This is only for one university (Uni of Minnesota), but interesting none the less. I would be interested to see if this holds up across universities in the US and even in other parts of the world. In this, history grads produce the longest dissertations (keep in mind that dissertations are front page only, and tend to have specific page width, etc). The point is always to make your argument, not to write as many pages as possible.
Here is a link to all the number crunching fun:
Here in Germany, generally medical dissertations are considered the shortest and most light-weight. That’s not really suprising when you think about it because the vast majority is written by people who have zero genuine interest in an academic career. Although here medical doctorates are completely separate from medical degrees required for licensing, essentially everyone wants those letters.
At my alma mater the AI department used to print out particularly embarrassing (successful) medical dissertations and pin them to a notice board for public amusement.
I wonder which field in Germany writes the longest dissertations… I’d be willing to bet it’s either history or philosophy. Germany has an incredibly rich history of philosophy to draw from. Maybe it’s a history of philosophy that’s the longest! Although, I bet people crank out the pages for the nazi era of German history or Weimar.
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