Questions on CharGen with Technical Institute and Robotics

[redwalker]

The Technical Institute offers amazing skill acquisition opportunities. However, it looks like MTs must use the "Waiver" rules if they want to skip Bachelor's degrees and go to grad school.

It looks like a "MT" degree is not the equivalent of a "MS" degree -- apparently the MT degree is just an "Associate's Degree" and if one wants a Ph.D. one must start with a Bachelor's and then get a Master's (MS, MA, MBA, MFA). (Again, the "Waiver" rule looks like it applies.)

Another wrinkle is that in University and Grad School, one can select a major from Physical Science, but apparently not from Technical skills. So if you want to get a Ph.D. in Robotics you seem to have to declare a major in Physics or something like that.

Major is important for grad school, because you don't get the degree unless the Major skill is high enough.

This is interesting to me, because it would imply that all the Robotics and Computer experts would be better served by never getting Ph.D's.

So, my questions are:
1) Is is impossible to select Robotics as a major in the BS/MS/PHD sequence?
2) Is it impossible to select Computer as a major in the BS/MS/PHD sequence?
3) Is MT really totally disconnected from the BS/MS/PHD sequence?

 

[Scott Martin]

And what do MT Questions have to do with T5?

Could this thread be moved into the MT section please? (with my whiney response deleted )

Scott Martin

 

[atpollard]

I don't remember a "Technical Institute" in MegaTraveller. I think "MT" refers to a Traveller degree (like master of Technology) and could be part of the T5 character generation stuff (which I have never seen).

Scott, I think that your "whiney response" should stay, at least you responded to Red Walker.

Red, I know nothing about T5, but in the real world, advanced degrees in technologies like Robotics tend to end up in the School of Engineering of major universities. Would a PhD in Robotics end up as a joint Mech.E. and Elec.E degree?

 

[aramis]

I'd suggest the PhD in robotics come from MS in Computers...

 

[redwalker]

Originally posted by atpollard:
I don't remember a "Technical Institute" in MegaTraveller. I think "MT" refers to a Traveller degree (like master of Technology) and could be part of the T5 character generation stuff (which I have never seen).

Scott, I think that your "whiney response" should stay, at least you responded to Red Walker.

Red, I know nothing about T5, but in the real world, advanced degrees in technologies like Robotics tend to end up in the School of Engineering of major universities. Would a PhD in Robotics end up as a joint Mech.E. and Elec.E degree?

Yes, the MT refers to an abbreviation in the T5 rules.

In the real world, there are relatively few pure Robotics programs at present, although there are many programs which deal in part with robotic technologies. For example, Industrial Engineering is often concerned with programmable machine tools and automatic vehicle systems, which are basically special purpose robots quite unlike Traveller robots.

Also in the real world, admission to grad school depends on a huge number of hard-to-quantify skills. E.g. a USMC-trained black belt might be recruited by a university dance program, or an entrepreneur might be recruited by a management department.

In the real world, the folks who get recruited by actual robot-using PhD programs often do have M.S. degrees in Computer Science. If I could quote multiple messages I would quote the guy who mentioned that as a rule interpretation. It would indeed be a reasonable interpretation. I hope MWM makes the rules explicit enough so that it will be unambiguous and it will not require interpretation.

Thanks to all who replied.