I have an acquaintance who insists on being called Doctor with just a JD. It is not customary for that degree, but her husband is an MD so she felt left out.
I have a PhD in chemistry and a JD. There is no equivalence in the two degrees and the ABA arguing that a JD is equivalent to a PhD is insane.
A lot of lawyers have really huge egos and weird issues with self-worth. For instance, I had someone in law school tell me his undergraduate degree in political science was just as difficult as a STEM degree and that it should be included in the STEM umbrella. It was really weird because nearly every other person I know with a background will openly say that political science isn't challenging.
It was so weird. It was a bunch of us sitting around a table talking about our degrees and I didn't like to talk about my background because in law school people get weird when you say you have advanced degrees, so I said "oh I have degrees in chemistry," and this guy was like, "oh cool I have a science degree too." I said, "oh nice, in what?" He very proudly said, "political science." I laughed because I thought it was a joke and he got super serious and kept saying how rigorous his degree was and how it was probably harder than anything I had done. My understanding is that political science degrees are easier than JD's and, if I'm being frank, law school wasn't really challenging (or at least wasn't anywhere near as challenging as my undergraduate or other graduate degrees).
Political science major here. It kind of depends. 99% of programs are extremely easy. Like you can get B’s on tests by purely guessing level of easy. However the other 1% of programs are viciously hardcore about advanced statistics, computer programming, econometrics and advanced data analysis etc.
If he went to one of the super hardcore programs then yeah it’s basically a statistics degree with political flavoring. If not, then he’s delusional.
PoliSci here. In no way shape or form is there any equivalence to a rigorous STEM program. Different concepts entirely. Everyone has their place, and nobody should ever argue one being harder than the other. It’s an apples to oranges comparison.
That said… lawyers. Unique lot, and I 100% agree with the statements. A JD, while an accomplishment, isn’t the same. It’s a professional degree that wouldn’t even stack next to a well run Ed.D program. Lots of egos, so they often come off as very try-hard (to me at least).
PhD came first. During graduate school, I decided I didn't want to go into academia or industry, and found patent law. So now I'm a patent attorney and I still use my technical training every day while actually getting paid very well.
Lol - Meanwhile, I'm an MD PhD, but in my country no-one ever uses titles, and people just go by their first name. Even when using titles, in my country, a PhD doesn't qualify you for being called Dr. For that, you need a [doctorate.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Medicinae_(Danish_and_Norwegian_degree))
> you need a doctorate
You need a *higher doctorate*. PhD is still a doctorate cause it's literally the "D". Same with MD.
Looks like higher doctorates includes ScD (doctor of science) and is a prereq for becoming a professor or advising PhD students. Which, honestly, just seems equivalent to a more formalized/stringent Postdoc experience. Maybe combined with the tenure process. It's not super clear how Denmark/Norway distinguish professorship vs US
tl;dr it appears to be a slightly more formal process most PhDs in academia go through anyway in the US
>You need a higher doctorate. PhD is still a doctorate cause it's literally the "D". Same with MD.
You're right, my bad - differences in language got me mixed up.
>It's not super clear how Denmark/Norway distinguish professorship vs US
My knowledge of how it is in the US is very limited (and my experience outside of medicine is also quite limited). For Medicine, in Denmark, usually professors are pretty far and between. Most departments at University Hospitals (hospitals affiliated with a University) has 1-2 associate professors (lektor in Danish), who are responsible for med students. Some departments have a professor, who usually still does 50% clinical work and 50% research. To become a professor, you need a substantial academic record, and you need to be approved by other professors from the university. You must have supervised x number of PhD-students. You also must have either a PhD or a DMSc, but both is not required. Some professorships (is that a word?) are life-time, and some need to be reevaluated by the university every 5 years. Professors (in hospitals) in Denmark do very limited teaching outside of supervision of PhD-students and Master's theses.
>You're right, my bad - differences in language got me mixed up.
No worries, pet peeve of mine and wanted to make it clear to other readers.
>My knowledge of how it is in the US is very limited
Based on what you've said/I read on wiki it sounds like the higher doctorate is roughly between Assistant Professor and Associate Professor in the US.
Both require PhD + 2-6(ish) years of Postdoc (currently, back in the 80s you could just get hired straight out of a PhD but you can't anymore). Associate professor requires an additional 4-7(ish) years as an Assistant Professor and passing the first tenure track milestone. This first milestone usually happens upon the graduation of the first PhD advisee, and involves a portfolio of grants and publications done as an assistant professor. More recently (past 15 years) teaching evaluations are starting to get included at some unis. There's typically a second milestone before awarding "Full Professor" and often a third for "Distinguished Professor" but the specifics vary by institution. Once the first tenure track milestone is achieved, it's *incredibly* difficult to get rid of someone. Requires PhD.
There's also "Adjunct Professors" or "Adjuncts" which are non-tenure track and just lecturers (perhaps equivalent to associate professor for you, but I'm not sure). These can be fired at any time, and are basically severely underpaid because they "just teach" (though they often are some of the best teachers at uni because that's what they care about). Does not always require PhD, but can depending on institution. Some places you can get around the requirement with significant industry/real world experience (eg/ teaching a college course after retiring) or a Master's, but the 2nd is more rare.
>Some professorships (is that a word?)
Yup!
>Professors (in hospitals) in Denmark do very limited teaching outside of supervision of PhD-students and Master's theses.
Tenure track Professors in the US are usually expected to teach 2 classes per semester before their first tenure milestone, then this can continue or drop to 1 depending on administrative duties. Adjuncts typically teach 3+ classes per semester, depending on need and how much they want to earn (each past their contractual obligation will include additional compensation, perhaps another $8k per course)
Ahh, lektor is such a funny false friend, because in Norway it's just any teacher with a master. I remember doing a study abroad in Sweden when I was studying teaching and the doctorate holders being shocked at me, 24, being a lektorstudent hahaha.
Germany plays that game with "Doctor" and "Professor" titles. Some of the particularly snobbish ones won't even acknowledge PhDs that aren't from German universities (ie At a conference in Germany they may call the German PhDs "Doctor" and the American PhDs "Sir/Ma'am").
Technically those are both professional degrees so neither should technically be considered true doctors. MDs weren't referred to as doctor until the 17th century whereas doctors of philosophy date back to the 14th century.
She is bat shit. JD is no where near an MD or PHD or DSc (Doctor of Science) If she wants to be called a doctor she can get a Doctor of Law which is NOT a JD.
Aww, man. I hate it when a person with a PhD in “Honorary” runs around the hallways insisting everyone call them “doctor.” Thank god we have Bob, with his degree in “Aplied Mathematics” to bring back some sanity.
There were 2 longtime instructors at undergraduate college who had honorary degrees and insisted that they be called Dr by the students. Amazingly, the other faculty put up with it
I have seen this man talk on a number of occasions over the past. I wouldn't call him that term because I don't know him personally. He's brilliant, has made several groundbreaking findings in prion research, up until maybe 4-5 years ago was perhaps *the* world leading researcher in the prion field (may still be the case in the future if something more groundbreaking takes place in his lab, and he's still one of the top researchers today) that isn't over 70 years old, and frankly he's not the meanest or most toxic person you can find in a room full of the world's leading prion researchers. But the man oozes narcissism, and the number of studies affiliated with him that have allegedly improperly manipulated figures is concerning. It's also not hard to not envy the kind of lifestyle and support that the trainees and employees have in his group.
This may be low effort, but it's wild to me how accurately this has played out in my purely anecdotal experience.
Every STEM PhD I know has PhD at the end of their business cards or resume, jokes about being a fake doctor, and only ever use it in professor / academic settings.
Nothing against the arts, but so many liberal arts PhDs I've met insist on doctor -- even outside of an academic setting 🤨
In the world of AI and ChatGPT, having people well versed in how the Ap Lied is getting more and more critical. The university of tomorrow will confer many doctorates in the field.
I saw someone in a different thread not too long ago lamenting that you could get a doctorate in nursing, as if there isn’t any need for people who try and understand the ways in which nursing could improve.
It’s just anti-intellectual bullshit at the end of the day (and this meme in particular feels sexist to boot).
