What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD • Hacker News Board

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#101

Post by gaius » Tue, Aug 28, 2018, 6:48 AM UTC

sytelus wrote: post #71

This is quite an unfortunate article. Author goes on to list several folks who don’t have PhD but have “made it” and asserts that many people can do fascinating and cutting-edge work without PhDs. There are always outliers in stuff like this but ask yourself: How many people you know who don’t have PhD and have freedom to explore at work full time what truely interests them? Author has rather twisted view of the sele…

You won’t be coming to office everyday doing assigned task on your backlog and reporting your status in scrum meeting

Including former colleagues I probably know a couple of hundred PhDs who do this exactly the same as mere Bachelors. Outside of a few niches a PhD is barely recognised in industry. Sorry, but that’s the truth.

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#102

Post by Scea91 » Tue, Aug 28, 2018, 6:50 AM UTC

AlunAlun wrote: post #97

Scea91 wrote: post #88

It is even worse in Europe where you are often required to have Master's degree before you can even start a PhD. People in my country usually start PhD. at 25 and take at least 6 years to finish, because the universities use them as cheap workforce and aren't incentivised to allow students graduate quickly.

This used to be the situation in Europe but it got out of hand, as a result all new PhDs in Europe must be advertised as three year programs, and completed in four at a maximum.

Students apply for extension after four years. The only difference is that after 4 years you no longer receive the PhD. stipend and have to be paid from project grants. This might further reduce your income or force you to work even more on projects related only tangentially to your thesis.

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#103

Post by gaius » Tue, Aug 28, 2018, 6:56 AM UTC

PopePompus wrote: post #57

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,…

Ironically this is even true in investment banking. If you don’t love making deals above all else, you will never even make it to the point of being able to make the big money deals, you will wash out in the first few years.

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#104

Post by andreyk » Tue, Aug 28, 2018, 6:56 AM UTC

As I posted in response to the author on Twitter - while generally agreeable, it would be nice if the post had a disclaimer that this is "What (bad stuff about doing PhDs) You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD". There are plenty of positives that one also needs to know when considering a PhD this article does not list... see the ensuing discussion here https://twitter.com/andrey_kurenkov/status/10342151109678407...

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#105

Post by gaius » Tue, Aug 28, 2018, 6:59 AM UTC

sytelus wrote: post #80

GuiA wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in a PhD program, I dropped out. I have been working in R&D at a large company for a while now; many of my best colleagues have PhDs, many others do not. As far as my personal experience is concerned, a PhD has no bearing whatsoever on your capacity to do solid research. That said, I am seriously considering going back on the PhD route, because I think I’d like to spend more time teaching down the line. Kind of…

> PhD has no bearing whatsoever on your capacity to do solid research In my experience this is not true except unless you are super genius. Most folks without PhD often keeps making same naive mistakes, for example, not studying previous state of the art, not recording experiments properly, heuristics instead of rigorous analysis and so on. PhD trains to avoid all these. It allows you to build network, identity great…

not studying previous state of the art, not recording experiments properly, heuristics instead of rigorous analysis and so on

??? They taught all of us that in undergrad.

a person without PhD would often neglect to mention scale in the graphs

... and they taught us about the scale of a graph in secondary school ...

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#106

Post by dopeboy » Tue, Aug 28, 2018, 7:17 AM UTC

azhenley wrote: post #35

Don't do a PhD for the money (although it is more than adequate in STEM fields). Do a PhD for the jobs that it unlocks (professor or researcher, mostly) or the type of freedom that it provides (it was 6 years of mostly unstructured time that I got to explore things that interested me while being paid). If all else fails, you can still go join a big tech company and make more than enough money to live a good life. I'm…

I'm envious of that. I went through a master's program and I sorely miss that unstructured time to research and genuinely explore a topic. All of the learning I do these days is by force of business. I'm OK with that but it would be cool to get back to learning sometimes.

Could you talk about what life is like as a professor? I looked at your research interests and they lean heavily on the applicable-to-industry side - is that by purpose?

BTW - I think it's so cool that a professor is posting on HN. I think back to my professors and I couldn't imagine anyone of them being nearly as hip.

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#107

Post by kalal » Tue, Aug 28, 2018, 7:29 AM UTC

To me, this is whether you have good people around or not. PhD usually comes with good advisers who help you think in different ways than you have done before. However, such good advisers can be also at a company + you work on practical an modern problems (usually). For that you don't need PhD. In any case, once you ask whether you should do PhD or not it feels like you don't want to be left out. In that case, just do it.

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#108

Post by ddnb » Tue, Aug 28, 2018, 7:29 AM UTC

graycat wrote: post #84

graycat wrote: post #83

Part I. I'll try to give an answer and a response more generally to the material in the OP. Background. I got a BS in pure math with nearly a second major in physics and worked in computing and applied math for problems in US national security around DC. Jobs were very easy to get; at one time my annual salary was 6 times what a new high end Camaro cost; much of the work was challenging for both the computing and the…

Part II. My wife was fatally injured in her Ph.D. program. The OP outlines a lot of just what happened to her. To have time to try to help her, for a while I took a slot as a B-school prof. It didn't work -- lost her anyway. I never for even a milli, micro, nano, pico, femto second wanted to be a prof. Instead, I wanted to be solving problems in business, the money making kind. (5) Non-Academic Career. Then I tried t…

TLDR: Not every boss appreciates an employee with a Ph.D. If you want to go your own way, start your own business, otherwise you are expected to follow the lead of your boss.

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#109

Post by peterlk » Tue, Aug 28, 2018, 7:33 AM UTC

I was once told by a professor who I respected very much how he gives advice to prospective PhDs. When someone asks "should I get my PhD?" the answer is always "no". Because the only people who will enjoy grad school are the ones who will do it anyways.

I have found this to be good advice for people who are thinking of starting companies too.

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#110

Post by edanm » Tue, Aug 28, 2018, 7:44 AM UTC

icelancer wrote: post #96

sytelus wrote: post #71

This is quite an unfortunate article. Author goes on to list several folks who don’t have PhD but have “made it” and asserts that many people can do fascinating and cutting-edge work without PhDs. There are always outliers in stuff like this but ask yourself: How many people you know who don’t have PhD and have freedom to explore at work full time what truely interests them? Author has rather twisted view of the sele…

> How many people you know who don’t have PhD and have freedom to explore at work full time what truely interests them? Author has rather twisted view of the selection bias. I don't have a degree and I have that. Also I know a lot of people with a PhD who do not have anything remotely resembling freedom. The author might be biased but it's good to hear it from that side once in awhile, rather than be deluged with "yo…

> The author might be biased but it's good to hear it from that side once in awhile,

In what way is the author "biased" exactly? She did this course, was in both a PHD and tech, and tells people why she thinks it's worth considering not getting a PHD, listing various (valid IMO) reasons.

Where does bias come in exactly?