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

111–120 of 165 posts

Re: Consider applying for grad school

#111

Post by Fomite »

slavik81 wrote: post #68
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.)

> 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. Nobody has time to do those things because they are valued less than publishing new research, and thus are of lower priority. You'll have a frustrating time in academia if you define yourself around you…

"Or ensuring a codebase could be open sourced in relation to a paper"

This is required in a 1.7 million dollar grant I'm the PI on. I run a computational lab - making sure my research code base is high quality is one of my highest priorities, and I've seen people have very fruitful careers doing just that.

Re: Consider applying for grad school

#112

Post by Fomite »

sevensor wrote: post #88
coliveira wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your best option is to apply to a masters degree. These are easier to get into, especially for someone out of school for a few years. This is also an opportunity to find professors doing research in topics of your interest.

It has it's plussses and minuses. One thing about a Ph.D. program is that it's relatively easier to get funded. Master's students are more likely to have to pay tuition. On the other hand, you can bang out an M.S. in two years. 1.5 in some cases. If what you're after is knowledge and skills, like a BS++, do a Master's. If you want to learn how to advance the field, do a Ph.D. If you're on a mission to fix undergradua…

That is indeed a major one - I can't fund a Masters student.

Re: Consider applying for grad school

#113

Post by mxwsn »

mchahn wrote: post #95
yontherubicon wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Doctoral programs pay you through stipends. You shouldn't have to pay for any doctoral program, ever.

Hmm. When I told the professor trying to "hire" me that I couldn't afford it there was no mention of a stipend. Could it have been different in the 1970s? Pricing on Stanford website ( https://registrar.stanford.edu/students/tuition-and-fees ): Each graduate Engineering unit above 18 is $1200.

I'm currently doing a Ph.D. It's standard practice for nearly all PhD programs for the advisor to support a minimal stipend ($15-40k or so depending on the field and university) which goes directly to me, plus university tuition (up to $50k/yr depending on the university) which my lab directly pays my instutition. I only see the tuition bill and that it's paid for me.

Notably, this typically isn't the case for Masters programs, which are cash cows for universities like Stanford and charge $40k/yr+ for students.

Like the other commenter said, any Ph.D. program that isn't covering your tuition and providing a reasonable stipend has huge red flags all over it. They aren't the norm, either.

Re: Consider applying for grad school

#114

Post by adminprof »

sevensor wrote: post #83

Nothing in the article about what one really learns in a Ph.D. program. Here are the things you only learn in a Ph.D. program, more or less in chronological order: 1. What kind of information you will find in each section of a research paper in your field. 2. What are the major research programs in your field and where they disagree. 3. How to identify where a paper's author stands with respect to the major disagreem…

I agree with your main point here, but I think you're trying to paint and overly broad claim about PhD programs, which are extremely different between institutions. It's like saying "working at a company is like this... you learn this but not that."

Specifically,

1. Senior PhD students in many research groups can become de facto managers of the group, especially when the professor is on sabbatical. PhD students are often involved in the funding, presentations, recruitment, and represent the group. Some PIs/professors empower their PhD students to run a mini research group within their group.

2. I've seen some PhD programs have a strong emphasis on teaching undergraduates, both as in teaching undergraduate courses directly (which many PhD students in the humanities and social science already do), serving as teaching assistants with a substantive educational role (not just grading), and mentoring them in research or more general advising. For example, Brown University and Princeton are known to have a good research-teaching balance for PhD students. Brown has a large number of programs that help PhD students get more involved in undergraduate teaching [https://www.brown.edu/sheridan/programs-services/certificate...]

Re: Consider applying for grad school

#115

Post by mmt »

ianai wrote: post #78
chrisseaton wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My PhD and the research I do now based on it give me a huge amount of personal satisfaction and are a big part of my quality of life. I'm comparing the work I did before my PhD (because I worked after my degree before a PhD) and seeing what my friends think about work compared to me. Yeah if you're looking for more money, maybe don't do a PhD. If you're looking for the time and space to find satisfaction by working o…

So that’s the pitch they make in the PhD programs. But what they leave out are the negative associations with a PhD. You will immediately be over qualified for large swaths of work. And unless you can immediately land that dream job by, amongst other things, beating out all competition for that work - you will enter the work force with 0 applicable work experience. Hiring managers can be downright blind about anythin…

> And unless you can immediately land that dream job

I'm not sure it has to be immediately, but your point still stands, and it's often ignored by proponents, which is that merely acquiring a graduate degree does not automatically guarantee all those intangible benefits.

