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

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#61

Post by raziel2701 » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 6:09 PM UTC

cageface wrote: post #14

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.

Where did you land after leaving the phd program?

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#62

Post by DrBazza » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 6:10 PM UTC

In England, particularly the south-east, the gulf between a post-doc salary and starting a City/Wall Street job can easily be a factor of 3 or 4.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#63

Post by thebooktocome » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 6:12 PM UTC

raziel2701 wrote: post #60

chrisseaton wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not this anti-PhD negative nonsense again! It doesn't ring true to me at all. > You live off a meager stipend for about a decade I paid a mortgage, supported a family, and built savings while doing my PhD with no issue. > and then, in your mid-30s, you go on the job market for the first time. You don't appear on the job market like a newbie. By the time you graduate you should already be well-known enough in your fie…

Where did you go to school that you were able to pay a mortgage and have a family while doing your phd? I'm paying a wee bit more than half my monthly salary on rent alone. Am in Bay Area though.

> Am in Bay Area though.

That's the problem. The housing market isn't literally insane in the whole country.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#64

Post by electricslpnsld » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 6:14 PM UTC

navidfarhadi wrote: post #31

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 definitel…

I had friends who did their PhD work in Switzerland, and they were making ~100K CHF a year.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#65

Post by amyjess » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 6:16 PM UTC

geebee wrote: post #39

neuromantik8086 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

> In this case, getting advanced STEM degrees provides a path towards residency, work rights, and perhaps eventually a green card or citizenship.

At my very first job, nearly all of my coworkers were Indian. As I met more people at work and started adding them on LinkedIn, I noticed one thing in common with all their LinkedIn profiles: they all got their bachelor's in India and their master's in the US.

One day, I was riding either to or from a company lunch with a coworker, and we started talking about our lives. He asks me about my education, and when I told him I only did my undergrad and never went to grad school, he told me that in his case, he had to go to school here as a condition of getting into this country, and since he already had a bachelors in CS, he went for a master's in CS.

This was before I learned how fucked-up our immigration system is. Once I learned that, his words made so much more sense.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#66

Post by electricslpnsld » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 6:18 PM UTC

throwaway080383 wrote: post #56

booleandilemma wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if interviewers still ask you to do fizz buzz when you have a PhD?

They do (source: personal experience).

For a research position? In my experience (on my third position now) Research Scientist interviews in industry tend to mirror academic interviews. 60-90 minute job talk in front of the research group, 5 or 6 hour long one-on-ones with members of of the research group. No mention of fizz buzz in any of these interviews, and I've interviewed at Facebook, Adobe, etc.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#67

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 6:21 PM UTC

neuromantik8086 wrote: post #17

1996 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#68

Post by amorphid » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 6:22 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…

I friend of mine got a PhD in Electrical Engineering, which took him 7 or 8 years years. Right around his 30th birthday, I remember him saying that he'd been in school since he was 5. When I think of it that way, if my 20-something self could have been paid to delay entering the working world, I enjoyed school, and I was willing to be a professor's minion, getting a PhD would have been an extremely attractive option.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#69

Post by chrisseaton » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 6:22 PM UTC

raziel2701 wrote: post #60

chrisseaton wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not this anti-PhD negative nonsense again! It doesn't ring true to me at all. > You live off a meager stipend for about a decade I paid a mortgage, supported a family, and built savings while doing my PhD with no issue. > and then, in your mid-30s, you go on the job market for the first time. You don't appear on the job market like a newbie. By the time you graduate you should already be well-known enough in your fie…

Where did you go to school that you were able to pay a mortgage and have a family while doing your phd? I'm paying a wee bit more than half my monthly salary on rent alone. Am in Bay Area though.

The UK, but our base stipend is similar to the US. Internships and part-time research contracts can make up your income to a workable level, and that applies in the US as well. I didn't earn a lot, but it was enough to get on with life like a normal person. I didn't eat dried ramen like the stereotype.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#70

Post by rflrob » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 6:23 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…

> But they don't get to be Dr. So-and-so, so there's that.

I have told that I didn't spend 6 years getting a PhD to be called Doctor---if the title was what I cared about, med school would've been faster and easier than a PhD.