Finally I found out why an average PhD student takes 6 years to finish a Ph.D. in Stanford while in some other universities it merely takes 3 years. Reason: Extended course work requirement demanded by the department. Well at least that's what was told in today's Geophysics Townhall meeting.
The faculty have recently decided to change the curriculum for PhD. They examine several peer institute and decided that they should focus more on research than the course-work. So now, the students are required to take 30 units of coursework only. More specifically, only 9 units of courses from outside department as opposed to 21 units of out-of-department courses we took. 21 units. In-department courses are much easier to work with. But out-of-department courses, specifically in Engineering school are close to nightmares.
This will reduce the time required to finish a PhD considerably though this wasn't the intent of the faculty. I finished 27 out of 30 unit requirement in my first year. And if that's all that would have been required, I would have finished my PhD in 3-4 years, at the most 5 years.
So one of nth-year (where n > 6 years) student who defended last week and happened to be in the audience, asked one question: 'Why Now?'
Honestly. WHY NOW?
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