A glut of PhDs who can’t find academic jobs • Hacker News Board

Re: A glut of PhDs who can’t find academic jobs

#61

Post by xor1 » Sun, Oct 01, 2017, 11:45 PM UTC

yeukhon wrote: post #44

I come from a city university, and in my experience many of the master students there (information system or computer science program) are not up to standard when they leave the program (i.e. they can't really program, let alone with theories). I think this is the problem with my school, but when I had this conversation with an old friend he felt that his master classes focused on theory, very little room for program…

I know someone currently enrolled in a CS Master's program. I forgot the term, but they have to spend an extra year taking undergrad classes, since their undergrad wasn't CS. Their friends do the vast majority of their homework and projects for them, and these assignments + open-book take-home quizzes/tests (that they also get help with) count for enough of their grade that they can tank the stuff that you can't cheat on and still pass all of their classes.

I hope that they'll be exposed once they get to post-grad next year, but I doubt it. I don't know anything about being a master's student, but I'm assuming they'll just have their hands held by professors, and get carried through everything by their fellow students. They won't even need to reach out to people outside of the program.

Anyways, now I know how people finish a CS degree without actually being able to code...

Re: A glut of PhDs who can’t find academic jobs

#62

Post by kchoudhu » Sun, Oct 01, 2017, 11:47 PM UTC

I'm probably going to go back to get a PhD at some point in my 40s. Not because I want to become a professor, but because I think it'll be good to sit down for a period of four or five years and just think in the company of other agile minds.

Of course, this is only possible because I'll have made sure to have had an entire career behind me, and I will not be worrying about putting food on my family's table or keeping a roof over their heads. A PhD is to me, therefore, not a profession but an avocation. Something to do after you've done everything else. The idea of doing it a few years after college, with the intention of making academia your profession? That's terrifying to me.

Re: A glut of PhDs who can’t find academic jobs

#63

Post by Cyph0n » Sun, Oct 01, 2017, 11:51 PM UTC

mikebenfield wrote: post #39

TimPC wrote: post #21

I'm not sure we have a glut of PhD's at all. At least not in fields where there is actual research in industry. I work in industry on a team where almost everyone has a PhD and those that don't have a Master's degree (or two). The team I'm on publishes research, reads papers regularly, attends research conferences, has visiting professors and researchers give talks, but also ships product. Maybe CS and AI is an outli…

> Maybe CS and AI is an outlier Yes, it is a huge outlier. Probably the most extreme outlier there is. > Plenty of people go into a PhD to go into industry In CS? Yes. In most other fields? Absolutely not.

It's also common in EE/CE, but to a lesser extent. Here in the US, PhDs usually go to e.g.: Intel, AMD, Samsung, Qualcomm, defense contractors.

Re: A glut of PhDs who can’t find academic jobs

#64

Post by wbillingsley » Sun, Oct 01, 2017, 11:53 PM UTC

PhDs are a research training scheme, not an academic training scheme. As the economy has become more competitive, and more of the population has bachelor's degrees, proven research skills (as well as proven skills at independent work, dealing with complex unknown problems, sticking at a long and difficult task for 3+ years to make a unique contribution, and solid evidence that you are at the leading edge of your field) are quite valuable in the industry job market.

Of the cohort of PhD students I went through with, from a rough guess (I haven't taken exact count), the most common role is now "startup CEO", followed by "engineer at enviable company", followed only then by "teaching and research academic".

The other side of the coin is that (in some countries) academic careers are changing, in that things are becoming more specialised between teaching and research -- funding crunches are pushing universities into letting teaching loads increase, while research grant funding is competitive largely based on "how many previous grants have you won" (which as it gets more competitive depends on having a lower teaching load to focus almost single-mindedly on research). A curious side-effect of which is that teaching posts are often continuing (there's a steady flow of students to teach) while at the start of a research career, research-focused staff may be on fixed-term contract (research grants are time-limited).

In other words, your family situation (how much you can move around to build a research career, how much you need a stable income) also has a big impact on your pathway.

Re: A glut of PhDs who can’t find academic jobs

#65

Post by brians » Mon, Oct 02, 2017, 12:06 AM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #55

yeukhon wrote: post #44

I come from a city university, and in my experience many of the master students there (information system or computer science program) are not up to standard when they leave the program (i.e. they can't really program, let alone with theories). I think this is the problem with my school, but when I had this conversation with an old friend he felt that his master classes focused on theory, very little room for program…

I assume you get downvoted because theoretical CS research really doesn't need to involve coding, so it's not as odd as you seem to think.