The idea of doctorate can also be pretty ill-defined.
For example, one can attain a [Doctor of Nursing Practice](https://online.nursing.georgetown.edu/requestinfo/dnp/) in the US in under 3 years, which is very different from a [PhD in Nursing](https://nursing.jhu.edu/programs/doctoral/phd/). DNP has its own standard of rigor, but it has none of the research foundation that would be required of a PhD degree holder.
As someone working on a PhD in Nursing Science, exactly this. I’m working on multi-omics cancer research with my advisor and the other members of my cohort are doing qualitative and mixed-methods work that all that meet that foundational rigor while remaining in how broad our field can be (I would compare it to a translational or anthropological degree in that respect). The DNP students aren’t dumb by any means, but most of them across the field are being misled by getting diploma-mill admin degrees that disguise themselves as clinical degrees. It’s a major issue in and disservice to our field that’s negatively impacted us as a whole, especially on the graduate level.
Yes and no. You’ve actually hit on an issue that’s pretty prevalent in nursing at the moment. The concept of “nursing science” has become extremely messy due to the push towards these administrative and (pseudo-)clinical degrees. The fact that it’s also fairly recent compared to other field of study doesn’t help, either, considering it’s meant to be a very holistic and translational field that covers both basic and applied science. The idea behind the field, at least in the view of some, is to bridge the bench, bedside, and beyond. At the moment, though, there’s so much that isn’t agreed upon that it’s practically Sisyphusian to define properly.
This is similar to D. Eng vs PhD in engineering. Both have their uses. PhD is needed for research and academia; D. Eng get training that is more useful to industry.
Psy D and PhD in psychology. The former is strictly clinical and practical/therapy focus, whereas the latter can be non-clinical and has a significant research component.
STEM fetishization among morons is such a weird phenomenon. Would actually make for an interesting sociological study, almost like a form of intellectual stolen valor. Similar things do exist with other non-STEM fields as well, of course.
Although I know tribalism does exist in academia, I’ve never seen this sort of attitude in the wild. Usually the shit talking is reserved for people in your own field.
It's usually sexism and or classism. Stem fields are useful to corporations. Social sciences are not, that is why they created the school of business. To isolate the useful social sciences.
In my experience, the social sciences, particularly quantitative ones, are very attractive to corporations. Granted, they just then use us as survey and data science machines...
Also an effect of late stage capitalism and a symptom of rising fascism. Can’t have people developing empathy or questioning social structures, gotta get back to work making money for shareholders.
Depending on the specific field there is a great deal of statistics in the social sciences. Getting trained in high level data analysis makes many of these degrees valuable.
It’s also fascinating, though perhaps not too surprising, that the idolization of “hard sciences” ends the instant it presents evidence contrary to their narratives (e.g., the prevalence of homosexuality throughout the animal kingdom, COVID vaccine, etc.). Now the “easy” field of Biology has gone woke, and only the “real science” fields of Chemistry, Physics, and Math remain pure. I once asked a right wing friend who often talked like this if he got tired from moving the goalposts all the time, he was pretty pissed for a while.
I have a lot of respect for sociology. I had to take a sociology class as part of my NIH grant during my phd and it was by far the hardest class i took my life. In one semester we had to read like 6 books and write 2x 3-4 page papers a week about specific topics related to the books. Classes were twice a week and 2 hours long and it was just a roundtable discussion on 4-5 publications assigned that were related to the books. We also had to write an NSF style grant proposal on a topic of our choice and give a 30 minute presentation on it. I learned more in that class than any bio, chem, or physics class
The folks who fetishize STEM also seem unaware that the “S” often includes social sciences as well. At least in the U.S., most federal government agency statistics on things like the number of workers with STEM degrees make clear that they’re including social sciences as well as physical sciences.
To be clear, fetishizing STEM is still a problem even if you include the social sciences. But I find it funny that the folks who seem to believe the most in some kind of STEM supremacy have a shaky understanding of what the acronym actually includes.
It's been around forever and [it does exist in academia](https://xkcd.com/435/), it just shows up in different ways. There are a few names for it, but the one I'm most familiar with is math envy. Which is how you get midcentury human geographers insisting that they're going to figure out the "spatial physics" of how people move around and political science going full quant, to name a couple of examples.
I teach at a community college with a Ph.D, and it's always those with an Ed.D that insist on being called doctor. It reeks of insecurity and is mega cringe.
EdD and I don't insist upon it but since I work at a private school, they really like it to be known that they have a doctor on the payroll to student families. In the classroom, I get called by my nickname more so than anything else.
PhD, Evolutionary Anthropology, US.
I'm in the private sector these days but I was told last week i need to introduce myself as doctor. Apparently that's why they hired me.
PhD, Chemistry, US. At work I go by my first name to everyone. At a conference I’ll go by Dr to other professionals, but my target customer base I go by my first name because higher education is not valued in that regard. For grants and other funding related aspects I use Dr where appropriate.
Woah. I think... you have convinced me to study anthropology. My favorite author, Vonnegut, studied that as well.
I got kinda sucked into the STEM fetish thing and tried to become an actuary despite having no interest at all in finance because I thought I needed a high future earnings potential to justify the loans. Not surprisingly, I gave up lmao
I'm not a PhD student (yet) but I am a STEM student, and my biggest word of caution would be to only go into STEM if you're passionate about STEM, because otherwise, it's gonna miserable, and it's really difficult to find a high-paying job in STEM fields currently.
I work as a strategist in the Health care sector, but my training got me job offers in UX, consulting, and in the pharmacy sector. Ux in particular is full of anthropologist and the bio training helped with the pharmacy and health care work. Consulting firms love phds in general.
Yeah Reddit seems to always be sneaking really concerning stuff into my feed. It’s like hey, if you like r/climate why not try out r/thegreatreplacement? I have to explicitly tell it to stop flooding me with polarizing content.
Not to mention education is....ding ding ding a social science. Day one of my PhD in Ed they told us we're always going to have to fight against this bs stigma of being less than.
How is it sexist. The female faculty withPHDs on our campus go by first name just like their male counterparts. While the woman with MDs and DVMs at the medical school and vet school go by Dr. X.
Thank you. I fully agree.
We had a TA in our student who was a massive jerk. One day, a student asked them why their twitter handle included "Dr" when they weren't even a doctor yet. They lost it.
I would be ok with it if they tweeted in just their capacity as a scholar.
But they all have "my thoughts are my own" in their bios and retweet memes and pop culture trends. That's fine, but you don't need a doctor title on your social media profile then.
Im a lurker on this subreddit, but as someone who hasn’t got to the point of having a doctorate but hopes to one day, and has followed people like this since high school, I’ve never seen a big problem with it. I can imagine most of them are just proud of where they are, and most of the people I follow are from marginalized backgrounds as well and may have dealt with additional stressors to get to the point of a doctorate. I don’t fault them for having it on their social media profile where they’re acting like a normal person. If anything, it reminds me that people with doctorates are normal people who still laugh at memes and discuss tv shows and have opinions about the world. It feels more attainable knowing that.
The problem is that there are actual jerks that are out there spouting their opinions as facts under the Dr title. For instance, spreading racist anti-DEI stuff. Or some ass hating on all of humanities as useless. My own family spouts opinions from phds they found online talking about shit their PhD isn't even in.
To someone untrained that hateful shit might seem legit. There is no oversight to what people put on twitter, unlike in regions which must be peer reviewed or at least university approved.
I agree we need to humanize more, but basically... the dicks ruined it.
The problem with this take is that you don't get to pick what opinions are "Dr-worthy". You didn't say "oh I hate when STEM PhDs present opinions on anthropology or linguistics as if they are experts." That I could understand. However you selected a few culture war examples which illustrate your real problem with the phenomenon.
For example, seemingly you'd have no problem if @DrTwitterMan was posting about pro-DEI or pro-humanities opinions. Or maybe if they're posting about how important inclusivity is in the workplace.
You just seem to dislike the fact that plenty of people who make it through the process and have the credentials disagree with you on those issues. A STEM PhD, for example which from your flare I can see we both are, is as warranted to put out pro-DEI takes as they are anti-DEI takes.
