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

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#171

Post by gtmitchell » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 10:12 PM UTC

As a PhD dropout myself, I understand entirely the decision of these students to distance themselves from what were obviously negative experiences for them.

Unlike those listed in this article, I actually ended up staying in my field of study for work, but psychologically it has been very difficult. When I'm confronted with situations that reminded of what could have been if I had finished my degree, I sincerely wish I could find a new career like these people, so different from my current one that I could finally leave behind those feelings of failure and inadequacy that grad school left me with.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#172

Post by csa » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 10:14 PM UTC

Fomite wrote: post #164

csa wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is about 180 degrees from what I advise anyone asking advice regarding PhDs in the US. Specifically, I tell them that it is best if they know before they even apply who they want to work with and in what capacity. This accomplishes a few things: - Removes several potential surprises about what they end up researching. It is very sad to see someone expecting to do research on topic A (which they love) but end up…

"Specifically, I tell them that it is best if they know before they even apply who they want to work with and in what capacity." I append this with the advice that one should never go to a place where their prospective advisor is the only person they can imagine working with. Primarily because: "Know the pluses and minuses of their advisor. The best grad students I have seen have read at least some of the research of…

> My PhD department worked on the "No specific advisor when admitted, lots of coursework" model, and characterizing it as having a "very weak research program" would make you look like an idiot.

My comment was a reply to throwawaymath’s comment that US programs usually don’t allow professor admits and don’t have a research focus.

If you went to a good school (as you seem to claim), I am willing to bet that one or more admits were advocated for by a professor and (most likely) ended up as that professor’s advisee. You may not have been told about this, but I bet it happens. As I said elsewhere, strong doctoral students (relatively speaking) are extremely hard to find, and most good professors won’t leave a good fit to chance. Maybe your field is different, but I somehow doubt it.

I will also guess that your school has a strong research focus, since having a strong research focus is almost a defining characteristic of a strong program. Note that OP said “unilateral focus”, and maybe your program does not have a “unilateral focus” (I’m not sure exactly how that would be defined), but that largely seems to be a minor issue of semantics rather than the major issue of throwawaymath’s thesis that US programs don’t usually have a strong focus on research (“non-existent” was the word he used). I know of no good doctoral program that does not have a strong focus on research.

Lastly, note that I didn’t say anything about “lots of coursework” — this is common in US doctoral programs. The issue I commented on is that folks who come in with less focus (I think i said “expecting to be taught” or something similar) tend to have weaker career prospects. This doesn’t doom a less-focused person to failure (not at all), but it does make it tougher than someone who comes in with a more intense focus on research. Again, maybe it’s different in your field, but somehow I doubt it. If you have specific examples, I would genuinely love to hear about them — I personally know of a handful, and they are all due to the fortuitous hire of a new professor.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#173

Post by gajjanag » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 10:20 PM UTC

awelkie wrote: post #131

chrisseaton wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

> 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?

This is a question that bothers me quite a bit with respect to EECS (electrical engineering and computer science). In mathematics, one's PhD thesis can often serve as one's first paper (once revised). Funnily enough, the same was true for EECS even at the top tier places in the 1980's - I know of a case at Caltech where the student did not have any publications prior to graduation, and yet went on to become a successful professor.

Is it really true that humanity is producing more knowledge in EECS today per student than it was in the 1980's? I seriously doubt this. In my experience, instead what has happened is that the average "delta" in a conference proceeding has gone down significantly, in spite of the vast increase of words like "novel" and "new" being used, and the ballooning of the average paper length.

In mathematics on the other hand, top quality authors freely admit that a lot of their work can be "implicitly" traced back to the "big names" of the past; indeed this has to be done for conceptual and historical clarity.

I see that you mention Peter Sarnak in your top comment. Peter Sarnak has a a wonderful article at the very end of "The Princeton Companion to Mathematics" on his advice for students. Among other things, he stresses the importance of the "history of ideas", and how it often brings clarity to an entire field.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#174

Post by internetman55 » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 10:43 PM UTC

chuckkir wrote: post #162

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…

In general a professor is an entrepreneur. They are running a small business where they sell their product ("knowledge") to customers (business and industry) by means of sales and marketing (conferences and papers). Grad students are employees of this business, and of course the prof's incentive is to keep the good ones and fire (graduate) the bad ones, thus the reward for the student working hard is more hard work.

