explain to a fresh batch of Ph.D. students what a Ph.D. is. It’s hard to describe it in words. So, I use pictures.” It’s September 26. That means fall is here again, and it’s time to bring you an encore presentation of Matt’s Illustrated Guide to the PhD. Have a look, and you’ll see the whole undertaking in a less hubristic way:

Imagine a circle that contains all of human knowledge:

By the time you finish elementary school, you know a little:

By the time you finish high school, you know a bit more:

With a bachelor’s degree, you gain a specialty:

A master’s degree deepens that specialty:

Reading research papers takes you to the edge of human knowledge:

Once you’re at the boundary, you focus:

You push at the boundary for a few years:

Until one day, the boundary gives way:

And, that dent you’ve made is called a Ph.D.:

Of course, the world looks different to you now:

So, don’t forget the bigger picture:

You can find Matt’s Illustrated Guide hosted on his web site. This guide/reality check is published under a Creative Commons License. You can also buy a print version for $6.50. (The money goes to charity.) Matt offers more insights for Ph.D. students here.

The Illustrated Guide to a Ph.D. is a post from: Open Culture.

Course on Human Action starts tomorrow!!!

Starting Tomorrow:

Human Action, Part 1

Instructor: David Gordon
Cost: $79 (50% off!)
Dates: September 12 – November 6, 2012
Length: Eight weeks

Register Now!

It is perhaps the most important and profound book ever written. Yet how many, in their attempts to read it, have been stopped in their tracks by Part I? In those 7 chapters, Mises lays out the philosophical underpinnings of economics and social philosophy. So they are crucial for understanding the rest of the treatise. Yet, for the reader not versed in philosophy, the technical terminology and references can be daunting.

In this course, David Gordon will clearly explain everything you need to know to make sense of the concepts presented in these chapters. He will define the terms, provide background for the references, and make clear exactly what it is that Mises is saying in these passages.

If this classic has been sitting on your shelf or in your Kindle, just waiting for you to tackle it, there is no better way to start than with this course, which will be followed by subsequent courses taught by Mises Academy faculty, covering the rest of Human Action.

Lectures

The video lectures are online. Lectures will be Wednesday evenings, 6:30-8:00 pm Eastern time. They will be recorded and made available for enrolled students to download.

Reading:

All readings will be free and online. A full hyper-linked syllabus with readings for each weekly topic will be available for all students.

Grades and Certificates

The final grade will depend on quizzes. Taking the course for a grade is optional. This course is worth 3 credits in our own internal system. Feel free to ask your school to accept Mises Academy credits. You will receive a digital Certificate of Completion for this course if you take it for a grade, and a Certificate of Participation if you take it on a paid-audit basis.

Refund Policy

If you drop the course during its first week (7 calendar days), you will receive a full refund, minus a $25 processing fee. If you drop the course during its second week, you will receive a half refund. No refunds will be granted following the second week.

Register Now!

About David Gordon

David Gordon is a senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute. He was educated at UCLA, where he earned his PhD in intellectual history. He is the author ofResurrecting Marx: The Analytical Marxists on Exploitation, Freedom, and Justice, The Philosophical Origins of Austrian Economics, An Introduction to Economic Reasoning, and Critics of Marx. He is also editor of Secession, State, and Liberty and co-editor of H.B. Acton’s Morals of Markets and Other Essays.

Dr. Gordon is the editor of The Mises Review, and a contributor to such journals as Analysis, The International Philosophic Quarterly,The Journal of Libertarian Studies, and The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics.

Free Online Education on Objectivism, the philosophy founded by Ayn Rand

I am happy to learn that more online Free services are been made available for those interested in studying Philosophy.  The news was sent by the Atlas Society,
“The Atlas Society is launching a new video education series, theAtlas University. And we need your input as we get the first units ready for public launch. This is your chance to get an inside, first look at one of our biggest initiatives for 2012.

Atlas University is a video course series offering accessible, engaging, and enriching courses on Objectivism, the philosophy founded by Ayn Rand.  Our primary target audiences for this particular course are students interested in an “Objectivism 101” course and adults interested in an introductory continuing education curriculum focused on Objectivism.  If you are familiar with The Teaching Company’s Great Courses (http://www.thegreatcourses.com/) imagine this as an addition to their catalog.

The first Atlas University series is going to be a 10-part course called “Reason,” a survey of Objectivist epistemology. The instructors are TAS founder and chief intellectual officer David Kelley, PhD, and TAS director of programs William R Thomas, MA.

