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What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

fast.ai

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Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#161

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

GuiA wrote: post #26
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…

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…

As far as my personal experience is concerned, a PhD has no bearing whatsoever on your capacity to do solid research.

That is all well and good, but I can't name a single person in my research field who has a decent publication record without a PhD (finished or in progress).

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#162

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

collyw wrote: post #117
AlunAlun wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have worked in a few academic institutes (and still know many friends in the same places). 5 years seems to be the norm, with some people taking up to 7.

I didn't know this was a Europe-wide rule, but as a professor in Spain I can attest that the 3 years + 1 year extension rule is now enforced and met. If your time elapses and you haven't completed your thesis, you're out.

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#163

Post by bobmarley1 »

icelancer wrote: post #99
earenndil wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to be a university professor purely because I find it interesting. Pray tell, in what land do I not need a Ph.D for this?

I've turned down a handful of offers to teach classes at university and I'm about 34 semester credits short of a Bachelor's Degree. So I guess the land you need to be in is the United States of America, at least in my case anyway. Might be true elsewhere but I haven't tested my luck.

Sounds like an Adjunct position which I hate to break it to you is no where near Professor. You will likely make less than minimum wage, I have seen salaries of $3,000 per class taught, and have essentially no room for advancement.This is a common end point for PhDs that didn't get a Tenure track position and have no other choice.

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#164

Post by bobmarley1 »

sytelus wrote: post #75
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 obviously haven’t seen the other side :). If you are working as engineer/management/sales in software products, PhD rarely have advantage. However if you walk in to the places like FAIR, Google Brain, DeepMind, you will quickly find that your background as engineer/management/sales has little value compared to having a PhD in relevant area. These places are buzzing with innovations and creativity advancing the st…

Several of the examples in the article of people without PhDs work at Google Brain so you are literally wrong in this case. They are obviously outliers but either way you aren't right.

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#165

Post by bobmarley1 »

gambiting wrote: post #136
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…

Total anecdata too - when me and my friends finished undergrad, I went to work in the industry and two of my friends doing PhDs were much better paid than me throughout their entire PhD programme - the combination of grants, paid hours for teaching and marking made their salary about 150% of mine. Only after they finished their PhDs 4 years later my salary has matched what they were making at the start. I suppose it…

This would never happen in the us where average PhD stipends are $30,000 at great schools and even a two bit programmer in the middle of nowhere USA could make $50k easily.

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#166

Post by bobmarley1 »

throwawayaug28 wrote: post #145

Am I the only one that finds it questionable to write this kind of "career advice", when the author clearly has a conflict of interest? The author is running a business whose main purpose is to sell educational content marketed towards people that want to learn Machine Learning (and claiming you don't need a PhD to do it). I only have a good impression of fast.ai, but perhaps the author is not in the best position to…

Both their classes are offered online for free, I fail to see the conflict?

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#167

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

asafira wrote: post #68

I often get asked about what my views on doing a PhD are (I am more-or-less finished with one now), and one of the ways I frame it is the following: You know how you've take a course before where the professor was just surprisingly awful at teaching? These professors are often some of the most knowledgeable people in a subfield of the subject you are taking, yet their teaching ability is severely lacking and you have…

not care at all about your mental health, your possible career desires outside of academia, your work/life balance, or the exact reason why this week was a rough week for research in your (human) life.

I wouldn't call that being a bad manager, but rather being an asshole.

As a professor, I often think that one of my biggest weaknesses is indeed management skills. After all, we suddenly find ourselves having to manage people without any training in the matter, and when our true call is typically science, not management.

But at least I'm not an asshole.

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#168

Post by bobmarley1 »

I wonder how this applies to Part Time PhDs. They are exceedingly rare in the US and it usually comes down to having a very supportive Job and an unusually open minded Advisor, I've seen people at UNC and Duke doing part time CS PhDs. It also seems much more common in the UK/EU. I know Oxford, ICL and others offer part time programs.

Seems to have all the upside and none of the downside, you keep your industry pay, continue racking up experience and after a few more years than normal get a PhD to hang on your wall.

Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

#169

Post by fsloth »

telchar wrote: post #160
fsloth wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Human Resources ironically supports and defends the very toxicity that it's designed to protect employees from" The main function of HR is not to serve employees. The main function of HR is to protect the employer from legal liabilities. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Corporate-Confidential-Secrets-Compan...

This is offtopic, but I have to point out that these sort of cynical pronouncements are somewhat dangerous. You are probably coming from a good place and trying to warn people about being too trusting, but I see a risk in these sort of statements in making younger readers believe that this is a normative statement (as opposed to the positive sense I think you meant it in). Ideally HR does have something to offer the…

Sure, I wasn't trying to suggest people turn sociopaths the moment they become employed by a large corporation. I expect people to be decent human beings and that includes compassionate interaction whatever the situation.

It's just good to remember HR is not an agent of the employee but of the employer, and you can't lean on the HR representative as you would for example on your own lawyer.

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