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Ask HN: Is a phD a good way to focus & motivate you?

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Re: Ask HN: Is a phD a good way to focus & motivate you?

#31

Post by throwaway1 »

nagrom wrote: post #26

This sounds harsh, but I'd rather be honest and risk that. I have a PhD in physics and work supervising doctoral students and early stage post docs. A PhD will not help you personally unless: a) You want to prove to yourself that you can do something original AND b) You are incredibly fascinated by a certain field, to the point of obsession AND c) You are capable of continuing to work, unaided and unsupervised for up…

Wow another overwhelming "no don't do it"! From someone who's been there and done it.

So, genuine questions: why did you do it? and what were your reasons? And finally if you could go back in time, would you decide to do it again?

Re: Ask HN: Is a phD a good way to focus & motivate you?

#33

Post by timwiseman »

nagrom wrote: post #26

This sounds harsh, but I'd rather be honest and risk that. I have a PhD in physics and work supervising doctoral students and early stage post docs. A PhD will not help you personally unless: a) You want to prove to yourself that you can do something original AND b) You are incredibly fascinated by a certain field, to the point of obsession AND c) You are capable of continuing to work, unaided and unsupervised for up…

Well made points and they make sense.

Perhaps, if the OP does not already have one, a Master's Program is a good way to start? Is does not require a dissertation and many have a non-thesis option if you do not want to do original research.

Of course, you do need a fair degree of motivation to finish even a masters, but it is a much lower bar than a PHD. While your direct advisor may or may not pay you much attention, most masters programs are centered around a series of classes that are like a harder extension of your undergrad education.

Also, if you are doing this for career purposes, a masters is a "sweet spot" in terms of return on investment in education. It is much less costly than a PHD, and does not run the risk of intimidating potential employeers in the way that a PHD might. But at the same time, it sets you apart from people holding only a bachelors.

(For full disclosure: I am currently in a masters of math program while working full time.)

Re: Ask HN: Is a phD a good way to focus & motivate you?

#34

Post by danielford »

I think your approach to motivation is flawed. You're throwing yourself into a situation where you require an external motivator in order to get things done. Even if that works, you still haven't fixed the root problem, that you lack the internal motivation to pursue your goals. The best you can do under this system is to jump from one external motivator to the other.

To develop internal motivation, force yourself to work on your projects a little bit each day. You're not going to go from zero hours to five hours a day in the space of a week. Internal motivation is like a muscle you have to develop over long periods of time. Resign yourself to the fact that you don't have the discipline to live up to your expectations right now, but eventually you will if you push yourself a tiny bit more each day. As Epictetus once said, nothing great is produced suddenly.

To actually answer your question, no you shouldn't go for a PhD, since it's not an external motivator, it's an anti-motivator. When I started my doctorate I wanted nothing more than to be in graduate school doing research. I would have been satisfied to spend the rest of my life being a graduate student, if only I could continue my work. By the time I finished I was drinking three nights a week, and wanted nothing more than a chance to go back in time and convince myself not to go to graduate school.

Re: Ask HN: Is a phD a good way to focus & motivate you?

#35

Post by nagrom »

throwaway1 wrote: post #31
nagrom wrote: post #26

This sounds harsh, but I'd rather be honest and risk that. I have a PhD in physics and work supervising doctoral students and early stage post docs. A PhD will not help you personally unless: a) You want to prove to yourself that you can do something original AND b) You are incredibly fascinated by a certain field, to the point of obsession AND c) You are capable of continuing to work, unaided and unsupervised for up…

Wow another overwhelming "no don't do it"! From someone who's been there and done it. So, genuine questions: why did you do it? and what were your reasons? And finally if you could go back in time, would you decide to do it again?

I did it because I had a degree aged 20, and my options were a PhD including international travel, freedom and the chance to stay (nominally) at Uni - or take a general management job or jump into a consultancy. I lacked imagination ;-)

If I could go back in time, I would...hah! So I just sat here for 5 minutes. I honestly don't know. I jumped in head-first and gave up everything at home for my PhD. Doing my PhD allowed me to live in three different countries, meet a whole load of new people, live through some intense experiences (30 hour 'days', travelling and working through 8 countries in 8 days, become an expert in subject X and give a presentation on it to world experts in 3 days etc. ;-) and grow up. I learned a lot about myself. The physics and computing and mathematics were incidental, almost. But I gave up a huge opportunity cost in going into finance or starting a company. But who knows what I would have amounted to, otherwise?

From what you're saying, none of those experiences would apply to you. You're not used to living on $15k per year, and would be working a day job along side the studies. Since you'd hold onto your regular life, you wouldn't travel for renumeration amounting to just under the cost of living and you're probably too experienced to tolerate the amount of crap a grad student gets on a daily basis.

