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‘A toxic culture of overwork’: The graduate student mental health crisis

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Re: ‘A toxic culture of overwork’: The graduate student mental health crisis

#201

Post by mattkrause »

i_am_proteus wrote: post #192
james-mcelwain wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my friends who is a graduate student complains about the difficulty of collaborating with other scientists who lack strong coding skills. They are so focused on the science that there's no time to learn or practice good code hygiene. If often wondered why labs don't hire regular developers to increase research veliocity. I have no interest in research, but would happily work in the context of academia doing th…

Some labs do this! I've seen places where the ratio of engineers to grad students and postdocs was about 1:1. The engineers were salaried and could take courses at the university if they chose to (for free, but on their own time).

Tell me more, please! (Especially if they’re hiring)

Re: ‘A toxic culture of overwork’: The graduate student mental health crisis

#202

Post by wpasc »

cortesoft wrote: post #183
ambicapter wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Too many people think of grad school as sort of a vague "next step" that will "open doors" or else a way of "leveling up" as though life is an RPG and a grad degree is a special badge or skin you can get. I have a Masters, and all the interesting jobs I want to do are held by PhDs (sometimes with a couple years of postdocs). And everyone who's on that team has a PhD and they're definitely not going to let anyone le…

Can I ask what field you are in? I work in software, and many of my colleagues have PhDs... and many of my colleagues never went to college. They all seem to get along fine, and the ones who have PhDs are usually playing down their credentials.

I can't speak for the person to whom your replying, but at any big tech company doing anything with recommendations, machine learning, etc. will have teams where having a PhD is huge especially when being considered for promotions

Re: ‘A toxic culture of overwork’: The graduate student mental health crisis

#203

Post by kaybe »

pdpi wrote: post #116
blablabla123 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only preparation I was getting was the ability to absorb stress; and I was sucking at it. That's interesting, in my second semester (Physics) a professor said to us in his introduction lecture that one of the biggest things you learn during studies is stress resilience. There's definitely a lot of truth to that. Although back at the time I didn't realize it but looking back it was the case. During studies and a…

> That's interesting, in my second semester (Physics) a professor said to us in his introduction lecture that one of the biggest things you learn during studies is stress resilience. Yet this skill is never taught. So in actual fact what he’s saying is “studies filter out the people who can’t learn stress resilience by themselves”

A lot of the most important skills seem to be 'taught' by osmosis in university.

Re: ‘A toxic culture of overwork’: The graduate student mental health crisis

#204

Post by aaavl2821 »

lewis500 wrote: post #120

I’m a professor. I have a few thoughts about this. First, the grad student/professor relationship is inherently asymmetrical, much more so than most employer/employee relationships. The degree has to last years or else you get nothing, and there are no hard and fast terms of the relationship like there is in many jobs. The professors recommendation might be the most important thing you get, and that is always running…

Those points are all understandable and, as a non-academic, it's good to hear the perspective of a prof, while I usually see more written about the perspective of students

Do you have any suggestions on how to improve the problems you pointed out? To an outsider with many friends who are grad students / postdocs, seem pretty difficult to address, like the metrics that inform tenure selection, while others seem like areas where one could make progress (more empathy, training etc)

Re: ‘A toxic culture of overwork’: The graduate student mental health crisis

#205

Post by skrebbel »

thewarrior wrote: post #124
skrebbel wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the things you list but wow there's a lot to learn from the Chinese. There's a NYT bestseller called "the subtle art of not giving a fuck". The Chinese, by and large, don't need this book because they already carefully allocate their fucks, and it's a natural thing for them to do (especially in the south, by my impression) More anecdotally, I find Chinese engineers among the most joyful and laid back peo…

How can you be laid back while also doing 996 ?

Long lunches and 2-hour afternoon naps help.

Re: ‘A toxic culture of overwork’: The graduate student mental health crisis

#206

Post by p10_user »

james-mcelwain wrote: post #184
mattkrause wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Along with the personal cost, this instability can't be great for producing good science either. My lab has learned and lost some techniques over and over again, as people churn through. If it were up to me, I'd convert some MS/PhD slots into staff scientist roles with longer contracts. I think you could probably do this in a way that increases productivity, and makes more people more happy to boot.

One of my friends who is a graduate student complains about the difficulty of collaborating with other scientists who lack strong coding skills. They are so focused on the science that there's no time to learn or practice good code hygiene. If often wondered why labs don't hire regular developers to increase research veliocity. I have no interest in research, but would happily work in the context of academia doing th…

The majority of academic labs do not have the resources to offer the high salaries skilled coders demand and can easily get elsewhere.

And academic research often just needs to be “good enough” for that next paper or grant. Investing lots of time and people into code quality isn’t worthwhile unlesss your whole goal of the lab is to provide software as your output (there are a few, like the Wikipathways group). Bht for everyone else, the ROI is too low, better off working on the next grant or manuscript.

Re: ‘A toxic culture of overwork’: The graduate student mental health crisis

#207

Post by mattkrause »

p10_user wrote: post #206
james-mcelwain wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my friends who is a graduate student complains about the difficulty of collaborating with other scientists who lack strong coding skills. They are so focused on the science that there's no time to learn or practice good code hygiene. If often wondered why labs don't hire regular developers to increase research veliocity. I have no interest in research, but would happily work in the context of academia doing th…

The majority of academic labs do not have the resources to offer the high salaries skilled coders demand and can easily get elsewhere. And academic research often just needs to be “good enough” for that next paper or grant. Investing lots of time and people into code quality isn’t worthwhile unlesss your whole goal of the lab is to provide software as your output (there are a few, like the Wikipathways group). Bht fo…

That’s definitely the perception, though I’m not sure how true it actually is. A battle-tested analysis pipeline or experimental control suite is a huge competitive advantage for a lab.

The catch is that it needs to both evolve and stay solid at the same time: it’s hard to predict what you’re going to want in three years—-or find the time to clean up code from the last three years, especially since many of those folks will have moved on.

Re: ‘A toxic culture of overwork’: The graduate student mental health crisis

#209

Post by i_am_proteus »

mattkrause wrote: post #201
i_am_proteus wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some labs do this! I've seen places where the ratio of engineers to grad students and postdocs was about 1:1. The engineers were salaried and could take courses at the university if they chose to (for free, but on their own time).

Tell me more, please! (Especially if they’re hiring)

A common thread was that these were labs that were joint between the university and a UARC or FFRDC. Academic grant funding doesn't usually include engineers, only PI and students, but FFRDC/UARC funding is different. So look at Johns Hopkins/APL, Penn State/ARL, Georgia Tech/GTRI, then (very importantly) look for labs run by a PI with a faculty appointment at the university.

A friend of mine worked at Hopkins for a few years, did interesting stuff, and walked out with a (free) MS afterwards.

Re: ‘A toxic culture of overwork’: The graduate student mental health crisis

#210

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

Nydhal wrote: post #185
mathgenius wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> machine learning of logic programs from examples. This sounds like it would have use in industry. You are really saying that it does not?

It's out of fashion, so there's not much investment in it.

That's it, in a nutshell.
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