[g_p]

I felt your way actually about it at the time. I like the 3 year timescale and greater level of self led work. I pretty much avoided doing any "taught" courses for the reasons you outlined, but I have found some of my students did benefit from them. I think it comes down to individuals and what they need. It wasn't right for you or me, but I think there are some students who perhaps come in needing a little bit of a push on some of the supporting skills, and they found some of the courses helpful.

I definitely don't like the trend towards the 4 year PhD with taught courses in year 1 though - I had enough time in 3 years to mess around on side projects and other things I didn't need, but which were fun and interesting, even if irrelevant. When you add the inevitable consulting and startup advice on the side, it seems to me 3 years should really be the upper bound, rather than extending the process any further.

[Beldin]

I'm not from the UK. The idea of someone becoming an actual PhD in 3 years is rather quaint to me. Perhaps it's just a different approach, or perhaps the PhD system I'm used to produces a level of results that UK PhDs typically only achieve after their first PostDoc.

Or, perhaps there is an initial period of a year or so where the student is not yet doing a PhD, but is trying to produce results nevertheless. Saw that in Surrey, but can't remember how long students had after defending their PhD proposal and being promoted to PhD student.

[chrisseaton]

In the UK you just get going on your research. You don’t do initial courses. You effectively defend your proposal when you apply.

Ultimately the goal of a PhD is to learn to be a researcher and to produce a good new research result. If you can do that in three years why wait around another two or more for the sake of it?

I had a colleague who did a PhD in two years in Austria. In that time he got two top-tier papers published. If you’re getting multiple papers into top-tier venues then surely you’ve past the test? You obviously can do research and you obviously are producing good results as judged by a wide group of peers.

Why does the US drag it out so much?

I’ll tell you why - US PhD students also only spend about three years on their PhD. They spend the rest of their time doing masters-level taught classes, teaching (!) and working on their advisors’ projects instead of their own!

[widforss]

I don't think US PhD's are required to have a Master's to begin with, no?

[g_p]

You certainly don't need a Masters to do a UK PhD either.

[widforss]

Ok, you need in Sweden and Norway unless they make some kind of exception. And that probably wouldn't happen the way universities are governed here.