I'm not negative about doing a PhD, I think. I'd recommend it to you heartily if you were in your early twenties and wanted to go do something unique, exciting and demanding. But from your post, you're not talking about going all-in. You're talking about doing it as a hobby, almost - a help to what you really want to do. It doesn't (or shouldn't) work like that. My advice would be to do what you really want to do, and not worry about getting an external boost or credit - which is what a qualification is about, I guess.

In fact, from what you've written, it sounds to me like you don't enjoy getting your own projects done because you are busy achieving stuff during the day. I don't think that anyone can be focused and productive 15 hours a day. Try changing jobs, taking a less intense day job to concentrate at home or finding some way to roll your own projects into your day job properly.

A word of caution: I don't know anyone who did a PhD part-time. My advice is worth what you paid for it ;-) You may get lucky and have an awesome advisor who cares about your topic. You might have some incredible idea that needs academic help to bring to fruition. If you know exactly what you want to do and can find an advisor who is as enthusiastic as you, go for it! But from your post, I guess that's not the case.

Re: Ask HN: Is a phD a good way to focus & motivate you?

#36

Post by nagrom »

timwiseman wrote: post #33
nagrom wrote: post #26

This sounds harsh, but I'd rather be honest and risk that. I have a PhD in physics and work supervising doctoral students and early stage post docs. A PhD will not help you personally unless: a) You want to prove to yourself that you can do something original AND b) You are incredibly fascinated by a certain field, to the point of obsession AND c) You are capable of continuing to work, unaided and unsupervised for up…

Well made points and they make sense. Perhaps, if the OP does not already have one, a Master's Program is a good way to start? Is does not require a dissertation and many have a non-thesis option if you do not want to do original research. Of course, you do need a fair degree of motivation to finish even a masters, but it is a much lower bar than a PHD. While your direct advisor may or may not pay you much attention,…

I agree that doing a master's is the best financial investment right now and can be a good way of learning something a bit more detailed and focused than undergrad. But I think that even a master's won't achieve what the OP wants.

(S?)He seems to be looking for motivation and a cheer-leader for his own projects. The best way to get that is not in academia.

Re: Ask HN: Is a phD a good way to focus & motivate you?

#37

Post by T_S_ »

throwaway1 wrote: post #28
T_S_ wrote: post #24

I left a career to do a PhD at age 42. It definitely helped me take on challenges that require much more technical knowledge than if I had stayed on the "tinkering" path. The distilled version of my lessons learned: 0) Hard to do a PhD part-time. Consider "retiring" for a while. 1) Your advisor will be focused on cranking out publications to advance their career. Not always the same as increasing the amount of knowle…

Some great tips here. I am 30 this month, having been working in industry for the last 6 years. If I were to take this on and were to make good progress, I would consider "retiring" for a year or so to finish things off. The point you make in 1) and 2) echoes a lot with what others are saying about finding the right adviser. I will certainly pay a lot of attention to this.

Oh, you're still a youngster :-). Married? Spouse gets at vote.

I minimized risk by having three advisors, whom I ended up relying on for different purposes. This was unusual in my school, but I found it worked well for me. One had a lot of experience and was great at dealing with paperwork and people problems. One turned out to be absolutely brilliant at idea generation and horrible at everything else. One was great for brainstorming and working on proofs. Neither of the latter two were what you might call "transactional" when it came to meetings and goals.

At the end of the process, it was my fellow students who who actually read my thesis and provided edits and suggestions. All for chocolate and cappuccino.

Re: Ask HN: Is a phD a good way to focus & motivate you?

#39

Post by pgbovine »

it seems like we're not supposed to self-promote on HN, but two of my articles seem relevant to OP at the moment ...

"The similarities between being a junior researcher and a high-tech entrepreneur": http://www.stanford.edu/~pgbovine/research-and-startup.htm

"Advice for preparing to apply and actually applying to science Ph.D. programs": http://www.stanford.edu/~pgbovine/grad-school-app-tips.htm

Re: Ask HN: Is a phD a good way to focus & motivate you?

#40

Post by grad_student_ »

grad_student_ wrote: post #38

Check this older thread also for some perspective and useful advice: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=348774

Summary: do it if you want to become a career researcher, but if you want to do creative hacking than cut out the middleman and just do it. Gradschool is the hotbed of timewaste and procrastination so don't do it to get yourself focused. If anything, taking some undergrad courses in some topic that is new to you could be much more useful that way.

Even if you want to get into research, leave all ideals and preconceived notions behind. As others have said, doing a phd is depressing as hell. You will have smart people to hang out with every day, but especially if you are thinking of real world applicability of things, you might have a hard time connecting with most of them.

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