But no good student who approaches the grad school process in a sane manner is going to work for a professor whose students stay there for 12 years and don't graduate. A common thing for deciding if you want to work with someone is seeing how long their students took to graduate, where they ended up, emailing them, etc.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#175

Post by Bahamut » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 10:49 PM UTC

binbag wrote: post #38

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 c…

As a counterpoint, I am a dropout myself, but certainly was cut out for completing a PhD. Extenuating circumstances of a different nature affected my own ability to continue after investing 4 years and at the point of choosing an advisor.

People quitting academia for random jobs isn't a new thing. The stories have been there for decades of physics PhDs deciding to quit to go into professions such as taxi driving or construction.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#176

Post by gms7777 » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 10:55 PM UTC

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…

Strictly speaking, you're right, students aren't admitted by an advisor. However, often they are admitted to work with a specific advisor. That is, there are schools where an advisor cannot unilaterally get you in (its up to the grad admissions committee), but unless there's someone that's wants to take you as a grad student, you're not getting in.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#177

Post by NotPhysicsPhd » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 11:09 PM UTC

mcv wrote: post #155

NotPhysicsPhd wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To my knowledge, in the Netherlands and Luxembourg there is a similar situation to the one you described in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. In Portugal you get a fellowship that covers tuition and a monthly stipend which was increased for the first time in 15 years (by 1.4%) last year. PhD fellows are not considered employees of the University and since the stipend is not really a salary you are stuck in a weird financia…

Still, what I hear from some PhD students is that even with decent pay, it's not a great career. The chances of getting tenure are tiny, academic freedom isn't what it once was, and if you enter the job market, the PhD mostly cost a lot of time without adding a whole lot of value. Unless it's in Machine Learning, maybe.

I am not familiar with the situation in in other countries, but here there aren't many job opportunities for recent engineering/science graduates other than IT consultant. I've met people that took a PhD positions just because it was decent pay and less hours when compared with most junior and mid-level consultant jobs available.

In terms of adding value, I guess it depends on both the field and what your objectives are. For example, I work in a field where no one would offer you a job unless you have PhD or some sort insane amount of experience.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#178

Post by bibixii929 » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 11:24 PM UTC

ska wrote: post #86

Just to offer a bit of a counter to much of the negative views here, I enjoyed my Ph.D very much. I went into it with my eyes open, and realizing that an academic career wasn't the only option that would work for me. Through scholarships I was paid enough to be comfortable while spending my time on interesting things. The scholarship game is a bit winner-take-all though, and I know the minimum funding level in my dep…

If things go as they should, PhD may not be a bad deal at all.

It's also useful to note that the money and working condition issues are country and field dependent. For instance, in many European countries PhD students in many STEM and also humanities fields are most often employed full-time with standard work contract(s), with OK salary (but less than in industry), and full benefits with excessive unpaid overtime in principle forbidden, small or no tuition, etc.

The situation with academic career prospects after PhD as I understand however is that situation is similar to US everywhere, and going eventually gets tough after that point, and most people are culled before finding a "permanent" position.

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#179

Post by tnecniv » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 11:25 PM UTC

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…

They may not market it that way, but they definitely do. In my program, you are admitted by a specific professor behind the scenes. You may end up working for someone different during your first year, but there is a specific advisor who said "I think this person is good and I have money for them."

Re: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs

#180

Post by mcv » Mon, Jul 23, 2018, 11:27 PM UTC

NotPhysicsPhd wrote: post #177

mcv wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, what I hear from some PhD students is that even with decent pay, it's not a great career. The chances of getting tenure are tiny, academic freedom isn't what it once was, and if you enter the job market, the PhD mostly cost a lot of time without adding a whole lot of value. Unless it's in Machine Learning, maybe.

I am not familiar with the situation in in other countries, but here there aren't many job opportunities for recent engineering/science graduates other than IT consultant. I've met people that took a PhD positions just because it was decent pay and less hours when compared with most junior and mid-level consultant jobs available. In terms of adding value, I guess it depends on both the field and what your objectives…

Really? My impression is that there's a permanent shortage of good programmers. Although my impression is that a big part of the reason is that Dutch companies are unwilling to raise the wages of programmers; that way they create their own shortage, of course.