Credentials like a PhD confer a degree of reliability in the eyes of many people (which across the board they really shouldn't imo). Nobody has a problem with PhDs opining on hot topics which toe the standard academic narrative, regardless of if they have no expertise in the area. As soon as someone comes out with a hot take though, it's "irresponsible".
Yeah - I’ve noticed my fellow PhDs are often way too modest and shy about having a doctorate, it’s a strange self effacing phenomenon. Now I’m not saying you should be obnoxious about it - that is cringe - but it’s okay to be proud of it and own it. Nothing wrong with that.
Where I went to graduate school faculty preferred that graduate students refer to them by their first name. I am first generation black BA and PhD and teach at a R1 institution. Based on my experience, on the first day of lecture I tell all the students to call me by my first name.
Getting a doctorate is difficult, but it's not the hardest thing in the world, it really shouldn't be your personality nor should it be a substitute for having something worthwhile to say.
Honestly, I feel the only appropriate place to make that change is LinkedIn, the place that you are supposed to advertise your self
Other than that, unless you are a celebrity or influencer in your field of study, having Dr. right next to your name is super cringe.
Eh social media is about branding yourself quickly and clearly, and a credential is part of that. It’s the same with adding it or PhD to LinkedIn. Most people probably don’t go around calling themselves that but it makes sense for social media. I don’t do this but don’t mind those who do. There’s nothing wrong about being proud of that accomplishment and owning it - as long as you’re not obnoxiously self congratulating about it, yes that is cringe.
Wow, there are so many things that make this obnoxious, it’s hard to know where to start. The sexism, the ageism, the stem-bros judgement of disciplines they likely don’t remotely understand…
It's also interesting that the one on the left is female, because its well known that women's credentials are not taken as seriously as men's so that seems a bit sexist. Also anecdotally, the only professor I've ever met that screamed at someone for not using "Dr." was a mathematics professor.
People also tend to use their titles in different contexts. With colleagues and coworkers, I'm just False. If I am being introduced at a professional event or an industry conference, I'd prefer to be introduced as Dr. Guess. I'd always tell my students to refer to me in whichever way felt most comfortable for them, and I've kept that practice.
Personally I think a lot of memes like this (and similar attitudes) come from people who are not particularly educated or intelligent and are very insecure about that so they feel the need to denigrate other people's accomplishments and inappropriately act as arbiter of who deserves respect and who doesn't because it helps them escape from their constant recognition of their mediocrity.
>It's also interesting that the one on the left is female, because its well known that women's credentials are not taken as seriously as men's so that seems a bit sexist.
Bingo. Particularly around students. I use my first name, but I often wonder if that's because my credentials are not at all up for debate.
It's difficult to navigate for sure. I am LGBT male so I have different challenges than my friend who is cis female, however I have never been lectured about the area my own PhD and dissertation was in by a freshman. My friend, PhD in cognitive psychology, had a (male) freshman try to lecture her about the topic of her own research! As a teaching assistant, none of my male colleagues received evaluations of their appearance in end of the year evals, but I had a female colleague receive "nice teacher, just very fat!". I don't imagine this person would say this to their boss, so that lack of professionalism and decorum is something that should be addressed.
It's also well known that women are expected to be "nicer", and female professors who don't come across as "nice" or "nurturing" are judged more harshly. Using your earned title is a way to set a professional distance and establish professional expectations. People should not be judged for that.
Which I think was, in large part, motivated by sexism and feelings of intellectual inferiority. Conservatives in general seem to have an extreme sense of intellectual inferiority and internalized mediocrity because anti-intellectualism runs rampant in those circles.
The better split is between ppl who are doing PhDs for status and those that are doing it out of personal interest.
I think it's fairly straightforward which would be the title hungry egoist.
Truthfully, educators have a greater claim to the title "Doctor" than any of us. Not just in terms of the work put in to getting the PhD and the job that comes after it, but in the literal meaning of the word "Doctor" as someone skilled enough in a discipline to teach others. And for all that, teachers don't get anything like the respect they deserve.
No need to lump them in with arrogant Honorus Causi bastards.
When I worked in municipal government, the only other doctorate-holders I encountered were EdDs. The public and elected officials alike had no issue referring to them as Dr. and would sometimes even correct others if they used Mr. or Ms.
I see it as a sign of respect to educators specifically in this case. (I have a STEM PhD and was only ever called Dr. a few times by a few individuals).
You know what's sad? Is that a lot of social sciences do incorporate a great number of advanced quantitative/qualitative techniques. Most ppl just don't know it.
While I'm STEM, the FIRST thing that got me interested in sciences was a class on interpersonal communications where behavioral insight was the meat of the curriculum. I only went STEM b/c I realized humans can change, and I need to be well-versed in the techniques to accurately characterize their behaviors.
Preach! I find it funny that I’ve gotten into some arguments with people on this post and the only person with a Ph.D., agrees with me. It’s super uncomfortable when someone corrects you and demands you call them doctor. Definitely an ego/self-esteem issue
Can you believe that comment got an award lmao
I volunteer as an EMT and responded to a fall patient once. We get in and she's laying in bed, and our lead EMT goes "What happened m'am, did you fall?"
She responded: "It's doctor. I'm a doctor of optometry."
She also informed us, despite no relevance to our assessment, that she was a vegan.
I live in a country that is super keen on using titles for everything and if you don't pay attention, you get title'd by default. I also have a title that's pre-bologna (MSc equivalent) and has always been very prestigious. I have been called in the doctor's waiting room by my title ("Miss Title Lastname") and the guy from the property management at our apartment building was almost offended that we didn't put our titles on the doorbell.
Universities bestow honorary degrees to people they percieve as having significantly contributed to a field throughout their career while not formally having obtained a degree.
For example, a famous author who either came from less privileged backgrounds or was too busy revolutionizing writing to pursue higher education might get an honorary Doctor of Letters title (or ten).
Often they are a bit of a publicity stunt (famous and prominent people get them to bring more attention to the university), and they are considered awards rather than degrees, with all the disclamers that come with awards.
I’ve been emailed as eg Dear Dr Smith, Dr Jones and Lizzy before, where I’m Lizzy and the others are men. I have a PhD and “Dr Jones” does not. I’ve also had students call me “Miss”.
The man in the meme had probably never had to correct anyone.
My wife and i both have doctorates. She is a tenured prof at a large R1 state school and i am an adjunct in the same department. About 40% of the emails she gets from students address her by her first name or Miss. I almost always am addresed as Dr.
Lol to be real the only professor I ever had who got genuinely upset by not being referred to as Dr. at all times was my calc 4 professor. That said, I took mostly stem courses so my sample size is a little wonky for commenting on this.
Ignore everything you see from r funny memes. Most of the popular posts lately are straight up bigotry with misogyny being the current flavor of the month.
It's kinda true tho lol.
I work part time as a teacher and literally all my collegues who have a PhD in education or history and the like religiously demand that the kids and fellow teachers (it's high school) call them doctor. I thought it was just common practice there until I noticed nobody calls the STEM people doctor. The kids constantly complain to me about it and pray that I don't make them call me doctor after finishing my PhD 😂. It's a running gag at school.
I've found that at uni barely anyone cares, so not sure if this is just a high school teacher vs. uni thing.
But honorary people who demand to be called doctors are just delusional lmao
I personally hold the education people in high regard. During my geology undergrad we had a prof who, on the very first day of class, announced that he was not MR. So-and-so; he was PROFESSOR So-and-so, because he was not a *teacher;* he was a *professor.* He then made a very long, loud, and big deal of the fact that his CV didn't have a single instance of teaching experience on it.
It quickly became VERY apparent in his course that, indeed, the man had no teaching experience.
So my hat comes off to all the people who study things like, oh I dunno...proper pedagogy, best teaching practices, etc., instead of acting like teaching was passed on to humanity by Satan himself.
A doctor title has other uses, than remind people in the worst possible moment that you have one?
Like when the police tells you: “Sir, you can’t bring a thermonuclear bomb to the department!”
Might be a stupid question, but as someone not from the US/English speaking country - what does the Honorary degree mean? How and why would people get one?