Dijkstra famously compared this to astronomers who have no interest in telescopes or observing. I love theory, would happily retire to it—but I can’t see how anyone could have the right imagination calibration without lots of practice.

Re: A glut of PhDs who can’t find academic jobs

#66

Post by zzz95 » Mon, Oct 02, 2017, 12:17 AM UTC

opportune wrote: post #13

I'm surprised this article doesn't try to address the reasons this is happening. It mentions that the employers (universities) benefit from students funding themselves, and I'm not super familiar with the UK's academic system, but this seems to be an oversight by the author/editor since most PhD students (in the US, at least) are funded to do their research. I think the most important reasons we have a glut of PhDs w…

>>3. PhD programs are often used an immigration tool rather than as preparation for academia. Many PhD students I worked with were getting PhDs so that they could emigrate from India/Pakistan/China to the US and get a well-paying job. I'm sure a similar phenomenon occurs in the UK.

I don't think this is true at all. Why do PhD (4-6yrs+), when a MS is enough to find a job and get an H1-B/GC ??

Re: A glut of PhDs who can’t find academic jobs

#67

Post by dv_dt » Mon, Oct 02, 2017, 12:30 AM UTC

santaclaus wrote: post #40

dv_dt wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is more of an indictment of how little real investment goes into R&D at private industry - even as the companies merge into megopolies who should have the finances to best justify it, they seem to become even less inclined to invest in fundamental research.

The big (and some even not-so-big) companies hire lots of PhDs -- roughly 8% of Google's employees have doctorates.

Google is exceptional, and also in area of "growth capture". How about large companies in more mature industries? For example, do any of the telecom companies maintain the equivalent of Bell Labs today?

Re: A glut of PhDs who can’t find academic jobs

#68

Post by opportune » Mon, Oct 02, 2017, 12:31 AM UTC

zzz95 wrote: post #66

opportune wrote: post #13

I'm surprised this article doesn't try to address the reasons this is happening. It mentions that the employers (universities) benefit from students funding themselves, and I'm not super familiar with the UK's academic system, but this seems to be an oversight by the author/editor since most PhD students (in the US, at least) are funded to do their research. I think the most important reasons we have a glut of PhDs w…

>>3. PhD programs are often used an immigration tool rather than as preparation for academia. Many PhD students I worked with were getting PhDs so that they could emigrate from India/Pakistan/China to the US and get a well-paying job. I'm sure a similar phenomenon occurs in the UK. I don't think this is true at all. Why do PhD (4-6yrs+), when a MS is enough to find a job and get an H1-B/GC ??

Well for starters, an MS in the US may cost $40k-$60k/ year for a foreign student (as funding is very hard to get for an MS student), whereas during a PhD you'll get paid about $20-25k/year. Also, many universities do not offer MS programs in more academic fields, or if they do, they do not allocate them many spots in the graduate program compared to PhD students.

This fits my personal experience as well. All of the foreign students I know who did MS's in the US were very wealthy, whereas only some of the foreign students doing PhDs were.

Re: A glut of PhDs who can’t find academic jobs

#69

Post by beambot » Mon, Oct 02, 2017, 12:39 AM UTC

pacala wrote: post #4

The PhD system is a Ponzi scheme. First and foremost, a PhD program trains one to become a professor. During a professor career, one is expected to graduate 5, 10, 20 PhD students. It is mathematically impossible for the majority of these students to find a professor job. The explosion of higher education, internally and globally, masks the problem to some extent, just like a good old fashioned Ponzi scheme appears s…

> First and foremost, a PhD program trains one to become a professor.

You are grossly misinformed. PhDs programs are training for a career in research. Professorships are only one possible path... and just like you intuited, it's not even the dominant career path.

Re: A glut of PhDs who can’t find academic jobs

#70

Post by ChuckMcM » Mon, Oct 02, 2017, 12:45 AM UTC

The only time I have missed not getting a PhD was when lawyers have me explain to someone who has a PhD what I mean so that they can bring my testimony into an IP case by a more identifiable 'expert'.

That said, there is a particularly annoying type of PhD in the tech world, it is one who assumes that the person they are talking to who doesn't have a PhD, doesn't have that degree because they were incapable of getting it, rather than they simply didn't bother. That is, I suppose, human nature. It is always amusing when I encounter it because I know the person underestimates people.