161–170 of 178 posts
While being a student a physics professor told me: "Study physics now. Because later when you have a job, you might get paid to learn using some software tool or a new programming language. But no company will ever send you into a quantum mechanics lecture. " He was right.
I bet D-Wave has some interesting quantum mechanics lectures!
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Four years? Is it common for a Physics PhD to take that long? I thought most fields are closer to two years.
Four years would be on the very short end these days. Most doctoral programs in math and the sciences are a MINIMUM of four years, with average terms creeping up to 6. Never say never, but a 2-year doctorate is pretty much unheard-of. Some people think of this as 2 years for a Masters and 2 more for PhD, but in practice most hard science programs don't really offer a true Masters program. When I got my doctorate, a b…
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> even if you wanted to you can't keep doing postdocs forever. Why? I know an academic who has done exactly that. Nearing retirement now.
Many institutions have a hard rule that says you can't start a postdoc if you're more than 5 years out of your PhD program (discounting any time for parental leave, medical leaves of absence, etc.).
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> even if you wanted to you can't keep doing postdocs forever. Why? I know an academic who has done exactly that. Nearing retirement now.
Many institutions have a hard rule that says you can't start a postdoc if you're more than 5 years out of your PhD program (discounting any time for parental leave, medical leaves of absence, etc.).
Does physics academia really not have another position you can promote someone to, if you want to keep paying them to do research for you, but they've "timed out" of the postdoc role? I had assumed this kind of research-scientist role wasn't CS-specific, since it's existed for a while, and at big universities, CS hasn't traditionally had the clout to invent completely new job titles, so hiring is usually mapped onto stuff that exists in some form or another at the institutional level.
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Stats for European schools can also be different. I know of some that have short PhD programs but require you complete a masters before applying.
I took 7 years from the start of grad school to my PhD. The main reason was that my first thesis project was an utter failure. My impression from talking to a lot of people, is that the European schools simply manage the PhD process to make sure it doesn't drag out too long. It's expected to be shorter, so it's shorter.
The big difference was that the PhD in the UK launched you straight into research on day 1. No teaching, no courses. He spent the first couple of years in courses, and a lot of time throughout the degree in teaching. In some ways I envied his coursework, since I was basically on my own from the start (his grad courses sounded very thorough and interesting). However I do not envy the 5 extra years it took him.
That was all a couple of decades ago now, so things may have changed.
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The use of the phrase "potentially permanent positions" in the AIP report for industry positions, especially in the computer industry, is highly misleading. Academia, including some government labs and institutes, has tenured positions and other positions with guarantees of job security until retirement. The vast majority of industry employees are "at will" and can be laid off at any time for any reason or no reason.…
I think "potentially permanent" is just a historical oddity. They used the same term 25 years ago when I was in school, and there was still an expectation of people going into tenure track position.
In any case, with the closure or heavy cutbacks at corporate research labs, AIP should update its language to reflect current realities.
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NR Kocherlakota (my favorite): https://twitter.com/kocherlakota009 Tim Duy: https://twitter.com/TimDuy Claudia Sahm: https://twitter.com/Claudia_Sahm Stephen Williamson: https://twitter.com/1954swilliamson David Andolfatto: https://twitter.com/dandolfa Tony Yates: https://twitter.com/t0nyyates Neel Kashkari: https://twitter.com/neelkashkari Noah Smith: https://twitter.com/Noahpinion Tyler Cowen: https://twitter.com/t…
You've surely run across them, but: Brad DeLong and and Mark Thoma post a ton of interesting links every day.
Anecdata: As a software engineer who studied physics before C.S., it feels like I've had a massively unfair advantage my entire career. Served me very well.
Can you describe the advantage? (Was within a hair of a physics minor before I studied C.S., but might have wiped out the advantage by switching to Mathematics?)
I'm studying physics because I want to help shed light on the mysteries of reality.
It might be hard to get a job in physics and achieve that, but it's a hell of a lot harder to get in a job in software development and achieve that.
Despite this, all I'm reading is optimism about how well-paying and interesting software development is for physicists. So what? If those were my primary concerns, I wouldn't have studied physics in the first place!
I get the hidden impression that the meaningfulness of science -- pursuing the truth, the nature of the universe -- is being swept under the rug because it's no longer paying the bills. That's a goddamn tragedy, not the cause for celebration this article is making it out to be.
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I took 7 years from the start of grad school to my PhD. The main reason was that my first thesis project was an utter failure. My impression from talking to a lot of people, is that the European schools simply manage the PhD process to make sure it doesn't drag out too long. It's expected to be shorter, so it's shorter.
My best friend and I both did PhDs in astronomy starting at the same time, me in the UK, him in the US. I completed in 4 years, he took 9 years. The big difference was that the PhD in the UK launched you straight into research on day 1. No teaching, no courses. He spent the first couple of years in courses, and a lot of time throughout the degree in teaching. In some ways I envied his coursework, since I was basicall…