Do I Need a Degree to Pursue a Career in Biology and EECS?

[Office_Shredder]

They gave you horrible advice. Are you sure they weren't stating that with respect to a more specific question that you had, or they were confused about what your overarching question was? Because nobody who is 18 is supposed to have good intuition on the credential requirements of technical careers.

It would be very difficult I think to go to graduate school because when you apply there are two barriers: the first is the university at large, which dictates requirements for the program. Typically this is something along the lines of: an undergraduate degree in a related field, GPA 3.0 or higher, etc. Then you have the actual department, which will have no rigorous standards but simply tries to pick out the best candidates. If you wanted to get a graduate degree you would have to find a university willing to waive their standard requirements, which from my understanding is not very common (partially because the department has lots of very qualified candidates, and nobody is going to want to do the legwork to get the requirements waived for you. I think it's probably possible for it to happen, but requires somebody actually feeling significant personal responsibility toward you - especially since if you show up and suck, it's their *** on the line for vouching for you.

I imagine a similar problem would occur if you applied for a job in industry, but the bureaucracy is less and the competition to find good applicants is greater so there is a better chance of you finding something. I think the simplest way of having an answer for sure is find some companies to apply to, submit your application including letters of references from these professors you've worked with, mention how you're a super genius (and emphasize heavily the papers you have authored, because those are tangible as opposed to claims of study that you could be making up) and see if any of said companies are interested in you.

Again from the bureaucracy perspective, at a large company your application likely gets thrown out by human resources before it reaches anybody who might be interested in it. If these professors really think you don't need to get a degree because you're that technically skilled, ask them if they have any contacts of employers who you could send an application to - that way it will get to someone who will actually look over what you have.

 

[IGU]

Finally, my assertion is not my assertion. Its the way it is. You cannot test your way into a BS degree.

Hmm. You're not only making an assertion, but asserting a negative. Do you really believe that a BS degree can't be obtained through testing? Why? I think perhaps you are neither a scientist nor a mathematician. Proof by assertion and argument from authority is not the way it works in those fields. I don't understand why you are being so discouraging to the original poster.

 

[Shivam3013]

Most research positions require credentials (like a PhD). The best way to get such requirements waived is to personally impress somebody. It would typically have to be somebody at the level of a research director of a lab, as in the case of your failure they are responsible for not following the rules.

As to self-study to a PhD level of knowledge, that's not too hard in math if you are disciplined and very capable. But in things where there is typically some experimental component it's more difficult. If you stick to areas requiring only computer simulation you can probably get away with it. However, it will take a long time. As a PhD you need to go deep for your thesis, become a serious expert in some area of endeavor. This takes years. So even if you're really, really good I think you have to allocate at least three years for each area. However, if you are just talking knowledge, as in enough to pass your quals, you can probably get away with a year or so for each area (if you're as fast as you say), maybe two if your undergraduate preparation is weak.

Sounds very ambitious. Good luck! And, by the way, you might want to pick up a law degree along the way to make it easier to patent things.

But I'm curious, how do you know you have "knowledge equivalent to someone with a BsC in EECS, physics, chem, bio and mathematics"? And do you mean equivalent to somebody good coming out of MIT or somthing else?

Yeah, equivalent to a guy coming out of Harvard, MIT, Caltech kind with a 4-ish gpa. The fact is, I rarely get more than 5 hours of sleep and have no fun-ish life whatsoever. And I have worked with lots of problems from tough textbooks like Apostle, Rudin etc.

 

[IGU]

Yeah, equivalent to a guy coming out of Harvard, MIT, Caltech kind with a 4-ish gpa. The fact is, I rarely get more than 5 hours of sleep and have no fun-ish life whatsoever. And I have worked with lots of problems from tough textbooks like Apostle, Rudin etc.

Okay. I don't see any reason for you to change the way you're learning since it seems to be working for you. But do you have the time to spend, or will you have to earn a living along the way? For earning a living, credentials are certainly less of a problem if you work for yourself. Jobs and Gates were pretty happy with the letters CEO rather than PhD (or BS for that matter). But usually earning a living leaves you with not that much time to pursue learning.

Have you considered applying for a Thiel Fellowship?

 

[ModestyKing]

Shivam,

I'm kind of curious what a fellow like you has done research in - could you link to one of your published papers? I'm a bit impressed.
It sounds like, however, you have two options: Start your own company/business with what you know, or do what these fellows are recommending - get the info of some employers from you professors, as in, ask them where you could send an application that'd be reviewed directly.

 

[Shivam3013]

My dream is to work in stem cell research. Along side, I would have lots of time to pursue more studies. For the fellowship, do you get 100000 individually?

 

[IGU]

My dream is to work in stem cell research. Along side, I would have lots of time to pursue more studies. For the fellowship, do you get 100000 individually?

Um, why are you asking here? Surely you can research this from the link I gave you. But my understanding (for what that's worth) is that you get $100,000 to do what you want over two years.

 

[Vanadium 50]

I think the many postings expressing doubt at what the OP has accomplished is ample evidence of why a degree - which certifies this - is necessary.