Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs
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Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs
#2The first thing I thought of when I saw that photo of Cory Jansson was Peter Gibbons at his first worksite, glad to be in the sunshine and out of the rat race. Fuckin' A, man.
Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs
#3Interesting to see people picking up on this trend. Just saw on linkedin a former PhD classmate of mine who is now a wine harvester.
Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs
#4I have a master's degree and I learned early that getting a PhD was not for me. The way things worked at the university made me not stand to be in that environment anymore.
This thing that is ridiculous in my opinion is that the advisor would say: "there is this conference coming and we will send a manuscript. We can try this and that to see if it is publishable.". Why the hell should I research for publishing? One should get the results AND THEN publish it.
The experience with academia was very toxic, although I know people who have experienced worse than that, with addition to advisors' ego disputes affecting grad students.
Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs
#5Interesting to see people picking up on this trend. Just saw on linkedin a former PhD classmate of mine who is now a wine harvester.
Somehow I read that has Harvey Weinstein and was very confused for a few moments.
Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs
#6I'm positive the same thing happens in the US - grad students spend some time teaching courses and see up-close just what it's like for adjunct faculty (which is all a lot of them will ever be able to get to). In a lot of states they also hear about just how bad things are for public school system teachers. I suspect that they also understand that part of the private school system is management/investors that feel that those protesting public school teachers have it too good, so teaching is basically going to be what they do between their gig economy jobs shopping for groceries for delivery companies.
Also, https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/college-level-mathematics
Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs
#7I have a master's degree and I learned early that getting a PhD was not for me. The way things worked at the university made me not stand to be in that environment anymore. This thing that is ridiculous in my opinion is that the advisor would say: "there is this conference coming and we will send a manuscript. We can try this and that to see if it is publishable.". Why the hell should I research for publishing? One s…
> Why the hell should I research for publishing?
Because publications pretty much define your scientific contributions, i.e. your productivity as a researcher.
> One should get the results AND THEN publish it.
You must have had a body of work that was just about worthy of publication though, right?
Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs
#8Not the same thing- I dropped out of because lack of money, because the work environment providing the funding let me go, because I called them out for doing things that broke the law and were morally very wrong.
I didn't even bother to claim the alternative diploma I had the credits for.
Now I work with finance and blockchain people, and it's a saner and more honest world. Crazy, I know!
Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs
#9Because most modern PhD factories are sweat shops that offer a rather dismal career prospect. (If you've been through the process --- I suspect there are a lot on HN --- you know what I mean.)
Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs
#10Obligatory link to phd comics http://phdcomics.com
For those who don't know, he started this comic to warn people off from PhDs. The irony, is he gets a lot of emails thanking him because the comic encouraged them to get theirs...