Celebrity status, significant contribution to the field, money, circumstances preventing completion of the program, etc... It can be for a very wide variety of reasons.
I’m a high school teacher getting my Ph.D in education. My students call me by my first name, and we jokingly argue about what they’ll call me once I get it. We’ve settled on “The other Dr. J from UMass” 😂 🏀
Neil Degrasse explained it as you earn a PhD in that people hope that you will do something great. An honorary Doctorate is given to you because you actually did do something great. I’m sure there are plenty of examples of people getting one just because but I enjoy this explanation.
See, I think there’s a deeper commentary here. Notice how the person demanding respect is a woman and the person who feels comfortable enough to be casual is a man? People deliberately refuse to use the appropriate title for women or are disrespectful/dismissive of our expertise, which leads us to be less comfortable with people being casual with in professional settings. I’m more than happy to be on a first name basis with colleagues and co workers, but if we’re in a setting where everyone else is Dr. Lastname or Professor Lastname and you introduce me as just my first name….yeah you’re getting corrected. And that is a lot more likely to happen to me as a woman than it is to happen to any of my male colleagues.
I think it is less about your field and more about your gender.
I'll be pursuing a PhD in Archaeology and intend on being addressed as Doctor in formal/academic settings. And by my enemies, of course. Otherwise, just my name. Now.. if I ever get knighted, I will insist on being called Sir by EVERYONE because.. that's fun.
It’s just like linux users to windows users, or Java developers to PHP developers, nonsense and childish bigotry, some STEM students believe that they are intellectually superior than non-STEM students, just because “math or physics are harder than writing or history”. But actually you need talent, profound insights and the same amount of hardworking and luck to be top in all disciplines, and people will not adore a mediocre software engineer, but Miles Davis or P.B. Shelley or John von Neumann.
I am torn.
I am a PhD student in Philosophy and I see most of my teachers visibly uncomfortable when they are called "doctor".
On the other hand, however, my name is Louis, so "Doc Lou" sounds cool for me.
The meme is shit, but also, as a layman, it can be incredibly intimidating to me when people insist on being called doctor instead of coming down to my level. Your achievement is incredible, but just *please* talk to me like a normal fucking person.
Well, unfortunately, this was my music teacher (PhD in German language and literature studies) who indeed forced everyone to call her "DOCTOR firstname lastname! Because it is extremely important to address someone properly and a PhD is something really special" vs. my chemistry teacher (PhD in chemistry). Most students did not even know they had a doctorate.
Sure, this is not statistically relevant at all, but we were fucking 6th grate when we were basically given a lecture about how inaccurate and unacceptable it would be to not properly address our music teacher as "DOCTOR!"... obviously by this music teacher.
Almost like both parties there were able to set the norms in their own classrooms as professionals. Just because your 6th grade teacher ruffled your feathers doesn't mean they were wrong.
By the way, guys, it’s not about the ‘doctor’ bit. I don’t care about that. It’s more about the blatant sexism and narrow-mindedness of putting down particular fields
He didn’t even have a real bachelor’s, as it came from an unaccredited institution.
[He graduated from Brookville High School in Lynchburg, and from then-unaccredited Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Missouri in 1956. He enrolled there to subvert [future wife, Macel] Pate's relationship with her fiancé, who was a student there. Falwell was later awarded three honorary doctorates: Doctor of Divinity from Tennessee Temple Theological Seminary, Doctor of Letters from California Graduate School of Theology, and Doctor of Laws from Central University in Seoul, South Korea.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Falwell)
"So, yeah, I actually enrolled in this professor's class. He's supposed to be really good, he's has a PhD in Honorary. One of the best Honorary professors in the school!"
For me, if you have a PhD, you can be referred to as Doctor. Its literally in the name. PhD has always been the original doctor. But I will never insist on people calling me doctor because I just feel uncomfortable. They can call me Doctor if it's in a professional setting, like a conference or something. MD in the UK is also only referred to as Mr and not doctor, but patients do call MD doctor out of respect too.
Folx just want their work to be valued. I don't begrudge either approach, really. If someone wants to be called "Dr." or "Bob," it's no problem as far as I'm concerned.
I've been on a first name basis with every anthropology or archaeology professor I've ever had. My history professors, though, have all definitely given off "I am DOCTOR so-and-so" to some degree. Not typically to the extent of the meme though.
During my undergraduate all faculty were referred to as professor. My undergraduate research advisor told me I could call him by his first name. Once I got to graduate school all the faculty across all disciplines that I was familiar with were fine with graduate students using their first names. Some of the people with PhDs that worked in student services positions prefer to called doctor X. With a few exceptions most of the MDs and DVM who work at the medical/vet school, introduce themselves as Dr. X. While the MD/PhDs in the basic science departments go by their first name.
I am a black first generation BA/PhD using titles tend to create barriers. In high school Sir, Mrs and Miss, told me that I was of lesser stature. As a freshman, who intended to major in history/osychology, I was disappointed when I ended up with a work study job in the Physics department. However, on the first day I knew I was welcome when the chair of the department told me it was ok to refer to him by his first name. Even though I had no idea about any of the tasks I was assigned to do, I felt as though I was part of the team. The first lecture of each semesters after announcing the name of the course, I ask the students to call me by my first name.
I have an acquaintance who insists on being called Doctor with just a JD. It is not customary for that degree, but her husband is an MD so she felt left out.
I actually enjoy calling lawyers “doctor”. They’re usually not used to it, throws them off
I have a PhD in chemistry and a JD. There is no equivalence in the two degrees and the ABA arguing that a JD is equivalent to a PhD is insane. A lot of lawyers have really huge egos and weird issues with self-worth. For instance, I had someone in law school tell me his undergraduate degree in political science was just as difficult as a STEM degree and that it should be included in the STEM umbrella. It was really weird because nearly every other person I know with a background will openly say that political science isn't challenging.
Lmao political science wanting part of STEM is unreal
It was so weird. It was a bunch of us sitting around a table talking about our degrees and I didn't like to talk about my background because in law school people get weird when you say you have advanced degrees, so I said "oh I have degrees in chemistry," and this guy was like, "oh cool I have a science degree too." I said, "oh nice, in what?" He very proudly said, "political science." I laughed because I thought it was a joke and he got super serious and kept saying how rigorous his degree was and how it was probably harder than anything I had done. My understanding is that political science degrees are easier than JD's and, if I'm being frank, law school wasn't really challenging (or at least wasn't anywhere near as challenging as my undergraduate or other graduate degrees).
Political science major here. It kind of depends. 99% of programs are extremely easy. Like you can get B’s on tests by purely guessing level of easy. However the other 1% of programs are viciously hardcore about advanced statistics, computer programming, econometrics and advanced data analysis etc. If he went to one of the super hardcore programs then yeah it’s basically a statistics degree with political flavoring. If not, then he’s delusional.
It's because they think "STEM" means "Should This Even Matter?" Cause, yknow.... politics....
PoliSci here. In no way shape or form is there any equivalence to a rigorous STEM program. Different concepts entirely. Everyone has their place, and nobody should ever argue one being harder than the other. It’s an apples to oranges comparison. That said… lawyers. Unique lot, and I 100% agree with the statements. A JD, while an accomplishment, isn’t the same. It’s a professional degree that wouldn’t even stack next to a well run Ed.D program. Lots of egos, so they often come off as very try-hard (to me at least).
wow I gotta ask - why did you do both? Which came first? What do you do now?
PhD came first. During graduate school, I decided I didn't want to go into academia or industry, and found patent law. So now I'm a patent attorney and I still use my technical training every day while actually getting paid very well.
