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What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

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Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#51

Post by nl »

jingleheimer wrote: post #44
tha12 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you consider to be deep research? I agree that engineering research is not actually deep, but once you eliminate that almost all of the current (applied, and maybe theoretical too) Machine Learning work for instance is also dismissed.

That's why it's called Machine Learning and not Artificial Intelligence. It was an intentional differentiation to avoid the pure research academics who start every presentation with 'assuming infinite compute resources'. ML is an Applied Research discipline and all the better for it.

There's plenty of academic research in machine learning.

I've never been to any academic presentation where they start like that. In-fact, more often they complain about the huge compute resources in industry.

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#52

Post by wcrichton »

nicodjimenez wrote: post #30

A PhD is a license to do deep research. Deep research careers are very rare, but for the right kind of person, they're great. However, deep research by definition means it probably won't work, and there's just a lot more money in doing things that will probably work vs things that probably won't. So it helps to be extremely talented at deep research if you want to pursue the PhD. Also, most engineering PhD's are bogu…

The phrase "most engineering PhD's are bogus" is astoundingly ignorant of the excellent work that goes on in the systems community (assuming by "engineering" you're referring to application-oriented CS research?). "Building prototypes that aren't quite useful but not quite that novel" is bad systems research, not all systems research.

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#53

Post by seanmcdirmid »

currymj wrote: post #49
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think significantly many PhDs are deluded enough to think they did it for the money. You do a PhD to scratch that itch, hopefully once you graduate you can keep scratching those itches, even if often that doesn’t work out.

there is definitely a naive perception in some circles right now that a doctorate studying deep learning is a path to riches and fame. Due to misleading reports of million dollar salaries for new PhDs and so on. It's a degree with a high opportunity cost that won't pay off financially in the long run, even with no tuition or debt. In the past I think everybody understood this but now I'm slightly more worried.

The vast majority of PhDs aren’t in ML, however. Even in ML, most are probably not in it for the “more money,” so the minority that is might actually be justified looking at all the JDs for more advanced ML jobs.

However eventually the next AI winter will come and the old lessons will be relearned again.

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#54

Post by [deleted] »

nicodjimenez wrote: post #30

A PhD is a license to do deep research. Deep research careers are very rare, but for the right kind of person, they're great. However, deep research by definition means it probably won't work, and there's just a lot more money in doing things that will probably work vs things that probably won't. So it helps to be extremely talented at deep research if you want to pursue the PhD. Also, most engineering PhD's are bogu…

[deleted]

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#55

Post by nu-world-odor »

nl wrote: post #50
tha12 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you consider to be deep research? I agree that engineering research is not actually deep, but once you eliminate that almost all of the current (applied, and maybe theoretical too) Machine Learning work for instance is also dismissed.

I don't have a PhD, but I have run research programs. The deeper into a field you get the more you realize that the parts which seem deep research aren't, and the parts which seem incremental improvements are actually very deep. I can think of a number of things in machine learning which appear hard which are easy, and vice versa. Theoretical justification for GAN improvements (eg, the WGAN paper): elegant but obviou…

oh yes we do

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#56

Post by tensor »

apo wrote: post #13

I grossly underestimated how much I could learn by working in industry. I believed the falsehood that the best way to always keep learning is to stay in academia, and I didn’t have a good grasp on the opportunity costs of doing a PhD. My undergraduate experience had been magical, and I had always both excelled at and enjoyed being in school. The idea of getting paid to be in school sounded like a sweet deal! Wholehea…

I've dealt with a lot of people in industry, and so far, only those in research labs at the FAANG are of the quality that you would expect in academia.

In the majority of industry "science" appears to be a dirty word and "evidence" means "oh my buddy did this so it must work". The bar is depressingly low.

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#57

Post by PopePompus »

jedberg wrote: post #21

This is total anecdata, but out of my closest college friends, five of them went to get a PhD, while I went to industry. When they graduated, I was already making more than of all of them, with five years of industry experience. And I made more them them for the next thirteen years too. I never hit any magical ceiling where a PhD was necessary. In other words, don't do a PhD if you're in it for the money. It may open…

You should not go into a PhD program in any field if you're in it for the money. This is because your department will have at least a few grad students who are in it for the love of the field, and they will work insane hours. They will have no life, and will be fine with that. They will be nearly broke and will be fine with that. You will be in competition with those people (for thesis advisors, access to equipment, grants, etc) and you will have a very miserable experience.

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#58

Post by analog31 »

jedberg wrote: post #21

This is total anecdata, but out of my closest college friends, five of them went to get a PhD, while I went to industry. When they graduated, I was already making more than of all of them, with five years of industry experience. And I made more them them for the next thirteen years too. I never hit any magical ceiling where a PhD was necessary. In other words, don't do a PhD if you're in it for the money. It may open…

Getting a PhD teaches you to be more frugal. ;-)

I have a PhD in physics. At the time that I finished college, and I think it's still somewhat the case today, the relevance of a PhD varied from one field to another. Maybe scientists just take longer to ripen. As an example, I've noticed that startup founders tend to be older in science than in computer programming.

Don't do a PhD if teenagers are getting rich in your field. Instead, decide if you belong in that field, i.e., if it's the kind of work that you actually want to do.

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#59

Post by hpcjoe »

chrisseaton wrote: post #6
michaericalribo wrote: post #4

This gets it right, I think. And I say that as someone who does not regret taking five years to get a PhD. A PhD is too long, narrow, and frustrating to do just to get a slightly fatter paycheck. For some reason, that deep dive clicked with me, and I’m grateful for all the personal growth that came from that. But for the vast majority of people, I think it could easily end as an exercise in frustration.

Five years is a super long PhD. If you can get it done in two or three years it makes more sense.

Well ... no. 5 is short.

My BS took 4 years. My MS took 2 years. My PhD (computational physics) took 7 years.

I was the fast one at my school. Some of my peers (high energy physics, nuclear, etc.) took 9+ years.

Then again, I met my former business partner (not at the time) while in grad school. I was 2 years into my research, and he was a fresh new assistant prof in CS. About 9 weeks younger than me. Ph.D. in CS in 3.5 years.

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#60

Post by hpcjoe »

apo wrote: post #8
chrisseaton wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Five years is a super long PhD. If you can get it done in two or three years it makes more sense.

There are fields in the sciences (e.g., biology) where the PhD routinely takes 5-6 years on top of a bachelors, and you won't be hirable at the PhD level in academia and some parts of industry until after at least two multi-year postdocs.

Physics as well.

When I finished up in the 90s, the market was flooded with applicants from the former soviet union as well as locals. I remember speaking to people I knew on hiring committees who told me of 1000+ applicants per open tenure track position at tier 2 and tier 3 schools.

Around that time I was looking at the postdoc train, saw where it (didn't quite) led, and chose a different path.

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