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

Consider applying for grad school

80000hours.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 165 posts

Re: Consider applying for grad school

#41

Post by monocasa »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #38
ransom1538 wrote: post #32

I know this isn't popular. But I will say it - since I know it goes unspoken in the industry. When I see a CS MS degree I assume the person is terrible. I am always proved correct. I can count on one hand resumes of people that gets a CS BS degree THEN a MS degree in CS [15 years of looking at resumes]. In the US, if you get a BS in CS you usually take off doing cool stuff. CS Master degrees are full of people not ma…

My experience is the opposite of yours. Oh look, we cancel out. Hurray for anecdotes and biases!

I mean, if they're coming from a different major, it's the equivalent of hiring people after sophomore year. If they haven't been programming outside that, that frankly isn't enough time to be a good programmer.

Re: Consider applying for grad school

#42

Post by selimthegrim »

ransom1538 wrote: post #32

I know this isn't popular. But I will say it - since I know it goes unspoken in the industry. When I see a CS MS degree I assume the person is terrible. I am always proved correct. I can count on one hand resumes of people that gets a CS BS degree THEN a MS degree in CS [15 years of looking at resumes]. In the US, if you get a BS in CS you usually take off doing cool stuff. CS Master degrees are full of people not ma…

Foreigners use the MS in CS as a way to get into the country. They might have done a BS. I'm sure you just mean native-born Americans?

Re: Consider applying for grad school

#43

Post by late2part »

dwaltrip wrote: post #34

One point jumped out at me, which I haven't seen anyone respond to: > We are concerned about untrained amateurs going directly into trying to solve very difficult global problems. They can then cause harm overall, by lowering the average quality of analysis or launching ill-considered projects due to a lack of experience or understanding. A PhD reduces the risk you’ll accidentally do this. This point is operating off…

Quite often, these untrained amateurs create great solutions!

Re: Consider applying for grad school

#44

Post by soohyung »

ransom1538 wrote: post #32

I know this isn't popular. But I will say it - since I know it goes unspoken in the industry. When I see a CS MS degree I assume the person is terrible. I am always proved correct. I can count on one hand resumes of people that gets a CS BS degree THEN a MS degree in CS [15 years of looking at resumes]. In the US, if you get a BS in CS you usually take off doing cool stuff. CS Master degrees are full of people not ma…

It's interesting how different things are here. In Germany it's nearly expected to get a Masters degree because of the way things used to be: until not too long ago we didn't have BS/MS but only a diploma which was equivalent to a Masters degree so many companies still expect a Masters degree even nowadays. From what I've seen it also seems more difficult to get a MS in a different field than your BS here. Is it common in the US?

Re: Consider applying for grad school

#45

Post by selimthegrim »

chrisseaton wrote: post #13
shawn wrote: post #2

I'd like to. Do graduate programs accept devs who have been working the last decade? There are areas I feel I could be helpful with, e.g. creating reproducible experiments or ensuring a codebase could be open sourced in relation to a paper. It's a lot of grunt work that nobody really has time to do. If that were possible, I'm not quite sure where to start with executing that plan. (Chicago area, FWIW.)

I left another career (military, rather than tech though) to go back and do a PhD. I didn't really find any barriers to it - I just applied like anyone else. I basically cold-emailed some professors doing things I was interested in and went from there. > There are areas I feel I could be helpful with, e.g. creating reproducible experiments or ensuring a codebase could be open sourced in relation to a paper. It's a lo…

What sort of stuff does MSR task research engineers with?

Re: Consider applying for grad school

#46

Post by doughj3 »

shawn wrote: post #2

I'd like to. Do graduate programs accept devs who have been working the last decade? There are areas I feel I could be helpful with, e.g. creating reproducible experiments or ensuring a codebase could be open sourced in relation to a paper. It's a lot of grunt work that nobody really has time to do. If that were possible, I'm not quite sure where to start with executing that plan. (Chicago area, FWIW.)

Check out Georgia Tech's online MS in CS program - many students who have been industry for some time.

Re: Consider applying for grad school

#47

Post by ransom1538 »

selimthegrim wrote: post #42
ransom1538 wrote: post #32

I know this isn't popular. But I will say it - since I know it goes unspoken in the industry. When I see a CS MS degree I assume the person is terrible. I am always proved correct. I can count on one hand resumes of people that gets a CS BS degree THEN a MS degree in CS [15 years of looking at resumes]. In the US, if you get a BS in CS you usually take off doing cool stuff. CS Master degrees are full of people not ma…

Foreigners use the MS in CS as a way to get into the country. They might have done a BS. I'm sure you just mean native-born Americans?

The best people I have worked with are "Foreigners". Good people just get here. It is just how it works.

Re: Consider applying for grad school

#48

Post by _jal »

privateSFacct wrote: post #25
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the whole article, including the "why not to get a PhD part." I still thought it was way too kind to the "get a PhD" side of the equation. PhDs represent a tremendous opportunity cost, and I have not seen good evidence that they causally improve outcomes in the vast majority of cases.

The opportunity cost is a LIFE cost. Friends getting phd's - poorer, later start in life to almost everything (family, house etc) and the job market is not great.

Of the people I know who have or are finishing PhDs, about half are happy with the choice. The commonality seems to be that the happy ones really love their chosen field - they'd rather play and work on whatever topic than anything else. One is making absurd gobs of money, but she also really loves her niche.

Another, less universal aspect is that many folks I know who went for one have attenuated interest in typically 'normal' life-goals - one or more of things like marriage, kids, 2.4 picket fences, etc. are either not part of the plan or substantially less important to them than to other people. (Though this may be bias introduced by me, because I also fit that description, and family-less folks over a certain age tend to find each other.)

Re: Consider applying for grad school

#49

Post by analog31 »

jarsin wrote: post #33
azhenley wrote: post #26

If anyone wants a PhD by studying how to make software engineers more productive, my website is in my profile.

To increase productivity of engineers include the following in all employment contracts: "All engineers will become as rich as the founders and investors if this company succeeds." Instant productivity increase.

This is a tautology. The more you are paid, the more productive you are by definition.

Re: Consider applying for grad school

#50

Post by stouset »

late2part wrote: post #43
dwaltrip wrote: post #34

One point jumped out at me, which I haven't seen anyone respond to: > We are concerned about untrained amateurs going directly into trying to solve very difficult global problems. They can then cause harm overall, by lowering the average quality of analysis or launching ill-considered projects due to a lack of experience or understanding. A PhD reduces the risk you’ll accidentally do this. This point is operating off…

Quite often, these untrained amateurs create great solutions!

Yes, but the argument is that these untrained amateurs more often make grave errors from ignorance that make existing situations worse, or at best divert resources from more well-considered approaches.

Which produces net better global outcomes I couldn’t say, though I have my own intuitions.

Post reply on HN