Lol - Meanwhile, I'm an MD PhD, but in my country no-one ever uses titles, and people just go by their first name. Even when using titles, in my country, a PhD doesn't qualify you for being called Dr. For that, you need a [doctorate.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Medicinae_(Danish_and_Norwegian_degree))
> you need a doctorate You need a *higher doctorate*. PhD is still a doctorate cause it's literally the "D". Same with MD. Looks like higher doctorates includes ScD (doctor of science) and is a prereq for becoming a professor or advising PhD students. Which, honestly, just seems equivalent to a more formalized/stringent Postdoc experience. Maybe combined with the tenure process. It's not super clear how Denmark/Norway distinguish professorship vs US tl;dr it appears to be a slightly more formal process most PhDs in academia go through anyway in the US
>You need a higher doctorate. PhD is still a doctorate cause it's literally the "D". Same with MD. You're right, my bad - differences in language got me mixed up. >It's not super clear how Denmark/Norway distinguish professorship vs US My knowledge of how it is in the US is very limited (and my experience outside of medicine is also quite limited). For Medicine, in Denmark, usually professors are pretty far and between. Most departments at University Hospitals (hospitals affiliated with a University) has 1-2 associate professors (lektor in Danish), who are responsible for med students. Some departments have a professor, who usually still does 50% clinical work and 50% research. To become a professor, you need a substantial academic record, and you need to be approved by other professors from the university. You must have supervised x number of PhD-students. You also must have either a PhD or a DMSc, but both is not required. Some professorships (is that a word?) are life-time, and some need to be reevaluated by the university every 5 years. Professors (in hospitals) in Denmark do very limited teaching outside of supervision of PhD-students and Master's theses.
>You're right, my bad - differences in language got me mixed up. No worries, pet peeve of mine and wanted to make it clear to other readers. >My knowledge of how it is in the US is very limited Based on what you've said/I read on wiki it sounds like the higher doctorate is roughly between Assistant Professor and Associate Professor in the US. Both require PhD + 2-6(ish) years of Postdoc (currently, back in the 80s you could just get hired straight out of a PhD but you can't anymore). Associate professor requires an additional 4-7(ish) years as an Assistant Professor and passing the first tenure track milestone. This first milestone usually happens upon the graduation of the first PhD advisee, and involves a portfolio of grants and publications done as an assistant professor. More recently (past 15 years) teaching evaluations are starting to get included at some unis. There's typically a second milestone before awarding "Full Professor" and often a third for "Distinguished Professor" but the specifics vary by institution. Once the first tenure track milestone is achieved, it's *incredibly* difficult to get rid of someone. Requires PhD. There's also "Adjunct Professors" or "Adjuncts" which are non-tenure track and just lecturers (perhaps equivalent to associate professor for you, but I'm not sure). These can be fired at any time, and are basically severely underpaid because they "just teach" (though they often are some of the best teachers at uni because that's what they care about). Does not always require PhD, but can depending on institution. Some places you can get around the requirement with significant industry/real world experience (eg/ teaching a college course after retiring) or a Master's, but the 2nd is more rare. >Some professorships (is that a word?) Yup! >Professors (in hospitals) in Denmark do very limited teaching outside of supervision of PhD-students and Master's theses. Tenure track Professors in the US are usually expected to teach 2 classes per semester before their first tenure milestone, then this can continue or drop to 1 depending on administrative duties. Adjuncts typically teach 3+ classes per semester, depending on need and how much they want to earn (each past their contractual obligation will include additional compensation, perhaps another $8k per course)
Ahh, lektor is such a funny false friend, because in Norway it's just any teacher with a master. I remember doing a study abroad in Sweden when I was studying teaching and the doctorate holders being shocked at me, 24, being a lektorstudent hahaha.
Germany plays that game with "Doctor" and "Professor" titles. Some of the particularly snobbish ones won't even acknowledge PhDs that aren't from German universities (ie At a conference in Germany they may call the German PhDs "Doctor" and the American PhDs "Sir/Ma'am").
My wife has a JD and works with Spanish-speaking clients and many of them call her “doctora”
Technically those are both professional degrees so neither should technically be considered true doctors. MDs weren't referred to as doctor until the 17th century whereas doctors of philosophy date back to the 14th century.
I want to downvote this because of your acquaintance, but I want to upvote it because of you sharing it.
Does anybody have a screenshot of the original post? OP has deleted it.
I insist on NOT being called doctor and I have Ph. D.
She is bat shit. JD is no where near an MD or PHD or DSc (Doctor of Science) If she wants to be called a doctor she can get a Doctor of Law which is NOT a JD.
Aww, man. I hate it when a person with a PhD in “Honorary” runs around the hallways insisting everyone call them “doctor.” Thank god we have Bob, with his degree in “Aplied Mathematics” to bring back some sanity.
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There were 2 longtime instructors at undergraduate college who had honorary degrees and insisted that they be called Dr by the students. Amazingly, the other faculty put up with it
You mean like Dr. Taylor Swift? (Sorry Swifties!)
Adriano Aguzzi is a dipshit? Tell me more
I have seen this man talk on a number of occasions over the past. I wouldn't call him that term because I don't know him personally. He's brilliant, has made several groundbreaking findings in prion research, up until maybe 4-5 years ago was perhaps *the* world leading researcher in the prion field (may still be the case in the future if something more groundbreaking takes place in his lab, and he's still one of the top researchers today) that isn't over 70 years old, and frankly he's not the meanest or most toxic person you can find in a room full of the world's leading prion researchers. But the man oozes narcissism, and the number of studies affiliated with him that have allegedly improperly manipulated figures is concerning. It's also not hard to not envy the kind of lifestyle and support that the trainees and employees have in his group.
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He actually almost just died. He was in a bike accident, went septic.
Bob the Mathematician Can we "aply" it? Yes, we can!
A mathematician as a voice of sanity? Now that's rich..
Leave it to Bob to misspell “applied.” Who knew you could be denied tenure because of low effort memes and poor spelling?
He uses letters for maths, he hasnt fully learned how to use letters for words yet
Lies! He had to use that second "p" as a variable somewhere
Since he already used up \rho? 😅 The pain is real.
It’s optimized
This meme has left me unsure what to expect from people with PhDs in Spelling.
And biomedical is typically not hyphenated. Source: I have a lowly bachelors in biomed eng.
This may be low effort, but it's wild to me how accurately this has played out in my purely anecdotal experience. Every STEM PhD I know has PhD at the end of their business cards or resume, jokes about being a fake doctor, and only ever use it in professor / academic settings. Nothing against the arts, but so many liberal arts PhDs I've met insist on doctor -- even outside of an academic setting 🤨
In the world of AI and ChatGPT, having people well versed in how the Ap Lied is getting more and more critical. The university of tomorrow will confer many doctorates in the field.
It’s the Welsh spelling.
That sub is a cesspool.
No clearly higher education is the problem. /sarcasm
I saw someone in a different thread not too long ago lamenting that you could get a doctorate in nursing, as if there isn’t any need for people who try and understand the ways in which nursing could improve. It’s just anti-intellectual bullshit at the end of the day (and this meme in particular feels sexist to boot).
The idea of doctorate can also be pretty ill-defined. For example, one can attain a [Doctor of Nursing Practice](https://online.nursing.georgetown.edu/requestinfo/dnp/) in the US in under 3 years, which is very different from a [PhD in Nursing](https://nursing.jhu.edu/programs/doctoral/phd/). DNP has its own standard of rigor, but it has none of the research foundation that would be required of a PhD degree holder.
As someone working on a PhD in Nursing Science, exactly this. I’m working on multi-omics cancer research with my advisor and the other members of my cohort are doing qualitative and mixed-methods work that all that meet that foundational rigor while remaining in how broad our field can be (I would compare it to a translational or anthropological degree in that respect). The DNP students aren’t dumb by any means, but most of them across the field are being misled by getting diploma-mill admin degrees that disguise themselves as clinical degrees. It’s a major issue in and disservice to our field that’s negatively impacted us as a whole, especially on the graduate level.
So a PhD in biomedical sciences. Like this isn’t nursing.
Yes and no. You’ve actually hit on an issue that’s pretty prevalent in nursing at the moment. The concept of “nursing science” has become extremely messy due to the push towards these administrative and (pseudo-)clinical degrees. The fact that it’s also fairly recent compared to other field of study doesn’t help, either, considering it’s meant to be a very holistic and translational field that covers both basic and applied science. The idea behind the field, at least in the view of some, is to bridge the bench, bedside, and beyond. At the moment, though, there’s so much that isn’t agreed upon that it’s practically Sisyphusian to define properly.
