When tenure never comes • Hacker News Board

Re: When tenure never comes

#111

Post by repsilat » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 4:50 AM UTC

Fej wrote: post #48

Just an anecdote... a professor whose classes I've taken, which were fantastic, recently got tenured. In the liberal arts, too! I like to think that tenure isn't quite dead yet. Depends on the college, naturally. (I deliberately use the word "college" instead of "university"; I find that the liberal arts college at my university is more organized than the computer science department.) Eventually the college loan bubb…

> Eventually the college loan bubble will burst, and universities will no longer be able to be run like businesses.

Can you explain this sentence?

If you mean, "Students will be less likely to get crazy loans," I can only imagine that would encourage universities to "be run like businesses.)

Re: When tenure never comes

#112

Post by maverick_iceman » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 5:09 AM UTC

twblalock wrote: post #93

quantumhobbit wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me too. Sort of. I think I realized this subconsciously before I was conscious of it. The result was two years of depression and anxiety before I got everything straight and quit. I don't know if it was wasted time or not. It was a long time to not be in the workforce, but I learned a lot of skills while working on what turned out to be dead end research projects. I have a job now that requires merely a fraction of t…

> I think I realized this subconsciously before I was conscious of it. This is grad school in a nutshell, in a lot of fields. I've seen three common responses to this cognitive dissonance: 1. Deny the brutal reality of the job market. 2. "But I couldn't ever be happy doing anything else!" 3. Leave. One of the strangest things about my grad school experience was watching very intelligent people spend years of their li…

For a long time I thought that "But I couldn't ever be happy doing anything else!" Now I'm not doing it but have a great job I'm way happier than I ever was in grad school. I wonder how I could have been so foolish.

Re: When tenure never comes

#113

Post by maverick_iceman » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 5:16 AM UTC

jerryhuang100 wrote: post #66

It's interesting to see this story on the front page at the same time with another one titled "We Should Not Accept Scientific Results That Have Not Been Repeated" . It's easy to solve both problems (killing two birds with one stone?) by implementing protocols of purging scientists with track records of non-repeatable results from "personal opinions" and fraudulent scholars gaming publishing systems, including titles…

The point of the Nautilus article was repeatability is a must before a scientific result is accepted. However pressure to publish new results often lead to scientists losing motivation in doing replicating studies. It's a bug in the scientific ecosystem, particularly in the allocation of rewards. A significant number of experiments will always fail to replicate for various random reasons. That doesn't mean the concerned scientist is at fault.

Re: When tenure never comes

#114

Post by Chinjut » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 5:16 AM UTC

Every time one of these articles is posted, there are a number of comments about how we need to tighten the number of students accepted into PhD programs, to line up with the number of academic jobs realistically available to them. Of course, I understand where these comments come from. But if so many people are so keen to become researchers in a field they love and are clearly highly qualified to work in, I would hope we could instead find a way to broaden the number of people supported in doing such work. Attacking the problem from the more troubling end.

Re: When tenure never comes

#115

Post by maverick_iceman » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 5:19 AM UTC

pmiller2 wrote: post #13

purpleidea wrote: post #2

The author of the article never mentions what faculty or program they're in, or references any of their work. No doubt this is a real problem, but in this particular case they could just be a lousy researcher in a faculty that doesn't have a high demand for new professors. IOW the "psychology" / "liberal arts" over population. I'm not trying to knock any of those studies, but there is a large excess where I'm from.

There's an overpopulation in virtually every field. Any graduate student can look to his or her left and right in class and realize that those people are his or her competition for a job that only one of them is going to get. The situation is only somewhat better in STEM fields, because there's more industry demand (where you can get paid more and have better mobility, but get looked down on by your academic brethren…

> where you can get paid more and have better mobility, but get looked down on by your academic brethren

And then 2 years later they will be asking you to find them a job. :)

Re: When tenure never comes

#116

Post by maverick_iceman » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 5:23 AM UTC

gravypod wrote: post #80

Can someone please explain to my why tenure is needed? I've had some professors attempt to do it to me in the past and I never got it. I maybe understand it for a humanities subject, but for STEM no chance for me. I don't have tenure when it comes to working in the industry. If I'm a good enough employee I'll stay on, if I'm a bad enough employee I'll be replaced. Tenure just seems to protect mediocrity. Can someone…

Academic freedom, especially the freedom to pursue unpopular ideas.

Re: When tenure never comes

#117

Post by dbcurtis » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 5:32 AM UTC

ilarum wrote: post #76

Does HN have any advice for those looking to get a PhD because they love the field (Computer Science)? And then follow up the PhD with a job at one of the tech companies' research arm?

From where I sit, I certainly wish I had done that. A PhD in CS or EE (the only things I can comment on with personal observation) creates industry opportunities that an MS doesnt. Better projects. Easier path to project leadership. More choice of projects. More job mobility opportunities (hugely more).

This is data from observing how friends, relatives, and aquaintences with PhDs in CS, EE, and Robotics are doing. None on the academic track, by choice.

My brother-in-law with the PhD in econ (MIT, no less) chose the academic route, and has faced the tenure struggle.

Re: When tenure never comes

#118

Post by tomcam » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 5:45 AM UTC

pkaye wrote: post #102

dharmon wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd be appalled at how much overhead universities take out of research grants (from NSF, DARPA, NIH, etc.) to maintain these administrations (along with legitimate uses, like paying utility bills). 40-50% is not uncommon.

I won some student award at school funded through an industry sponsor. I think it was $1000. I was recommended by one of my professors. As part of the processing fee, they deducted 20% for school overhead!

Otherwise known as racketeering.

Re: When tenure never comes

#119

Post by tomcam » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 5:51 AM UTC

pkaye wrote: post #104

mbreese wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For public (state-funded) universities, they receive a large percentage of their operating budget not from tuition or endowments, but directly from the state. In many cases, over the past 10+ years, this direct support has been slashed. So, for these institutions, even as tuition has been increasing, their total budget was likely dropping. Tuition hasn't been able to keep up with the loss of state funding, so the uni…

Then why do they keep increasing the administrative staffing?

Compliance. Massive amounts of federal regulations, plus empire building and things like deluxe dorms and insanely corrupt athletic programs.

Re: When tenure never comes

#120

Post by intended » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 5:55 AM UTC

jerryhuang100 wrote: post #66

It's interesting to see this story on the front page at the same time with another one titled "We Should Not Accept Scientific Results That Have Not Been Repeated" . It's easy to solve both problems (killing two birds with one stone?) by implementing protocols of purging scientists with track records of non-repeatable results from "personal opinions" and fraudulent scholars gaming publishing systems, including titles…

As a recent comment pointed out - the issue isn't solved by dividing the pie, but by increasing the size of it.

These arguments lead to one historically known outcome.