Consider applying for grad school • Hacker News Board

Re: Consider applying for grad school

#131

Post by xupybd » Sat, Aug 25, 2018, 9:37 AM UTC

rebeccaskinner wrote: post #62

dwaltrip wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've wondered if working for 10 or so years and then getting a PhD could be a good strategy.

I've been in the industry for 12 years and I've been deeply considering going back to school for a PhD. I love working on fundamental CS and I'd greatly enjoy the sort of work that I'd have access to during and after a PhD. The challenge is that, for folks who haven't won the equity lottery or racked up FAANG RSUs, it's a huge financial challenge to consider going from an engineering salary to PhD stipend. Considerin…

Yeah this is the problem it’s way to hard to make ends meet later on in life. I wish I’d understood this earlier. Youth is wasted on the young.

Re: Consider applying for grad school

#132

Post by rubatuga » Sat, Aug 25, 2018, 9:40 AM UTC

pazimzadeh wrote: post #30

I can't wait until you can make new strains of E. coli on your desktop/iPad. Time in grad school is often spent cloning. It would be really great if there were more community-accessible Core facilities available on a subscription service.

I remember specifically looking at cloud labs because of your sentiment above. Unfortunately, they aren’t that advanced yet.

Re: Consider applying for grad school

#133

Post by alimw » Sat, Aug 25, 2018, 10:06 AM UTC

retsibsi wrote: post #121

nolemurs wrote: post #69

> PhDs are intellectually demanding, and not everyone will be able to finish. In the US between 41 and 78% of people who start PhDs have finished them after ten years, depending on their sub field. Computer and Information Science has the lowest graduation rates (41%) Right... I've met a good number of PhD dropouts - I am one myself. None of them dropped out because it was too "intellectually demanding." They all dro…

While I suspect you're right, anecdotal evidence must be fairly weak here. Not many people would admit to themselves that they weren't up to the intellectual challenge -- let alone admit it to other people.

I guess I'll admit I wasn't up to the intellectual challenge in that, all else being equal, being smarter might have got me through.

Re: Consider applying for grad school

#134

Post by barry-cotter » Sat, Aug 25, 2018, 10:41 AM UTC

miguelrochefort wrote: post #58

I always wanted to get a PhD, but I don't have a BS. Is there any way I can skip the BS?

https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/graduate/courses/msc-softwar...

University of Oxford Master’s in Software Engineering ... However, more extensive experience may compensate for a lack of formal qualifications, and a strong, immediately-relevant qualification may compensate for a lack of professional experience.

Re: Consider applying for grad school

#135

Post by fangsout » Sat, Aug 25, 2018, 11:27 AM UTC

cosmic_ape wrote: post #127

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…

Imagine a hospital where a new initiative is taken. Nurses follow doctors during their daily patient rounds for 6 months. Then the nurses are expected to do the rounds instead of the doctors. No doctors are left on the premises. Its not very clear cut, there are some blurry boundaries, but still, would you want people to use that hospital?

That's an example that hits close to home as 2 close family members are Nurse Practitioners. This is a flawed example because Registered Nurses do not do the same job as a physician and are legally not allowed to learn how to do it. What if the nurses were allowed to shadow the physicians for 4 years? That would be called residency.

What if you have Nurse Practitioners with a Nursing BS, 4 years of nursing experience, a Masters degree in NP, and 4 years of experience diagnosing, managing complex conditions, etc.?

I personally know of several examples of Nurse Practitioners who are a drop-in replacement for an MD and that was achieved through work experience.

Re: Consider applying for grad school

#136

Post by sizzle » Sat, Aug 25, 2018, 11:28 AM UTC

cosmic_ape wrote: post #127

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…

Imagine a hospital where a new initiative is taken. Nurses follow doctors during their daily patient rounds for 6 months. Then the nurses are expected to do the rounds instead of the doctors. No doctors are left on the premises. Its not very clear cut, there are some blurry boundaries, but still, would you want people to use that hospital?

Nurse practitioners are allowed to prescribe and see patients without a medical doctor in some states, you might not be far off...

Re: Consider applying for grad school

#137

Post by j7ake » Sat, Aug 25, 2018, 11:49 AM UTC

Of course here is a counterpoint from Jonathan Katz , a professor of physics, about doing graduate school.

http://katz.fastmail.us/scientist.html

TL;DR. Don't do it!

Re: Consider applying for grad school

#138

Post by scottlocklin » Sat, Aug 25, 2018, 12:01 PM UTC

Getting a Ph.D. for career reasons is like taking up drug addiction for creative writing reasons. Source: I have a Ph.D.

Re: Consider applying for grad school

#139

Post by fouc » Sat, Aug 25, 2018, 12:19 PM UTC

rebeccaskinner wrote: post #62

dwaltrip wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've wondered if working for 10 or so years and then getting a PhD could be a good strategy.

I've been in the industry for 12 years and I've been deeply considering going back to school for a PhD. I love working on fundamental CS and I'd greatly enjoy the sort of work that I'd have access to during and after a PhD. The challenge is that, for folks who haven't won the equity lottery or racked up FAANG RSUs, it's a huge financial challenge to consider going from an engineering salary to PhD stipend. Considerin…

Have you heard of http://www.mrmoneymustache.com ? If you still have student loans after 12 years in the industry, you might want to re-examine your spending/saving patterns

Re: Consider applying for grad school

#140

Post by rm_-rf_slash » Sat, Aug 25, 2018, 1:11 PM UTC

monocasa wrote: post #93

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the time I finish my M Eng I will have a cutting edge education in machine learning, robotics, computer vision, and natural language processing, on top of five solid years of paid programming experience. If someone insists on making a hiring decision based on my ability to whip out fizzbuzz on a whiteboard under a ticking clock, find another person and waste their time. I’ll pass.

If you can't fizzbuzz, I'm not going to hire you. Not being able to isn't defensible. I'm going to be real, what I'm assuming is a near completed master's student complaining about fizzbuzz not being fair is kind of proving my point.

Fizzbuzz is fair: it’s a fair waste of time.

Interviewing an experienced and credentialed developer like they’re an undergrad sophomore with a one sentence resume looking for a summer internship shows to me that if an employer is going to waste the time of a candidate (and implicitly insult their intelligence and education), then they will waste the time of an employee, and such they represent an organization I want no part of.