One has to actually secure employment with those benefits. Whether that's easier than finding employment with salary benefits instead (or in addition) seems to be still an open question.

Re: Consider applying for grad school

#116

Post by Fomite »

analog31 wrote: post #89
mchahn wrote: post #76

I assume this refers to a PHD. The masters degree I got is also post-grad. I'm not sure if anyone else covered it but you have to have a certain amount of money to get a PHD. I was approved to enter a doctorate program at Stanford. I couldn't afford it so I went to HP to earn some money. After the five-year approval expired I was disappointed that I could never afford it. (We're talking astronomical numbers here).

When I was a student 30 years ago, the rule of thumb was: Don't get a graduate degree unless someone else is paying for it. In my field (physics), a first or second tier school would provide free tuition plus a stipend if they expected to get any students. Don't know how things are now, or how they are in other fields. Now, of course free wasn't exactly free, because studying in grad school was potentially at the exp…

Yep. If they're not funding you, it's both a bad idea and a soft reject.

Hell, last I looked, Standford won't even let you self-fund all the way through, at least in my field.

Re: Consider applying for grad school

#117

Post by slavik81 »

Fomite wrote: post #111
slavik81 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Nobody has time to do those things because they are valued less than publishing new research, and thus are of lower priority. You'll have a frustrating time in academia if you define yourself around you…

"Or ensuring a codebase could be open sourced in relation to a paper" This is required in a 1.7 million dollar grant I'm the PI on. I run a computational lab - making sure my research code base is high quality is one of my highest priorities, and I've seen people have very fruitful careers doing just that.

If those things are valued, the academics will be doing them. Like in your lab, for instance.

Re: Consider applying for grad school

#118

Post by didibus »

tommymachine wrote: post #73
gowld wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question raised by the article is, can real-world experience make up for a lack of PhD? A balance of both is perhaps best, which is what industry PhD holders have.

Corollary being: can a PhD make up for lack of real world experience?

I think it depends on the PHD and the real world experience.

There's a quote I kinda forgot, but it goes something like:

"Did you experience the same thing 10 times, or did you experience 10 years worth?"

And I think this is true for a lot of real world experience, you don't necessarily have 10 year of it even though you've worked 10 years, you have 10 times the same experience.

Re: Consider applying for grad school

#119

Post by Fomite »

slavik81 wrote: post #117
Fomite wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Or ensuring a codebase could be open sourced in relation to a paper" This is required in a 1.7 million dollar grant I'm the PI on. I run a computational lab - making sure my research code base is high quality is one of my highest priorities, and I've seen people have very fruitful careers doing just that.

If those things are valued, the academics will be doing them. Like in your lab, for instance.

"If those things are valued, the academics will have already be doing them. Like in your lab, for instance."

We're trying to. Doesn't mean I wouldn't like to hire someone whose better at it. Just like we do a lot of mathematical analysis, but I was still excited about hiring an applied mathematician.

And when I said I knew people with fruitful careers, that implies I know academics already doing them.

Re: Consider applying for grad school

#120

Post by apersona »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #107
mehrdadn wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this black and white thinking? The sentence was "A PhD reduces the risk you’ll accidentally do this", not "a PhD will prevent this" or "you're an amateur if you only have a BS". It's taking about risks and likelihoods. That's not black and white thinking, that's pretty much the exact opposite.

Heaven forbid anyone without a PhD engineer something like a spacecraft. We shouldn't let NASA get away with so many amateurs on the payroll.

You do know that most group supervisors have graduate degrees right? (At least at JPL, not sure about other NASA centers). Seniority tends to be based on your highest level of education (obviously there are exceptions - but exceptions are exceptions because they're rare, not the norm).

There's no "single PhDless engineer" who engineers a whole spacecraft.

Post reply on HN