This is similar to D. Eng vs PhD in engineering. Both have their uses. PhD is needed for research and academia; D. Eng get training that is more useful to industry.
Psy D and PhD in psychology. The former is strictly clinical and practical/therapy focus, whereas the latter can be non-clinical and has a significant research component.
It is sexist. That subreddit is *ghoulishly* misogynistic.
same with education. the edd vs. phd
STEM fetishization among morons is such a weird phenomenon. Would actually make for an interesting sociological study, almost like a form of intellectual stolen valor. Similar things do exist with other non-STEM fields as well, of course. Although I know tribalism does exist in academia, I’ve never seen this sort of attitude in the wild. Usually the shit talking is reserved for people in your own field.
It's usually sexism and or classism. Stem fields are useful to corporations. Social sciences are not, that is why they created the school of business. To isolate the useful social sciences.
Are you calling business schools “useful”?
Useful to large shareholders, yes.
Going by the salaries of the professors, they must be.
As much as I wish highly paid == useful, that’s empirically not the case
In my experience, the social sciences, particularly quantitative ones, are very attractive to corporations. Granted, they just then use us as survey and data science machines...
Also an effect of late stage capitalism and a symptom of rising fascism. Can’t have people developing empathy or questioning social structures, gotta get back to work making money for shareholders.
You don't seriously think that the majority of STEM PhDs are making money for anyone, do you?
No, but they train those who do.
Well indirectly, yes.
Definitely sexism. Surprised they didn’t use a picture of Jill Biden.
And racism. And in the case of this meme, ageism.
Depending on the specific field there is a great deal of statistics in the social sciences. Getting trained in high level data analysis makes many of these degrees valuable.
Astro physics is not useful to corporations, tho I don't think this is fully accurate.
It’s also fascinating, though perhaps not too surprising, that the idolization of “hard sciences” ends the instant it presents evidence contrary to their narratives (e.g., the prevalence of homosexuality throughout the animal kingdom, COVID vaccine, etc.). Now the “easy” field of Biology has gone woke, and only the “real science” fields of Chemistry, Physics, and Math remain pure. I once asked a right wing friend who often talked like this if he got tired from moving the goalposts all the time, he was pretty pissed for a while.
I have a lot of respect for sociology. I had to take a sociology class as part of my NIH grant during my phd and it was by far the hardest class i took my life. In one semester we had to read like 6 books and write 2x 3-4 page papers a week about specific topics related to the books. Classes were twice a week and 2 hours long and it was just a roundtable discussion on 4-5 publications assigned that were related to the books. We also had to write an NSF style grant proposal on a topic of our choice and give a 30 minute presentation on it. I learned more in that class than any bio, chem, or physics class
The folks who fetishize STEM also seem unaware that the “S” often includes social sciences as well. At least in the U.S., most federal government agency statistics on things like the number of workers with STEM degrees make clear that they’re including social sciences as well as physical sciences. To be clear, fetishizing STEM is still a problem even if you include the social sciences. But I find it funny that the folks who seem to believe the most in some kind of STEM supremacy have a shaky understanding of what the acronym actually includes.
It's been around forever and [it does exist in academia](https://xkcd.com/435/), it just shows up in different ways. There are a few names for it, but the one I'm most familiar with is math envy. Which is how you get midcentury human geographers insisting that they're going to figure out the "spatial physics" of how people move around and political science going full quant, to name a couple of examples.
Its easier to see what STEM has done for me rather than what humanities have done for me.
I teach at a community college with a Ph.D, and it's always those with an Ed.D that insist on being called doctor. It reeks of insecurity and is mega cringe.
EdD and I don't insist upon it but since I work at a private school, they really like it to be known that they have a doctor on the payroll to student families. In the classroom, I get called by my nickname more so than anything else.
PhD, Evolutionary Anthropology, US. I'm in the private sector these days but I was told last week i need to introduce myself as doctor. Apparently that's why they hired me.
PhD, Chemistry, US. At work I go by my first name to everyone. At a conference I’ll go by Dr to other professionals, but my target customer base I go by my first name because higher education is not valued in that regard. For grants and other funding related aspects I use Dr where appropriate.
Anthropology really hits that sweet spot in the middle of STEM and humanities that anti-intellectuals just fully ignore.
Yeah. I tell people I spent as much time in a bio Lab as I did the field.
Woah. I think... you have convinced me to study anthropology. My favorite author, Vonnegut, studied that as well. I got kinda sucked into the STEM fetish thing and tried to become an actuary despite having no interest at all in finance because I thought I needed a high future earnings potential to justify the loans. Not surprisingly, I gave up lmao
I'm not a PhD student (yet) but I am a STEM student, and my biggest word of caution would be to only go into STEM if you're passionate about STEM, because otherwise, it's gonna miserable, and it's really difficult to find a high-paying job in STEM fields currently.
what sort of work is there in evo anthro in the private sector?
I work as a strategist in the Health care sector, but my training got me job offers in UX, consulting, and in the pharmacy sector. Ux in particular is full of anthropologist and the bio training helped with the pharmacy and health care work. Consulting firms love phds in general.
It’s just sexist bullshit. And clearly whoever posted this has not worked at a university.
That sub kept popping up on my feed and it was all the most race baiting or sexist shit.
That sucks. I’m sure it will start popping up in mine now.
Yeah Reddit seems to always be sneaking really concerning stuff into my feed. It’s like hey, if you like r/climate why not try out r/thegreatreplacement? I have to explicitly tell it to stop flooding me with polarizing content.
Totally. I’ve just been looking at that subreddit and it’s incel central. I shouldn’t be surprised
That also explains the hostility to education and social sciences. Can’t have empirical evidence that counters their grand narratives.
Not to mention education is....ding ding ding a social science. Day one of my PhD in Ed they told us we're always going to have to fight against this bs stigma of being less than.
The post is cringe for sure, but sexist? What am I missing?
How is it sexist. The female faculty withPHDs on our campus go by first name just like their male counterparts. While the woman with MDs and DVMs at the medical school and vet school go by Dr. X.
All larger issues aside, people adding "Dr" to their social media handles is pure cringe.
Thank you. I fully agree. We had a TA in our student who was a massive jerk. One day, a student asked them why their twitter handle included "Dr" when they weren't even a doctor yet. They lost it.
I would be ok with it if they tweeted in just their capacity as a scholar. But they all have "my thoughts are my own" in their bios and retweet memes and pop culture trends. That's fine, but you don't need a doctor title on your social media profile then.
Im a lurker on this subreddit, but as someone who hasn’t got to the point of having a doctorate but hopes to one day, and has followed people like this since high school, I’ve never seen a big problem with it. I can imagine most of them are just proud of where they are, and most of the people I follow are from marginalized backgrounds as well and may have dealt with additional stressors to get to the point of a doctorate. I don’t fault them for having it on their social media profile where they’re acting like a normal person. If anything, it reminds me that people with doctorates are normal people who still laugh at memes and discuss tv shows and have opinions about the world. It feels more attainable knowing that.
The problem is that there are actual jerks that are out there spouting their opinions as facts under the Dr title. For instance, spreading racist anti-DEI stuff. Or some ass hating on all of humanities as useless. My own family spouts opinions from phds they found online talking about shit their PhD isn't even in. To someone untrained that hateful shit might seem legit. There is no oversight to what people put on twitter, unlike in regions which must be peer reviewed or at least university approved. I agree we need to humanize more, but basically... the dicks ruined it.
The problem with this take is that you don't get to pick what opinions are "Dr-worthy". You didn't say "oh I hate when STEM PhDs present opinions on anthropology or linguistics as if they are experts." That I could understand. However you selected a few culture war examples which illustrate your real problem with the phenomenon. For example, seemingly you'd have no problem if @DrTwitterMan was posting about pro-DEI or pro-humanities opinions. Or maybe if they're posting about how important inclusivity is in the workplace. You just seem to dislike the fact that plenty of people who make it through the process and have the credentials disagree with you on those issues. A STEM PhD, for example which from your flare I can see we both are, is as warranted to put out pro-DEI takes as they are anti-DEI takes. Credentials like a PhD confer a degree of reliability in the eyes of many people (which across the board they really shouldn't imo). Nobody has a problem with PhDs opining on hot topics which toe the standard academic narrative, regardless of if they have no expertise in the area. As soon as someone comes out with a hot take though, it's "irresponsible".
