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

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#31

Post by navidfarhadi » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 5:34 PM UTC

spamizbad wrote: post #21

Genuinely shocked that graduate programs remain stuffed to the gills. You live off a meager stipend for about a decade and then, in your mid-30s, you go on the job market for the first time. Unless you're somehow in the top 0.1% of your field, you're probably going to be fighting for a tenure-track positions at any institution that will take you. Big dreams of teaching in the Pacific Northwest? Too bad, the only plac…

> You live off a meager stipend for about a decade

Keep in mind that this is not necessarily true for schools in countries outside of the US. At my school, KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, as a PhD student you are considered an employee of the school and you are paid a living wage with full benefits. The current salary starts at 28600 SEK/month and can reach up to 33500 SEK/month [1] which is definitely a living wage in Stockholm, especially considering that you can live in affordable student accommodation (as long as you have been on the waiting list for at least a year or so for a student dorm). Sure, you can definitely make more money working in the industry, but at least you will not be living in poverty while pursuing your PhD degree.

As far as I know the public schools in Norway and Denmark operate very similarly to this, but I am not sure about other schools in Europe.

[1] https://www.kth.se/en/studies/phd/student/employment-1.52704...

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#32

Post by spamizbad » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 5:34 PM UTC

aswanson wrote: post #26

spamizbad wrote: post #21

Genuinely shocked that graduate programs remain stuffed to the gills. You live off a meager stipend for about a decade and then, in your mid-30s, you go on the job market for the first time. Unless you're somehow in the top 0.1% of your field, you're probably going to be fighting for a tenure-track positions at any institution that will take you. Big dreams of teaching in the Pacific Northwest? Too bad, the only plac…

I dunno. I went back to my alma mater recently to drop my son of at a robotics summer program. I saw energy, ideas, new projects...as I scuttled back to an office doing the same lowbrow stuff I've been doing since graduation.

Engineering and Computer Science are a different ballgame because the industry aggressively siphons off the pipeline, but for most other fields it's a drought.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#33

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 5:35 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#34

Post by shoguning » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 5:36 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.)

Such a waste of potential. It could be the most amazing time of your life, a chance to ask and answer the most interesting questions you can think of. Instead it ends up being a very negative experience for many.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#35

Post by ISL » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 5:36 PM UTC

spamizbad wrote: post #21

Genuinely shocked that graduate programs remain stuffed to the gills. You live off a meager stipend for about a decade and then, in your mid-30s, you go on the job market for the first time. Unless you're somehow in the top 0.1% of your field, you're probably going to be fighting for a tenure-track positions at any institution that will take you. Big dreams of teaching in the Pacific Northwest? Too bad, the only plac…

People do a lot of quantitatively-irrational things for love.

Today, as an academic, I get to spend some of my time experimentally asking the universe how gravity works, some of my time working to detect hints of radioactivity in the atmosphere, and a bunch of my time working to help students learn how to make sense of, and thrive in, the world.

P.S. Being Dr. So-and-so isn't worth it as a goal. The title means zero in my daily life (nor should it, almost all the time, IMHO). The skills and experience learned in the process of getting there, however, remain perpetually important. Those don't always come with a degree.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#36

Post by lvspiff » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 5:38 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…

Chalk me up for another anecdotal "I saw it too" - You would think the upper admins would notice someone on the books for 6-8 years but they didn't do anything. Its a culture that higher education departments perpetuate.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#37

Post by GW150914 » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 5:39 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")

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

Or they’ve spent way too much time in. It’s like people who spend a couple of decades in a prison, they’re fully institutionalized and feel they can’t cope with the real world.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#38

Post by binbag » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 5:39 PM UTC

This sounds very obvious, but everyone I know who dropped out of their PhD wasn't cut out for doing one. If you are feeling guilty about reading more papers, you shouldn't be doing a doctoral degree.

On the other hand, when you're a post-doc I totally agree that there is more to life than the 'big fish in a small pond' world of academia. There is something particularly annoying about the academic environment - some combination of ego and insecurity.

Also, the pay is shit.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#39

Post by geebee » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 5:39 PM UTC

neuromantik8086 wrote: post #16

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 unde…

I think that "Graduate School in the Humanities - Just Don't Go" is a gem of an essay, because it does a good job explaining why students still enter these programs when the data screams out that they shouldn't.

https://www.chronicle.com/article/Graduate-School-in-the/448...

One thing that is often overlooked is that the US does have a very restrictive immigration system for people who don't have relatives here and can't leverage family reunification. In this case, getting advanced STEM degrees provides a path towards residency, work rights, and perhaps eventually a green card or citizenship. So in the US, these folks wouldn't be looking at a choice between getting a PhD and becoming a florist, because it would be illegal to come here and work as a florist. But there's a "shortage" of people getting PhDs in STEM fields, so we allow people to come here under conditions of limited personal freedom provided they agree to work these positions.

This power on the part of universities (the power to bestow residency and limited work right), I think, is one of the reasons STEM PhD programs haven't collapsed or faced the reckoning that would force them to change.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#40

Post by username_123 » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 5:39 PM UTC

I feel like PhDs in Computer Science should have better job prospects outside of Academia. Some jobs, like "research scientist", require PhDs. Look at companies like Lyft that are currently hiring "Research Scientist" (e.g. https://www.lyft.com/jobs/4014499002) where they require a M.S.or PhD.