Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs • Hacker News Board

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#11

Post by gww » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 5:12 PM UTC

A few of my colleagues with bio PhD's have started microbreweries with various levels of success. They seem to be much happier than my colleagues and myself who have chosen the post-doc route.

This is a bit of a tangent but it seems to be a common trend now among labs to arrest trainees (particularly phd students and post-docs) in their positions as long as possible. For example, the institute I am at has recently extended the maximum assignment length for post-doctoral fellows to from 4 to 6 years. I can see the PI's reasoning for this but it is incredibly demoralizing and one of the contributing factors for a lot of people I know who have abandoned their careers for unconventional jobs.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#12

Post by 1996 » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 5:15 PM UTC

luizfzs wrote: post #4

I 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…

Most of academia is toxic. Those who don't see that haven't spent enough time in it.

I believe things can't go well in general in any area where money comes from organized begging ("proposals", "apply for funding"), driven by reputation ("publications", "impact factor") and where the bad eggs can't even be fired ("tenure")

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#13

Post by brightball » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 5:16 PM UTC

gww wrote: post #11

A few of my colleagues with bio PhD's have started microbreweries with various levels of success. They seem to be much happier than my colleagues and myself who have chosen the post-doc route. This is a bit of a tangent but it seems to be a common trend now among labs to arrest trainees (particularly phd students and post-docs) in their positions as long as possible. For example, the institute I am at has recently ex…

In my opinion, that’s what needs to happen. Thin out the ranks of professors as they move to greener pastures in the workforce and eventually you’ll see schools get in a position where they have to work harder to recruit. Better pay, benefits, support, etc.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#14

Post by cageface » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 5:17 PM UTC

geoalchimista wrote: post #9

Because 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.)

I bailed out three years into a chemistry PhD and my only regret is that I started it at all.

I'm not saying that going to graduate school is necessarily a mistake but I think a lot of people go because they've done well in school up to that point and aren't sure what else to do with themselves.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#15

Post by gww » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 5:18 PM UTC

brightball wrote: post #13

gww wrote: post #11

A few of my colleagues with bio PhD's have started microbreweries with various levels of success. They seem to be much happier than my colleagues and myself who have chosen the post-doc route. This is a bit of a tangent but it seems to be a common trend now among labs to arrest trainees (particularly phd students and post-docs) in their positions as long as possible. For example, the institute I am at has recently ex…

In my opinion, that’s what needs to happen. Thin out the ranks of professors as they move to greener pastures in the workforce and eventually you’ll see schools get in a position where they have to work harder to recruit. Better pay, benefits, support, etc.

I am skeptical that will ever happen. At least in North America there are a plethora of international students willing to train here for next to nothing and in some cases I've heard rumours of post-docs not taking a salary at all.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#16

Post by neuromantik8086 » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 5:18 PM UTC

luizfzs wrote: post #4

I 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…

Most incoming grad students enter PhD programs with incorrect assumptions about how grad school works. A decent number of those incorrect assumptions involve the grad student role itself. For instance, I knew of a research assistant headed to grad school who was thrilled because he/she liked to learn in classroom environments, which is only a very small part of what grad school is at best (although coming out of undergrad, you might assume that it's a bigger part of a PhD than it is).

All prospective grad students should read over the following to understand what they're truly getting into / developing realistic expectations before committing a substantial amount of their life to the Ivory Tower. The first link covers toxicity in academia (YMMV), which is more or less what drove me out of lab work and into IT. I personally chose to remain working in academia because I find it meaningful, but in a role that was more insulated from academic politics (vs generic work politics).

[0] http://academiaiskillingmyfriends.tumblr.com/

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Getting-What-You-Came-Students/dp/037...

[2] http://100rsns.blogspot.com/

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#17

Post by neuromantik8086 » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 5:22 PM UTC

1996 wrote: post #12

luizfzs wrote: post #4

I 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…

Most of academia is toxic. Those who don't see that haven't spent enough time in it. I believe things can't go well in general in any area where money comes from organized begging ("proposals", "apply for funding"), driven by reputation ("publications", "impact factor") and where the bad eggs can't even be fired ("tenure")

> driver by reputation ("publications", "impact factor") and where the bad eggs can't even be fired ("tenure")

From personal experience, I've always felt as though the existence of "rock star" academics always gave academia a Hollywood-like feel in terms of systemic abuse and candidly bizarre and maladaptive behaviors on the part of researchers.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#18

Post by shiado » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 5:22 PM UTC

I find articles such as this one to be absolutely fascinating. It seems that people like those in this article appear to be trying to gentrify what is mostly unskilled labour, adding some sort of intellectual doublethink that they pulled off from the chip on their shoulder which comes from not fulfilling their path to become a certified academic intellectual. Based on the title of 'owner' of these ventures I am quite curious how they financed these businesses.

Ultimately I think articles like these fail to highlight the strange mindset required to turn what was a defeat, and even possibly a likely scam based on the way most universities operate, into some sort positive outcome where they reclassify what was once a boring menial job into one injected with some supposed millennial intellectualism.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#19

Post by drewmassey » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 5:23 PM UTC

geoalchimista wrote: post #9

Because 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.)

This is statistically true, one of the curious paradoxes of PhD work is that students continually consider themselves to be an except to the statistics.

I say this as a recovering humanities academic who now works in tech; I am really grateful that my parents pushed me to have a STEM major alongside my interest in music.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#20

Post by luizfzs » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 5:24 PM UTC

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #7

luizfzs wrote: post #4

I 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?

Im not saying 'why publishing?'. Im saying 'why publish if I barely know if what Im doing will have some positive result?

Think of this example: we are researching for a few months whether an arbitrary compound X has relieffing effects on people with headache, but since we are still researching, there is no concrete result or any slight evidence yet. maybe the compound will relief the headache in 30min but maybe it will make your nose bleed.

but there is this conference about headaches that is approaching and why not submit a paper about the work with some results? WHAT RESULTS? You will spend countless hours reading (more) about headaches and compound X to write the background of the manuscript while you still have to figure out the tests you will perform test your assumption.

you will work for weeks (under more pressure) with the hope you could publish something that is very uncertain at the current state.