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Ask HN: Physics PhD at Stanford or Berkeley

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Re: Ask HN: Physics PhD at Stanford or Berkeley

#71
post #69

PhD in Quantum Optics and Atomic Physics from Oxford here (they call it 'DPhil in Atomic & Laser Physics' here). I fully agree with what everyone else is saying here, it's really great advice. On the science aspect, their advice has you well-covered. From myself, I emphasise: the most important part of ingredient of your PhD, other than you, will be your prospective advisor. The choice of school is secondary to that.…

>To drive home the last point: my personal experience is such that I literally cannot think of anyone who's had a tougher PhD journey than myself and still managed to complete it---I'll concede that I'm biased, naturally. Backing up that statement: statistically speaking, across my department I don't think anyone in the whole Oxford Physics department fell in the same hole that I did for at least 20 years.

Let's talk. I think I have some notes for you.

Re: Ask HN: Physics PhD at Stanford or Berkeley

#72

Another Ph.D. physicist here (Ivy, not Stanford/Berkeley) As others have pointed out, your prospective advisor(s) are the most important thing to consider. You can't go wrong with either school. That said, when choosing an advisor: * Pay attention to where the advisor's former students ended up. The former students are a natural "network" for you when you graduate. If you can, ask relatively recent grads about their…

The original version of a PhD is not enough references transparencies for giving talks and it reminds me the world used to be very different not so long ago. I think the new edition only talks about power point. Actually I gave a talk a couple months ago that was well received where I refused to use slides and only used the chalkboard. Tbh that was way more fun imo.

I didn’t make it into academia really but I gave some lectures to undergrads. IMO laptops connected to projectors have been a real curse, people completely zone out when you are going through slides, and it is possible to zoom through the stuff wayyyy too fast.

I think everyone should make an excuse to grab the chalk at least for part of every lecture. Part of being the instructor is doing the presentation.

Re: Ask HN: Physics PhD at Stanford or Berkeley

#73
post #18

I went to Princeton for my PhD, but I was at Stanford for my undergrad, and knowing a few experimentalist grad students, it seems for whatever reason the completion time was usually 7 years (or more), longer than usual. Might be something to consider. Anyway, if you don’t have a specific advisor in mind (well you wouldn’t be asking if you do), my advice is go to the open house in both departments and talk to the actu…

If its an integrated MS/PhD, seven years doesn't seem long for experimental science. If you already have an MS, which normally takes two years, then its maybe another 4-5 years.

At least in Princeton experimentalists do complete integrated MS/PhD within 5 years. Having a separate MS is atypical for American-educated students, plenty of schools (all the top schools IIRC) don’t even have a program, the MS is only offered as an incidental degree of the PhD program.

Re: Ask HN: Physics PhD at Stanford or Berkeley

#74
The schools you mentioned are the main producers of the majority of faculty in the US (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02998-w#::text=On...), so it does not matter which one you choose, to be honest.

The advisor is the most crucial factor in deciding a PhD/postdoc program (you're not an undergrad anymore!). When people talk about the prestige factor at this level, they are talking about the top 20 vs. the university of nowhere, and even in those cases, it comes down to the advisor and their reputation in the field (for your case, all the other factors are the same). At the end of the day, as a PhD student, you rarely need the "school" resources as opposed to the care/advice/networking you get from your supervisor and the facilities in their labs (that's also true at the department level; why would you care if the department has access to a remote telescope if your research is in quantum optics?) So, pay no attention to the side details (weather, location, rankings, etc.) and focus solely on the best advisor you can find wherever they may be.

Also, keep in mind that all the top schools produce a much larger volume of grad/postdocs than will there ever be faculty positions in ANY STEM field (so most grads end up in non-related positions, and many qualified applicants are turned down). That implies that you definitely need people to recognize your name when applying for jobs, and one way to achieve that is to put your name on an article with a reputable person in the field or have their recommendation (or be smart enough to make a name for yourself). Even in that case, deciding based on reputation is not merely sufficient. You want to invest 6-7 best yrs of your life, so do you like how the advisor treats their grads/postdocs and runs the lab? Do you want them to be hands-on, or would you rather be independent (very important to consider this)? Do you even like your research project/topic?

