Re: How to make money fast (in science fiction)

In article <1mm40ir0naj91.1cpdus4zwien4.dlg@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
b.scott@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 wrote:
>On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:04:05 GMT, Rich Weyand
><weyand@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in
><news:PKOdnVANqeP-wmzanZ2dnUVZ_v6rnZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> in
>rec.arts.sf.composition,rec.arts.sf.science:
>
>[...]
>
>> Oh, and have him go to college in Europe.  University here
>> is more formalism  -- you gotta do the 4 years/120 hours,
>> etc., and the PhD can take 5 to 8 years  more -- whereas
>> in Europe he could test through a bunch of stuff and
>> probably be out start-to-finish with the PhD in four
>> years.
>
>He can test out of a bunch of stuff here, and a PhD in
>mathematics needn't take anything like five to eight years:
>what takes the time for a well-prepared candidate is finding
>a topic and producing a dissertation, and he wouldn't have
>that problem.

Perhaps, but I still think Europe would be a faster track.  My
father-in-law 
got his PhD in Leipzig at age 22, and there were a lot of others like him.
 
Granted, he was somewhat exceptional and he cut in a fast crowd (Werner 
Heisenberg was his thesis adviser IIRC), even so I think it would be a
faster 
route for our hypothetical antagonist, and the OP's interest was in speed.

My father-in-law's PhD was in physics, in one of Europe's best
universities.  
When I was in Urbana, one of the US's best in physics, most of the PhD 
candidates were on waivers when they got their doctorates -- required when
you 
did not complete the PhD within seven years of admission to graduate
school.
They were typically 30-31 years old by the time they got the doctorate.

My wife says the PhD in mathematics is faster, about five years when she
was 
in Berkeley's graduate program, but still a lot slower than an exceptional

student could do in Europe.

Besides, it adds interest to the novel, our hero would not be at all
averse to 
traveling as piddling (compared to his timeline travel) a distance as
Europe, 
and it would probably require a (tax-deductible) trip to Europe for
research. 
;-)

(Or is the OP already a right-ponder?  Forgot who asked....) 
 
--
Rich Weyand