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Are PhD Students Irrational?

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Re: Are PhD Students Irrational?

#21

Post by zasz »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #18
jdoliner wrote: post #10

From my reading it seems like the crux of the argument is this: > We’ve presupposed a scenario in which there really is a massive oversupply of PhDs, and thus PhD students must be irrational for treading into an oversupplied labor market. But that’s simply not true. PhD “oversupply” is just a euphemistic way of talking about the fact that colleges and universities haven’t met student-generated demand with a commensur…

"universities haven’t met student-generated demand with a commensurate supply of full-time, tenure-track faculty" This reverses the normal definitions of 'supply' and 'demand' to make a weak point. Universities are the buyers, i.e. they have demand for faculty. The PhD graduates are the suppliers (of their labour), i.e. they can compete to fulfill that demand. So to say universities have a responsibility to hire peop…

He meant undergraduate-driven demand for teaching faculty. You don't seem to have read the article.

Re: Are PhD Students Irrational?

#22

Post by sjg007 »

A PhD is a great way to immigrate and this drives down PhD stipends.

A PhD is a great way to continue learning.. And good for the overall economy because companies rely on math, science and engineering to produce products.

Re: Are PhD Students Irrational?

#23

Post by cstrahan »

jdoliner wrote: post #10

From my reading it seems like the crux of the argument is this: > We’ve presupposed a scenario in which there really is a massive oversupply of PhDs, and thus PhD students must be irrational for treading into an oversupplied labor market. But that’s simply not true. PhD “oversupply” is just a euphemistic way of talking about the fact that colleges and universities haven’t met student-generated demand with a commensur…

Normally I'd agree. Especially if we're assuming purely selfish pursuits ("I want to fuck around in academia forever and get paid, supply/demand be damned!").

However, if I see it through the lense of someone who desperately wants to move the world forward -- and at any personal cost -- then I start to entertain the thought that, maybe, it's unfortunate that that some can't find jobs, and they're deserving of my sympathy.

Simillarly, I work on a bunch of OSS. A lot of it is based in academia and unlikely to become mainstream. I'm also unlikely to benefit directly from it, and I don't really enjoy the process of creation within the field of software. However, I feel that the stuff I'm working on -- even with the slim odds of mass adoption -- are worth dumping my time into because it'll move the industry forward if it's successful. You can bet that I'd love to get paid to work on this stuff, but I also understand that's unlikely to ever happen. And sure, I could let other people work on these projects so I can instead go off and have fun, but I believe that my background fills a particular niche that would likely be left open if I didn't sacrifice my time and energy in these pursuits.

Maybe it's the same with these PhD peeps. Each person believes that they're essential to progress, and their principles prohibit them from abandoning their self sacrifice in the pursuit thereof. I think I can understand the frustration; perhaps someone really ought to give these selfless people some money so, you know, they can make all of our lives better.

(In other words, I think "passionate (if not masochistic) altruism" might be mistaken as "entitlement" here.)

Re: Are PhD Students Irrational?

#24

Post by gnarbarian »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #5
altoz wrote: post #3

The article doesn't really touch on this, but for people embarking on a PhD program, school is what they've been doing 8 or so hours a day for 16+ years and school is what they're good at (or else they wouldn't have gotten into the PhD program). It's the least disruptive path post-college for a certain group of college grads and their choice is to trade potential financial gain for stability and familiarity. That may…

That rather fails to account for people who "go back to school" for a PhD after finishing their undergrad and working for a while.

Those who can, Do...

Re: Are PhD Students Irrational?

#26

Post by xapata »

throw_away_777 wrote: post #17

In my experience people don't enter into PhDs expecting to make a lot of money. And STEM PhDs get paid, so it isn't as if we accumulate debt. Often times a PhD is the only route to doing what you love. It isn't possible to do academic research in industry. Personally when I entered into my PhD I really liked that the research I was doing had a noble purpose. On the other hand, a PhD is way too long. And if you stop a…

There was a time when a failed postdoc was in a very depressing financial situation. Corporations didn't want to hire a PhD, because they were overqualified and likely had some anti-authoritarian streak that led them to attempt academia.

STEM PhDs are more in demand these days, but some still don't know it and need encouragement (and sometimes a little help) transitioning to industry.

Re: Are PhD Students Irrational?

#27

Post by AstralStorm »

nickff wrote: post #15
red_blobs wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What ever happened to personal responsibility? It's something that needs to be instilled in our youth before they ever get to college. I know at least 3 people that knowingly got PHDs in majors that will not amount to any sort of high-paying job. They chose to do this and it's not really the job of the university to determine the market value of their degrees.

Those arguments could all be used against the tobbaco company lawsuits too; I am asking what makes them different.

The long term costs are visible in plain to everyone (unless there are lies about prospects) and PhD are not addictive.

Re: Are PhD Students Irrational?

#28

Post by cperciva »

sjg007 wrote: post #22

A PhD is a great way to immigrate and this drives down PhD stipends. A PhD is a great way to continue learning.. And good for the overall economy because companies rely on math, science and engineering to produce products.

A PhD at a good institution is also a great way to open doors which would otherwise remain closed. I found that opening emails with "I'm a DPhil student at the Oxford University Computing Lab and" resulted in a dramatic increase in how helpful people would be.

Re: Are PhD Students Irrational?

#29

Post by thr0waway1239 »

When talking only about software and CS, I think there is one more way to look at this issue (and has been mentioned multiple times in this comment thread).

Let us say the typical software engineer's day is filled up with the following types of tasks:

1. What patio11 describes, although in a different context: "Don't try to make a career out of optimizing the SQL queries to display a preference page on a line of business app at a company that no one has ever heard of." [1]

2. Some kind of algorithmic work (e.g. writing a compiler)

3. Big data, machine learning etc. (consuming the results of algorithms, hence different from 2)

4. Software architecting

My view is that after a while, most people want to move from group 1 to one of the other groups. This gives a good way to explain the pursuit of Ph.D. even when it is not economically rational (both in time and money cost) - it is a pursuit of something which is not mundane as long as you make the effort.

A teacher of mine said: "You are going to be spending about 40 years in your career. If you take 5 out of that to do a Ph.D. you are not going to reflect on it with regret. And at the end of it you have a Ph.D. too."

When you combine this with the possibility that you will be mostly hanging out with elastic minded students as PG once put it and you might actually have the time of your (intellectual) life, the decision doesn't look all that irrational.

[1] https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/do-not-en...

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