Monday, June 8, 2015

This week's C&EN

A few stories from this week's issue:

5 comments:

  1. Re: the UPenn PSM-chemistry program, I must be missing something. The way I read it, it's a two-year program, at full tuition, for students with bachelor's degrees in chemistry "whose needs are not being met," presumably by more traditional programs... but then rather than give them a different curriculum, they take 10 grad courses alongside other graduate students in chemistry.

    Why not just apply for and attend an actual graduate (M.S.) chemistry program? As far as I can tell, they're trying to appeal to the same students, they take the same coursework, and all without funding. Maybe the difference is that UPenn keeps the PSM students out of research activities and TA work. Not sure if that's worth having to pay full freight.

    Of course, looking at the proposed program's student intake, maybe the target market has nothing to do with the given reasons for setting this up in the first place.

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    1. Most American research universities do not offer a terminal M.S. degree program in Chemistry. It is possible to apply to M.S. programs at smaller colleges but that isn't the best route for someone whose goal is a career in research. The real attraction here is having U.Penn. on one's C.V. for their next professional step.

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  2. I wonder if they're trying to duplicate the success of cash-cow MBA programs. A lot of folks taking evening MBA's get the tuition paid by their employers, and I had a few co-workers at Big Chemical Company taking evening coursework MS's in chemistry on the company's dime.

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    Replies
    1. Looks like UP's chemistry department has been infiltrated by Wharton.

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  3. Read Sergio's statement. I bet a lot of US faculty are drooling in glee at the prospect of attracting Cuban PhD candidates to the US, in addition to the pre-existing contingent of ...."imports"...

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looks like Blogger doesn't work with anonymous comments from Chrome browsers at the moment - works in Microsoft Edge, or from Chrome with a Blogger account - sorry! CJ 3/21/20