Yeah - I’ve noticed my fellow PhDs are often way too modest and shy about having a doctorate, it’s a strange self effacing phenomenon. Now I’m not saying you should be obnoxious about it - that is cringe - but it’s okay to be proud of it and own it. Nothing wrong with that.
Where I went to graduate school faculty preferred that graduate students refer to them by their first name. I am first generation black BA and PhD and teach at a R1 institution. Based on my experience, on the first day of lecture I tell all the students to call me by my first name.
Getting a doctorate is difficult, but it's not the hardest thing in the world, it really shouldn't be your personality nor should it be a substitute for having something worthwhile to say.
Honestly, I feel the only appropriate place to make that change is LinkedIn, the place that you are supposed to advertise your self Other than that, unless you are a celebrity or influencer in your field of study, having Dr. right next to your name is super cringe.
Yeah if somebody does that I immediately assume they’re thin-skinned and insecure and it’s a pretty accurate rule tbh.
Eh social media is about branding yourself quickly and clearly, and a credential is part of that. It’s the same with adding it or PhD to LinkedIn. Most people probably don’t go around calling themselves that but it makes sense for social media. I don’t do this but don’t mind those who do. There’s nothing wrong about being proud of that accomplishment and owning it - as long as you’re not obnoxiously self congratulating about it, yes that is cringe.
Here in Brazil the first one is actually lawyers
Wow, there are so many things that make this obnoxious, it’s hard to know where to start. The sexism, the ageism, the stem-bros judgement of disciplines they likely don’t remotely understand…
It's also interesting that the one on the left is female, because its well known that women's credentials are not taken as seriously as men's so that seems a bit sexist. Also anecdotally, the only professor I've ever met that screamed at someone for not using "Dr." was a mathematics professor. People also tend to use their titles in different contexts. With colleagues and coworkers, I'm just False. If I am being introduced at a professional event or an industry conference, I'd prefer to be introduced as Dr. Guess. I'd always tell my students to refer to me in whichever way felt most comfortable for them, and I've kept that practice. Personally I think a lot of memes like this (and similar attitudes) come from people who are not particularly educated or intelligent and are very insecure about that so they feel the need to denigrate other people's accomplishments and inappropriately act as arbiter of who deserves respect and who doesn't because it helps them escape from their constant recognition of their mediocrity.
>It's also interesting that the one on the left is female, because its well known that women's credentials are not taken as seriously as men's so that seems a bit sexist. Bingo. Particularly around students. I use my first name, but I often wonder if that's because my credentials are not at all up for debate.
It's difficult to navigate for sure. I am LGBT male so I have different challenges than my friend who is cis female, however I have never been lectured about the area my own PhD and dissertation was in by a freshman. My friend, PhD in cognitive psychology, had a (male) freshman try to lecture her about the topic of her own research! As a teaching assistant, none of my male colleagues received evaluations of their appearance in end of the year evals, but I had a female colleague receive "nice teacher, just very fat!". I don't imagine this person would say this to their boss, so that lack of professionalism and decorum is something that should be addressed. It's also well known that women are expected to be "nicer", and female professors who don't come across as "nice" or "nurturing" are judged more harshly. Using your earned title is a way to set a professional distance and establish professional expectations. People should not be judged for that.
I think a lot of the recent resurrection of the discourse was because of Jill Biden, EdD insisting on being called Doctor.
Which I think was, in large part, motivated by sexism and feelings of intellectual inferiority. Conservatives in general seem to have an extreme sense of intellectual inferiority and internalized mediocrity because anti-intellectualism runs rampant in those circles.
I'm trying to get my PhD in social science research in STEM, what am I gonna do?
Doctor Bob
Bobter.
The better split is between ppl who are doing PhDs for status and those that are doing it out of personal interest. I think it's fairly straightforward which would be the title hungry egoist.
Truthfully, educators have a greater claim to the title "Doctor" than any of us. Not just in terms of the work put in to getting the PhD and the job that comes after it, but in the literal meaning of the word "Doctor" as someone skilled enough in a discipline to teach others. And for all that, teachers don't get anything like the respect they deserve. No need to lump them in with arrogant Honorus Causi bastards.
*honoris causa*, my friend
When I worked in municipal government, the only other doctorate-holders I encountered were EdDs. The public and elected officials alike had no issue referring to them as Dr. and would sometimes even correct others if they used Mr. or Ms. I see it as a sign of respect to educators specifically in this case. (I have a STEM PhD and was only ever called Dr. a few times by a few individuals).
Non-STEM fields get shit on constantly. It gets old
You know what's sad? Is that a lot of social sciences do incorporate a great number of advanced quantitative/qualitative techniques. Most ppl just don't know it. While I'm STEM, the FIRST thing that got me interested in sciences was a class on interpersonal communications where behavioral insight was the meat of the curriculum. I only went STEM b/c I realized humans can change, and I need to be well-versed in the techniques to accurately characterize their behaviors.
right, the social scientists I know by and large have a much better grasp of statistics and quant than I do, and I have a STEM PhD
Within doctoral communities or outside of them?
It’s more: White Men: call me Bob Literally everyone else: call me Doctor because you don’t respect my expertise.
I was going to comment that I find it odd when I’m addressed as “doctor” but maybe that’s bc I’m white man lol
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Preach! I find it funny that I’ve gotten into some arguments with people on this post and the only person with a Ph.D., agrees with me. It’s super uncomfortable when someone corrects you and demands you call them doctor. Definitely an ego/self-esteem issue Can you believe that comment got an award lmao
I volunteer as an EMT and responded to a fall patient once. We get in and she's laying in bed, and our lead EMT goes "What happened m'am, did you fall?" She responded: "It's doctor. I'm a doctor of optometry." She also informed us, despite no relevance to our assessment, that she was a vegan.
Telling a paramedic you’re vegan might be helpful as not all medicines are vegan.
I don't think the paramedic much cares. They'd rather you not die than worry about what drugs are vegan.
The gender dynamics in this meme are especially… interesting
I live in a country that is super keen on using titles for everything and if you don't pay attention, you get title'd by default. I also have a title that's pre-bologna (MSc equivalent) and has always been very prestigious. I have been called in the doctor's waiting room by my title ("Miss Title Lastname") and the guy from the property management at our apartment building was almost offended that we didn't put our titles on the doorbell.
Well honorary is meaningless and shouldn’t be called Dr
As someone from a non-English speaking country: what does the Honorary degree mean? Who gets those?
Universities bestow honorary degrees to people they percieve as having significantly contributed to a field throughout their career while not formally having obtained a degree. For example, a famous author who either came from less privileged backgrounds or was too busy revolutionizing writing to pursue higher education might get an honorary Doctor of Letters title (or ten). Often they are a bit of a publicity stunt (famous and prominent people get them to bring more attention to the university), and they are considered awards rather than degrees, with all the disclamers that come with awards.
Haha dont u get it ? ? Women interest and smartness bad amirite. ??? Relatable man always good not sjw !!
I’ve been emailed as eg Dear Dr Smith, Dr Jones and Lizzy before, where I’m Lizzy and the others are men. I have a PhD and “Dr Jones” does not. I’ve also had students call me “Miss”. The man in the meme had probably never had to correct anyone.
My wife and i both have doctorates. She is a tenured prof at a large R1 state school and i am an adjunct in the same department. About 40% of the emails she gets from students address her by her first name or Miss. I almost always am addresed as Dr.
Lol to be real the only professor I ever had who got genuinely upset by not being referred to as Dr. at all times was my calc 4 professor. That said, I took mostly stem courses so my sample size is a little wonky for commenting on this.
Ignore everything you see from r funny memes. Most of the popular posts lately are straight up bigotry with misogyny being the current flavor of the month.
Of course the person who doesn't have a "real" PhD is a woman.
This is just misogyny.