I always say that choosing a PhD advisor is like "virtually" marrying someone. You have to check all the qualifications to see if you're a "perfect match" before committing to anything (also, you would use your advisor's networking post-graduate, so you will always have them in your academic life to some extent). If you do not believe me, you can check the profiles of the newly hired physics assistant professors or associate professors across all the US schools, and you will see that there's no pattern in the academic background (some have PhDs from European/Asian universities that you probably never heard of and some even have PhDs in another discipline like chem or bio); nevertheless, their advisors were famous in the field + their research directions were promising enough to get them hired/promoted + the faculty of that school think they can collaborate with them at any level. Also, when it comes to hiring a new faculty (which I believe is the most illustrious job in physics), there is a ton of politics you need to do (connections to the faculty of the said school, presenting the best case for future research directions based on your past research, getting your teaching profile ready, etc.), and at that point, no one cares where you got your PhD from. So, visit any lab you have in mind, talk to people, and check the overall environment of the lab before committing (in summary, would you be happy for the next 6-7 years of your life doing what you always loved to do?)

Remember that if you do not choose the "right" advisor, you will regret it to the extent that you may even grow to hate your research (it happened to me and indeed to a lot of my friends), and it takes a long time to get back on track even if you're in the best institution (some of my friends at top institutions end up doing TA for many years because of this).

For disclosure, I'm a physics PhD student at one of the so-called top physics institutions. I happen to be involved in a lot of politics behind the scenes (e.g., faculty hiring) and try so hard for faculty positions!

Re: Ask HN: Physics PhD at Stanford or Berkeley

#75
post #17

Whichever program you like more? Especially, whichever one has your best choices for an advisor? Picking your advisor is the only actual consequential choice you make in grad school. The school itself does not really matter.

The school does matter in a lot of ways, but Stanford and Berkeley are going to be roughly equivalent in those ways.

At least for the academic career track, the school only matters inasmuch as it connects you with your advisor. Your advisor's name, or research group's name, is what people will judge you on.

Re: Ask HN: Physics PhD at Stanford or Berkeley

#76
They are both fine. Your real question is whether or not you can better leverage LBNL or SLAC (ALS vs LCLS/SSRL). I think LBNL would be a bit better for optics specifically. If you need more compute access LBNL/Berkeley might be a bit better because of NERSC but it’s not a huge deal because you’d probably use NERSC anyway. Of course, it’s quite likely you could be be working with PIs from either university as well.

Stanford students are generally happier than Berkeley students (talking about PhD/Postdocs in particular)

Re: Ask HN: Physics PhD at Stanford or Berkeley

#77
post #16

Both schools have excellent reputations, so the PI is going to be the most important thing (and, perhaps, variety of PI's if you're not sure you want to stick with a specific one). After that you would consider things like course requirements, likelihood of having to TA, etc. And if you want to live in a city, Berkeley is much easier (yes, it's possible to commute to Stanford from SF, but it's a slog).

Both schools have a great reputation, however Stanford is clearly superior. Berkeley is, at the end of the day, a public school, and so it’s lumped together with other top public schools like UT Austin or U Mich. Stanford, on the other hand, is a globally recognized private university and more often compared to MIT

> Berkeley is, at the end of the day, a public school, and so it’s lumped together with other top public schools like UT Austin or U Mich. Stanford, on the other hand, is a globally recognized private university and more often compared to MIT

Some data: Last I knew, Times Higher Education surveyed published tenured professors worldwide about the best schools in their field. I think it's probably the best and mabye only good data.

Every year, six schools have been head and shoulders above the rest overall (in random order): Harvard, MIT, Oxford, Cambridge, Stanford, and Berkeley.

Re: Ask HN: Physics PhD at Stanford or Berkeley

#78
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested in hearing more.

Hey @aj7 and @novia. I am very interested on this as well, feel free to reach out, email in profile. I am actually advocating against abuse and corruption in academia, that's a swamp that really needs to be drained.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Physics PhD at Stanford or Berkeley

#79
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The school does matter in a lot of ways, but Stanford and Berkeley are going to be roughly equivalent in those ways.

At least for the academic career track, the school only matters inasmuch as it connects you with your advisor. Your advisor's name, or research group's name, is what people will judge you on.

There are other factors, like the quality of your peers, facilities and colloquia, security of funding, teaching load, culture, etc.

And a high reputation school will help in grant applications and so on, where you don't get to include your advisers name.

Re: Ask HN: Physics PhD at Stanford or Berkeley

#80

Both great schools. As others have mentioned, your PI is going to matter a ton, there are really bad PI's who will deliberately keep you a few extra years, and there are good ones who will let help you and progress your career. It's sort of a gamble as to which is which unless you know them personally. One other consideration though is that Berkeley is the safety school for people who don't get into Stanford. If all…

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