The planned ten parts of the “Reason” course are:

  1. What is reason? I (Speaker: David Kelley)
  2. What is reason? II The Conceptual Faculty (Speaker: William R Thomas)
  3. Volitional nature of reason (Speaker: William R Thomas)
  4. Objectivity I: Objective reality (Speaker: David Kelley)
  5. Objectivity II: Objective Knowledge? (Speaker: David Kelley)
  6. Reason and Emotion (Speaker: William R Thomas)
  7. Certainty (Speaker: David Kelley)
  8. Religion, God, and the supernatural (Speaker: David Kelley)
  9. Reason vs. mysticism and subjectivism (Speaker: William R Thomas)
  10. Conclusion: Living by Reason (Speaker: William R Thomas)

The first two 30-minute videos in this course are now ready for viewing.

In lecture 1, “What is Reason,” David Kelley introduces the course by considering what reason is and what role it plays in human life and civilization. Kelley surveys the history of modern philosophical thought to offer the viewer a grasp of how reason is viewed in the culture today and what challenges a defender of reason faces.


Lecture 2,“The Conceptual Faculty,” with William R Thomas takes up the most essential of these challenges, giving the distinctively Objectivist view of reason as the human faculty that allows us to mentally grasp universal terms via abstraction from the particular existents that we experience. Thomas presents Ayn Rand’s “measurement-omission” theory of concepts in an accessible, fresh manner, showing what makes it possible for our words to have objective meaning. Objective concept-formation is key to clear thinking.


We’re looking for individuals willing to preview these video programs and give us feedback on the content and the production values and general advise us on how make this course, and the Atlas University as whole, the best it can be.

Would you like to participate?

Just send an email to atlasu@atlassociety.org and enter “Atlas U” into the subject field of the email.

If you are accepted to take part, we will give you free access to these videos over a ten-day period (July  13-23).

You will be sent a link to two surveys, one relating to each video. You can use these surveys to offer your feedback. But please complete the surveys by Monday, July 24.

We will consider your feedback as we revise these two videos for full public release and as we continue creating videos in this and other Atlas University courses.

We would very much appreciate your participation.

Thanks,
The Atlas Society

PhD position in Economics, Ghent Univ., Belgium

Ghent University
Image via Wikipedia

Ghent University
Faculty of Economics and Business Administration
has a vacancy for
a MOTIVATED DOCTORAL RESEACHER (M/F)
In the field of Micro-Econometrics Applied to Labour Economics

Project title: “EVALUATING ACTIVE LABOUR MARKET POLICIES IN FLANDERS”
To start in January 2012

Job Description
• The candidate writes a doctoral thesis under the supervision of Prof. Bart Cockx on the research project entitled “Evaluating Active Labour Market Policies in Flanders”. This project will be realized within the Policy Research Centre Work and Social Economy (“Steunpunt Werk en Sociale Economie”) financed by the Flemish Government. The project consists in two main research topics:
(i) A Simple Monitoring Instrument for the Effectiveness of Active Labor Market Policies;
(ii) Public Procurement of Employment Services: Long-Run Effectiveness and the Role of the Service Provider.

The description of the research project can be downloaded fromhttp://users.ugent.be/~bcockx/PhDproject_Werk.pdf.
• The competencies and research interests of the promoter are described onhttp://users. ugent.be/~bcockx/.
• In addition to performing the tasks described in the research project, the PhD candidate will improve his/her research skills by completing a doctoral training programme. This includes advanced courses within the Belgian Graduate School in Economics, and attending and presenting research in seminars and international conferences. A description of the rules of the PhD programme are downloadable fromhttp://www.feb.ugent.be/en/Res/doctoraatsreglement_2011.pdf

Profile
• You are holder of a Master degree in Economics, which you should have completed with honours.
• You can work independently, accurately and systematically
• You have an interest in quantitative methods

Offer
• A doctoral research fellowship for up to 4 years.
• A dynamic research environment with interactions with other research centres, in particular with IRES at UCLouvain and also IZA and CESifo, research centres to which Bart Cockx is affiliated.

Interested?
Send a letter of motivation and your CV to prof. Bart Cockx bart.cockx@ugent. be as soon as possible and not later than December 15, 2011. Do not hesitate to send a mail for more info.

url: http://users.ugent.be/~bcockx/vacature2011.pdf

Video: Larry H. White talks about his upcoming book “The Clash of Economic Ideas”

 

Lawrence H. White is professor of economics at George Mason University and the F. A. Hayek Professor of Economic History in the department of economics at University of Missouri — St. Louis. His teaching and research areas include economic history, monetary theory, money and banking, and history of economic thought. White holds a PhD and a MA in economics from University of California at Los Angeles; he also received his AB in the same area from Harvard University. He is visiting professor at Universidad Francisco Marroquín.

Visit “The Clash of Economic Ideas” video collection
http://newmedia.ufm.edu/gsm/index.php/The_Clash_of_Economic_Ideas

Produced by New Media / UFM 2011
http://www.newmedia.ufm.edu
http://www.ufm.edu More