> This starts to break down in college when the professors often at best only slightly ahead. (they have more knowledge and experience - but in a slightly different area and so it isn't relevant to the depth of whatever is under consideration)
replyI can't speak to the humanities, but this estimation is just not true at most universities in the sciences. (EDIT: As cycomanic emphasizes below (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48477683), the part of the original comment pertaining to graduate education is more reasonable. I am speaking here only of undergraduate education.)
It certainly is true in physics and engineering that a PhD student at least half way through their PhD should know more than there supervisor about their topic (and usually much earlier). Even a Masters thesis project student should understand the intricacies of their project better than their supervisor. I'm speaking as someone who has supervised a significant number of both PhD and Masters students.
replyThe original post said “in college”. It might be true for PhD candidates halfway through their program, but that’s like 0.5% of college students. The vast majority of students are leagues behind their instructors in domain knowledge.
replyI wouldn't say leagues behind, but otherwise I think we are on the same page, though I guess I worded it wrong. It is common for a couple students in any class to know more than the instructor in some niche part of the field even though the instructor has much more knowledge overall.
replyYes, I intentionally left out the next part of the quote about graduate school, since that seems more accurate. I was disputing only the part that I took to be pertaining to undergraduate education. The full quote is:
reply> This starts to break down in college when the professors often at best only slightly ahead. (they have more knowledge and experience - but in a slightly different area and so it isn't relevant to the depth of whatever is under consideration) Grad school is about advancing the state of the art - if you don't know more than your professor you are doing it wrong.
Ah apologies, that's what I get for skim reading and kneejerk replying. I completely agree with you, undergrads are highly unlikely to know more about a subject than their professor (obviously there can always be exceptions).
replyA grad student is evaluated by how well they are capable of following scientific procedures, communicated their results and have a sufficiently broad knowledge foundation. All that can easily be verified by a professor in a related field since they are very experienced in all those things. They don't actually need to be experts in the specific narrow topic the student has become the world expert in.
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