February 20, 2004

Dropping Out of Graduate School, for Good Reasons or Bad

To the Editor:

"Doctor Dropout" (January 16) includes a number of unwarranted assumptions about the nature of Ph.D. programs. The reporter assumes that nongraduates have failed, that participation in such a program without achieving the "prize" is a waste of time and talent, and that high attrition is a problem.

By beginning with those assumptions, the reporter neglects, to a large extent, an example that he uses in the article -- the woman who took a job as a book

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