Is it OK to specify your school next to your "Ph.D.": in your email signature, in the title of your web site, etc.
For example,
John Smith, PhD (Harvard)
Edit: added united-states, because I think there might be some cultural differences.
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8 Answers
From Crazy Ex Girlfriend, season 1 episode 2:
Valencia: Wow, did you, like, go to Harvard or something?
Rebecca: Um, yeah, but I don't like to talk about it, 'cause people get weird.
Valencia: Your shirt says Harvard.
Rebecca: That way I don't have to talk about it.
I couldn’t find a video clip of the whole scene, which sort of answers OP’s question in the best way possible. But here is a snippet.
answered Aug 30, 2022 at 16:15
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I will be more straightforward than the other answers.
No, this is not done in the US and would look strange.
answered Aug 30, 2022 at 3:30
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6Agree with this. The only exception I see is when it is directly relevant: when I'm writing a letter of recommendation for a student applying to my alma mater, I'll sign it "Ph.D (UMN '14)". But that's to signal to the committee that the letter is from someone who knows their program specifically, not as a broadcast to the world. Commented Aug 30, 2022 at 19:32
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1I also agree, and would go further - I don't put PhD in my email signature because, well, it really has never been needed in my career. Now, something like P.E. (Professional Engineer) is quite another thing (but I'm not a PE). Commented Aug 31, 2022 at 21:43
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@JonCuster Most people I email have it somewhere in their "signature block" if not their signature proper. Commented Aug 31, 2022 at 22:10
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@AzorAhai-him- Did any of them get their PhD from Harvard? :-)– MWBCommented Aug 31, 2022 at 22:24
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@MWB I just checked, the one who did go to Harvard doesn't list their degree (probably because it's an EdD tbh) but plenty of others do Commented Sep 1, 2022 at 1:37
One of the key points of the university system as it grew up in c13 Western Europe was that there was no such thing as a Paris degree or a Cologne degree or a Toulouse degree. A master was a master was a master. A doctor was a doctor was a doctor.
I can’t speak for the USA and, on the other side of the Atlantic, Germany is a bit of an outlier. But in the UK, putting D.Phil (Oxon) is definitely saying “look at me, I’m important.” As such it says “I am unimportant enough to need to boost my importance in this way.”
The information about where you got the doctorate might well be relevant and so should be findable. CVs, which list your whole educational history, might well include it. But in terms of your name, on business cards, letter headings, email signatures, it seems out of place.
Would you be asking this question if your qualification were PhD (Possum Trot)?
answered Aug 28, 2022 at 9:11
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1Germany is a bit of an outlier because if you got your PhD from a university that is not in some "good enough to count as equivalent to our own universities" list, then the only legal way to call yourself a ", PhD" is to add where you got it from in braces.– DCTLibCommented Aug 28, 2022 at 13:28
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I don't know what c13 means. Are you saying it's less common in the UK than on the Continent?– MWBCommented Aug 28, 2022 at 18:21
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An exception would be MA (Oxon) or MA (Cantab), which actually carries some information, i.e. "this is the kind of MA that's an administrative badge of rank, not the kind of MA that's an academic qualification". Commented Aug 28, 2022 at 21:29
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2@MWB From the context, I think "c13" means "thirteenth century". Commented Aug 28, 2022 at 21:32
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2@MWB MA degrees from those two universities are different from MA degrees from other universities. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/… Commented Aug 30, 2022 at 12:43
If you sign off your emails as "XY, Ph.D. (Minnesota State University)", this will be unusual, but probably will not make a negative impression on the recipient.
If you sign off as "XY, Ph.D. (Harvard)", this will be interpreted by quite a few people as showing off and attempting to piggyback on the prestige of your institution. Therefore, it could very well be seen negatively.
I would personally interpret it, rightly or wrongly, as implying that "Ph.D. (Harvard)" is worth more than a plain Ph.D. – otherwise, why bother emphasizing that you got your Ph.D. from Harvard as opposed to Minnesota State? That would probably make a negative impression on me.