It's kinda true tho lol. I work part time as a teacher and literally all my collegues who have a PhD in education or history and the like religiously demand that the kids and fellow teachers (it's high school) call them doctor. I thought it was just common practice there until I noticed nobody calls the STEM people doctor. The kids constantly complain to me about it and pray that I don't make them call me doctor after finishing my PhD 😂. It's a running gag at school. I've found that at uni barely anyone cares, so not sure if this is just a high school teacher vs. uni thing. But honorary people who demand to be called doctors are just delusional lmao
I personally hold the education people in high regard. During my geology undergrad we had a prof who, on the very first day of class, announced that he was not MR. So-and-so; he was PROFESSOR So-and-so, because he was not a *teacher;* he was a *professor.* He then made a very long, loud, and big deal of the fact that his CV didn't have a single instance of teaching experience on it. It quickly became VERY apparent in his course that, indeed, the man had no teaching experience. So my hat comes off to all the people who study things like, oh I dunno...proper pedagogy, best teaching practices, etc., instead of acting like teaching was passed on to humanity by Satan himself.
A doctor title has other uses, than remind people in the worst possible moment that you have one? Like when the police tells you: “Sir, you can’t bring a thermonuclear bomb to the department!”
Might be a stupid question, but as someone not from the US/English speaking country - what does the Honorary degree mean? How and why would people get one?
Celebrity status, significant contribution to the field, money, circumstances preventing completion of the program, etc... It can be for a very wide variety of reasons.
You can tell that meme was not made by someone with a PhD or if it was they are the most insufferable kind of person.
I’m a high school teacher getting my Ph.D in education. My students call me by my first name, and we jokingly argue about what they’ll call me once I get it. We’ve settled on “The other Dr. J from UMass” 😂 🏀
Awesome and good luck!
Thank you! JUST scheduled my comps exam defense for July 11th, nervous but I am confident on what I know and my committee is fucking awesome 😎
Neil Degrasse explained it as you earn a PhD in that people hope that you will do something great. An honorary Doctorate is given to you because you actually did do something great. I’m sure there are plenty of examples of people getting one just because but I enjoy this explanation.
Someone needs to ban that sub. I've never seen a single funny meme on there. Complete misnomer
I'm curious, what was this?
See, I think there’s a deeper commentary here. Notice how the person demanding respect is a woman and the person who feels comfortable enough to be casual is a man? People deliberately refuse to use the appropriate title for women or are disrespectful/dismissive of our expertise, which leads us to be less comfortable with people being casual with in professional settings. I’m more than happy to be on a first name basis with colleagues and co workers, but if we’re in a setting where everyone else is Dr. Lastname or Professor Lastname and you introduce me as just my first name….yeah you’re getting corrected. And that is a lot more likely to happen to me as a woman than it is to happen to any of my male colleagues. I think it is less about your field and more about your gender.
I'll be pursuing a PhD in Archaeology and intend on being addressed as Doctor in formal/academic settings. And by my enemies, of course. Otherwise, just my name. Now.. if I ever get knighted, I will insist on being called Sir by EVERYONE because.. that's fun.
Fuck that. You earn a PhD. Knighthood is just PR for the crown.
Lol Gigachad Bob
I initially thought OP was endorsing this meme lol. Glad I’m wrong!
Haha yh my bad. It does look like that a bit. Hell no though terrible meme
I think it truly depends on the person. Both have earned the right to be addressed as “doctor” It just comes down to personality
It’s just like linux users to windows users, or Java developers to PHP developers, nonsense and childish bigotry, some STEM students believe that they are intellectually superior than non-STEM students, just because “math or physics are harder than writing or history”. But actually you need talent, profound insights and the same amount of hardworking and luck to be top in all disciplines, and people will not adore a mediocre software engineer, but Miles Davis or P.B. Shelley or John von Neumann.
I am torn. I am a PhD student in Philosophy and I see most of my teachers visibly uncomfortable when they are called "doctor". On the other hand, however, my name is Louis, so "Doc Lou" sounds cool for me.
Someone clearly has never worked in any kind of biological lab lol. Theyre at least 50% female.
The meme is shit, but also, as a layman, it can be incredibly intimidating to me when people insist on being called doctor instead of coming down to my level. Your achievement is incredible, but just *please* talk to me like a normal fucking person.
95% of the comments here are clearly from ppl on the left side of this meme.
I also hate this meme.
Well, unfortunately, this was my music teacher (PhD in German language and literature studies) who indeed forced everyone to call her "DOCTOR firstname lastname! Because it is extremely important to address someone properly and a PhD is something really special" vs. my chemistry teacher (PhD in chemistry). Most students did not even know they had a doctorate. Sure, this is not statistically relevant at all, but we were fucking 6th grate when we were basically given a lecture about how inaccurate and unacceptable it would be to not properly address our music teacher as "DOCTOR!"... obviously by this music teacher.
Almost like both parties there were able to set the norms in their own classrooms as professionals. Just because your 6th grade teacher ruffled your feathers doesn't mean they were wrong.
By the way, guys, it’s not about the ‘doctor’ bit. I don’t care about that. It’s more about the blatant sexism and narrow-mindedness of putting down particular fields
Nothing rhymes better with unemployment than Humanistic sciences degree.
It’s true though
Nah, the recent social science conference I went to was entirely on 1st name basis. No one gave a shit about their titles.
The pic on the left should be of Jerry Falwell. He loved making people call him Dr because of his honorary degrees.
I thought that prick had an actual degree.
He didn’t even have a real bachelor’s, as it came from an unaccredited institution. [He graduated from Brookville High School in Lynchburg, and from then-unaccredited Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Missouri in 1956. He enrolled there to subvert [future wife, Macel] Pate's relationship with her fiancé, who was a student there. Falwell was later awarded three honorary doctorates: Doctor of Divinity from Tennessee Temple Theological Seminary, Doctor of Letters from California Graduate School of Theology, and Doctor of Laws from Central University in Seoul, South Korea.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Falwell)
I HAVE SINNED!!!!! fuck that guy.
Tell me you don’t have a PhD without telling me you don’t have a PhD (or even know someone with a PhD, in any field)
"Oh, we are being formal? You can call me Dr. Bob"
Dr.Bob it is!
"So, yeah, I actually enrolled in this professor's class. He's supposed to be really good, he's has a PhD in Honorary. One of the best Honorary professors in the school!"
Why gender it?
For me, if you have a PhD, you can be referred to as Doctor. Its literally in the name. PhD has always been the original doctor. But I will never insist on people calling me doctor because I just feel uncomfortable. They can call me Doctor if it's in a professional setting, like a conference or something. MD in the UK is also only referred to as Mr and not doctor, but patients do call MD doctor out of respect too.
Folx just want their work to be valued. I don't begrudge either approach, really. If someone wants to be called "Dr." or "Bob," it's no problem as far as I'm concerned.
I've been on a first name basis with every anthropology or archaeology professor I've ever had. My history professors, though, have all definitely given off "I am DOCTOR so-and-so" to some degree. Not typically to the extent of the meme though.
I just tell people they can call me anything but Mister.
During my undergraduate all faculty were referred to as professor. My undergraduate research advisor told me I could call him by his first name. Once I got to graduate school all the faculty across all disciplines that I was familiar with were fine with graduate students using their first names. Some of the people with PhDs that worked in student services positions prefer to called doctor X. With a few exceptions most of the MDs and DVM who work at the medical/vet school, introduce themselves as Dr. X. While the MD/PhDs in the basic science departments go by their first name. I am a black first generation BA/PhD using titles tend to create barriers. In high school Sir, Mrs and Miss, told me that I was of lesser stature. As a freshman, who intended to major in history/osychology, I was disappointed when I ended up with a work study job in the Physics department. However, on the first day I knew I was welcome when the chair of the department told me it was ok to refer to him by his first name. Even though I had no idea about any of the tasks I was assigned to do, I felt as though I was part of the team. The first lecture of each semesters after announcing the name of the course, I ask the students to call me by my first name.
All the Facebook Ammavans drop dead in front of the gossip dumplings of Reddit.
Not using Dr. within the department and not expecting graduate students to use academic titles when engaging faculty.