Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

cbc.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 259 posts

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#131

Post by awelkie »

chrisseaton wrote: post #125
awelkie wrote: post #97

I think CS PhD programs in particular can be a little strange. I decided to go back to school to pursue a CS PhD after chatting with a retired mathematician about his PhD. He was talking about how he took classes for two years to explore different areas of mathematics and to pass the general exams, then he decided on a branch of mathematics (topology) and approached a professor in that area to be his advisor. After w…

What you're describing as what you didn't expect is how PhDs were done traditionally. It's the more recent US model to have classes and exams. I posed a question to my advisor in order to get onto the PhD, started researching immediately, and my 'general exam' half-way through was a presentation and viva. Obviously the question changed totally by the time I finished, but that's the nature of research and where it tak…

I think it depends on the field. In mathematics I think the expectation is that students need to study for a few years to even understand what the open questions are, and only then can they begin the research.

I'm fully aware of what the point of a PhD is. I wasn't expecting to become a generalist, but I was expecting some time to study some recent results and come up with a tractable research proposal. Indeed, if the purpose of a PhD is to expand the totality of human knowledge, why was it expected that I would publish 3-4 conference papers to graduate? Wouldn't one significant result have been enough?

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#132

Post by throwawaymath »

gms7777 wrote: post #118
awelkie wrote: post #97

I think CS PhD programs in particular can be a little strange. I decided to go back to school to pursue a CS PhD after chatting with a retired mathematician about his PhD. He was talking about how he took classes for two years to explore different areas of mathematics and to pass the general exams, then he decided on a branch of mathematics (topology) and approached a professor in that area to be his advisor. After w…

I think different schools have different philosophies as far as that goes. There are schools that admit to the department and have students do very little research for their first two years, and there are schools that admit by advisor and you start research immediately. My PhD was the latter, but for me it was actually one of the major selling points for me on the program. I had a pretty good idea of the area that I…

With regard to your first paragraph, I don't think there are any American universities that admit students by advisor. As far as I'm aware, your admission is a decision made solely by the graduate admissions committee. Even if you have an advisor ready to take you on the most they can do is recommend you to the committee, not supplant it. When you're admitted there are still criteria aside from research to work on.

I think this is a fundamental difference between American and European universities. In European universities, you can hypothetically join a PhD program without any prior degree at all if an advisor chooses to take you on personally. No such sidestepping can happen in an American institution, and regardless you'll have to take some courses (even if you're only auditing them in effect) before you can begin research. Unsurprisingly, American PhD programs are longer.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#133

Post by glitchc »

ylmm wrote: post #46
luizfzs wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

I'm not sure I see what your issue is. It seems the scenario you're describing is just a case of working harder to make a deadline, which there's nothing wrong with per se. If you're talking about fudging results or cutting corners to make a deadline, then that'd be a problem. Otherwise, I'm not sure I see your point.

The OP's point is, I'm afraid a valid one. Attempting to find a statisticallly significant to report on in time to meet a conference deadline means experiments are fudged, results are cherry picked and discrepancies are swept under the rug. Conference and funding deadlines coupled with the need to generate a publication record are almost entirely responsible for the dubious nature of the average scientific article. It's a classic case of Goodhart's Law.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#135

Post by mathattack »

awelkie wrote: post #97

I think CS PhD programs in particular can be a little strange. I decided to go back to school to pursue a CS PhD after chatting with a retired mathematician about his PhD. He was talking about how he took classes for two years to explore different areas of mathematics and to pass the general exams, then he decided on a branch of mathematics (topology) and approached a professor in that area to be his advisor. After w…

I think the two subjects are very different. Math has a much longer history. To get to the edge of knowledge you need to know a lot more because people have built proofs upon proofs for much longer. You need an undergrad plus a year or two of grad to get both the depth a breadth of what’s been done in the past.

In CS the edge of the field isn’t as far away. New knowledge invalidates more of the old, and you don’t even need a CS undergrad degree to be near some of the edges.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#137

Post by overeater »

throwawaymath wrote: post #132
gms7777 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think different schools have different philosophies as far as that goes. There are schools that admit to the department and have students do very little research for their first two years, and there are schools that admit by advisor and you start research immediately. My PhD was the latter, but for me it was actually one of the major selling points for me on the program. I had a pretty good idea of the area that I…

With regard to your first paragraph, I don't think there are any American universities that admit students by advisor. As far as I'm aware, your admission is a decision made solely by the graduate admissions committee. Even if you have an advisor ready to take you on the most they can do is recommend you to the committee, not supplant it. When you're admitted there are still criteria aside from research to work on. I…

Sorry to be blunt throwawaymath, but that's just wrong. I am very familiar with several American universities (including Ivy League) where the advisor can admit directly.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#138

Post by WhompingWindows »

chriskanan wrote: post #74

A PhD is a degree in conducting research. Get one if you want a career in research. If you don't like research, don't do a PhD. Any decent program pays students about a $1.5-3K monthly stipend. Don't have being a professor as the only acceptable end-goal. There are lots of careers that benefit from or require a PhD besides being a professor. People with STEM PhDs are found in great concentration in R&D settings. For…

If you're not in STEM, if you want a PhD in the humanities, it's going to be a VERY tough path. Many of those students do shell out many thousands of dollars per semester, ending their PhD with very high levels of debt. At the same time, the jobs for people with PhDs in humanities are becoming less frequent, even as the number of PhDs in non-STEM is increasing. Many of these individuals are stuck in adjunct slavery. It's a sad state of affairs that those who want to further their own knowledge can be so mired in debt, yet it has happened to multiple friends of mine who "followed their dreams".

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#139

Post by ptero »

I am one of those who chose a "conventional" job (which I guess means industry) after getting a PhD in math. IMO there is usually nothing tragic with leaving academia for either "conventional" or "unconventional" jobs. There are pros and cons to each choice. People's interests change. I loved (most of) my time in grad school but do not regret choosing a non-academic career.

IMO the bad part is that when you are on a research track leaving academia is seen as a non-redeemable loser move by most professors and is a one-way street. This leads to folks staying on academia path for years after their heart is no longer in it for fear of making an irreversible change. Just a data point.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#140

Post by zucan »

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…

Is it that unappealing for US citizens to get a STEM PhD? Especially in the US the private sector ought to offer enough jobs at the PhD level and pay to make the PhD worthwile.
Post reply on HN