In particular, it would make me guess that either (i) you don't understand that that's not how science works, i.e. that the value of your Ph.D. is determined by its content rather than the institution it was done at, or (ii) you do understand how science works but still want people to partly judge you based on your institution rather than your work. In the latter case, it would make me wonder whether this is because you want to get ahead at all cost (including hamfisted appeals to institutional prestige) or because are not very confident about the quality of your work.
answered Aug 30, 2022 at 11:43
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"is worth more than a plain Ph.D." -- Let's call a spade a spade. When a
PhDis worth anything, a Harvard one is worth even more. Even when people can evaluate your work based on its merits, their first impression will be "Harvard", and their second and third impressions are subject to the confirmation bias.– MWBCommented Sep 1, 2022 at 18:27 -
@MWB "When a PhD is worth anything, a Harvard one is worth even more." In terms of scientific value, it really isn't, though. I'm sure we agree that a Ph.D. thesis doesn't magically gain scientific value just by virtue of being written at Harvard as opposed to MNSU. The rest of your comment confirms exactly what I said in the answer, which is that this is most likely a hamfisted attempt to get people to judge you based not on merit but rather on prestige, and as such will likely be viewed negatively by quite a few people, including people who may otherwise be impressed by a Harvard Ph.D. Commented Sep 1, 2022 at 23:33
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It also depends on who you're trying to impress. Let me suggest that the people who are most likely to be wow'ed by this are people outside of academia (given that a Harvard / Ivy League Ph.D. in movies and TV series is basically a cultural trope meant to show that a character is very smart), and conversely people who are most likely to be irritated by it may be experts in your field. The implicit suggestion that a Harvard Ph.D. is worth more ultimately belittles the scientific contributions of people who did not go to prestigious schools, and as such might not go over as well as you think. Commented Sep 1, 2022 at 23:36
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Let me make a non-scientific analogy. I don't know anything about dance schools except that The Julliard School is supposed to be very prestigous (again, this is a cultural trope). So if I know that you studied dance there, I may well be impressed. On the other hand, if I see you constantly mentioning (for example, at the end of every email) how you went there and using it to insinuate that people should take you more seriously as a dancer than someone who went to a less prestigious school, I'm probably going to think that no matter how good a dancer you might be, you're a self-important ass. Commented Sep 1, 2022 at 23:55
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An academic degree is not your achievements or qualities, but their recognition. Therefore, its value depends on who gave it: Albert Einstein saying "Hey, you're pretty smart" is quite different from your favorite barista saying it, is it not?– MWBCommented Sep 4, 2022 at 22:18
I know some professors who list the degrees/qualifications they have and the universities they attended on their websites. Personally speaking, I think it is completely normal (professionally) as long as your purpose is not to show off (or even worse, expecting other people to think about you the way you think about you). It would be annoying if John Smith always signed off his Facebook posts with John Smith, PhD in Mathematics (Harvard).
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The place to display such details about your academic history is your CV, not your signature line.
People in situations where they need to evaluate your academic performance will examine your CV. People who need to know your current title and position will look toward your signature line.
In academics, like in many fields, your performance will be constantly reviewed, for many reasons. One aspect of that will be your continuous productivity. While a PhD from Harvard can be considered an accomplishment, think about how including that info in an email signature will look in 10 years. The recipient won't be thinking "Wow, Harvard!!" -- it's more likely they'll be thinking "I wonder if that's the sender's last major accomplishment??"
answered Aug 30, 2022 at 14:49
If academics from universities that were not conspicuously prestigious commonly did this, then there would be no perceived subtext to doing so. However, I don't think they do - I wouldn't write "Dikran Marsupial PhD (Essex)", except in mild self-deprecatory humour. So if you are from a prestigious university and you do this, e.g. John Smith, PhD (Harvard) you would first need to work out what your intended subtext actually was, and secondly what subtext the reader is likely to assume/perceive. If you have no subtext, then why are you doing it when it is not a common custom? Assumed subtexts are likely to be related to academic snobbery (either that you are an academic snob, or that you think they are an academic snob). I don't think I'd bother, but the key is why do you want to write it?
[I have some difficulty in picking up subtext, so it is something I have to actively think about - it is quite important in social communication, for instance applying for a job]
answered Aug 30, 2022 at 12:11
Funny thing is: Despite being very unusual in English some people in German-speaking countries have started doing that e.g. Msc (WU) or BSc (TU). This looks also very weird to German native speakers ...
