Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

stanforddaily.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–238 of 238 posts

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

#231

Post by roel_v »

barry-cotter wrote: post #52
roel_v wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Europe, a Masters is not 'graduate' level. A masters (in Europe) is just a continuation of a bachelors, and someone graduating with just a bachelors is basically someone who's only half finished their education. Consequently, the work load is nowhere near as bad as it is at the PhD level (although even there, it's not that bad either). Of course this very closely aligns the bachelors and masters level courses, mea…

A Master’s is as much graduate level in Europe as in the US. If you go in expecting to do the same level of work you did in your Bachelor’s you might scrape a pass but that’s as well as you’re going to do. This is not to deny there’s an enormous difference between doing research and doing coursework but an M.Phil. student is doing research much as a Ph.D. student is. They’re getting a Master’s as much as someone doin…

I should probably have clarified that by 'European' I meant 'continental European'.

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

#232

Post by selimthegrim »

chriskanan wrote: post #126
solidsnack9000 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of that world changing knowledge is a result of academia’s partnerships with industry. Consider the early radio lab at Stanford. Academia as we know it is fairly recent. Many of the fundamental results in the sciences were discovered by people who weren’t academics but had a chill day job. For example, Newton.

Newton's biggest discoveries were back at his home while his University was closed due to the plague. I wouldn't say that thinking at the family estate to wait out the plague is a chill day job. In that era, many scientists were wealthy aristocrats, e.g. Antoine Lavoisier.

Newton was also almost turfed out because he wouldn’t take a Trinitarian Oath

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

#233

Post by selimthegrim »

mattkrause wrote: post #166
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #117

>> “It felt as if I was telling him he didn’t respect me, and he essentially said, you’re right,” he recalled. I'm a PhD research student on my second year. It's unfortunate to frame this in terms of respect for the student's person, rather than his work, which is most likely what has lost the advisor's respect. I've come to my PhD after six years in the industry. Because of this I see my research as a work assignmen…

> by delivering strong results The thing is...you shouldn't be able to guarantee that, and the idea that you can is the root of a lot of academia's problems. The results of your experiment should be determined by the nature of whatever you're studying, nothing more. Sometimes, they'll be very clean with obvious, high-impact applications. Sometimes they'll be muddled with unforeseeable complications. Obviously, skill…

This. What kind of prospectus defense or oral exam did he have if he didn’t come up with the question? Why even have a different committee or a prospectus at all if the advisor just hands you the question?

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

#234

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

mattkrause wrote: post #166
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #117

>> “It felt as if I was telling him he didn’t respect me, and he essentially said, you’re right,” he recalled. I'm a PhD research student on my second year. It's unfortunate to frame this in terms of respect for the student's person, rather than his work, which is most likely what has lost the advisor's respect. I've come to my PhD after six years in the industry. Because of this I see my research as a work assignmen…

> by delivering strong results The thing is...you shouldn't be able to guarantee that, and the idea that you can is the root of a lot of academia's problems. The results of your experiment should be determined by the nature of whatever you're studying, nothing more. Sometimes, they'll be very clean with obvious, high-impact applications. Sometimes they'll be muddled with unforeseeable complications. Obviously, skill…

>> It would be far, far better if people were judged on their ability to find and rigorously test interesting questions, rather than whatever crapshoot nature spits out.

"Strong results" does not mean "positive results".

For example, two seminal works in ILP are the doctoral theses of Ehud Shapiro and Gordon Plotkin, both of which found strong negative results regarding the learning of first-order logic theories from examples. I would also point out the work of Mark. E. Gold and others on inductive inference that was mostly negative regarding the ability to learn anything above finite automata from examples.

It is true that in machine learning it is considered mandatory to show, experimentally, significant improvements in performance- personally I think that's a big mistake and a severe impediment to actual progress. In any case, in my field, you need theoretical results (theorems and proofs) for your work to pass muster.

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

#235

Post by rrishi »

mattkrause wrote: post #207
p10_user wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 folk…

It is an advantage but not crucial for grants/papers etc.

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

#236

Post by sgwae »

imtringued wrote: post #196
sgwae wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They dont expect you to be working the whole time though. If you spend time learning, or working on personal projects whos the wiser?

Then your employer owns your personal projects.

uh, how would that even get enforced? Some of my coworkers do schoolwork, and online lectures during work, you think the boss will take thier degree? Knowleged gained from spending time learning new stuff, and experienced gained from related projects to prepare for your next job is gonna be hard/pointless to confiscate as well.

Oh no, the boss is going to take my hello world app in node js.

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

#237

Post by mattkrause »

rrishi wrote: post #235
mattkrause wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 folk…

It is an advantage but not crucial for grants/papers etc.

I agree that it doesn’t matter a whit for any single grant or paper, but one paper (or grant) rarely makes a career.

My claim is that people systematically underestimate the value of good code to a research program. Good infrastructure lets the lab focus on the scientific questions, rather than the logistics of moving and processing the data, which in turn allows them to publish more, better, and faster. This is true for a lot of things: some labs have fantastically good imaging pipelines, or have worked out how to rapidly train animals for certain behaviors, or can reliably do an assay that often fails in others’ hands, and derive a huge benefit from it. Some are so good that I wouldn’t even consider competing with them in their niche. My argument is that good code can also have returns like that.

As a personal example, my first paper at McGill took about three years to finish. The next took about a year and a half (and just came out). We’re on track to submit at least one—-and maybe as many as three—-papers this year. Some of this is due to practice, but a lot of it is due to the fact that we built reusable components instead of “the script that gives the numbers”

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

#238

Post by rrishi »

bigbangchina wrote: post #72
digitalixus wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there's one thing living and working in Europe (Germany) has taught me is that all countries are more or less the same. It's just how well the culture manages to mask the "unattractive" traits we love to criticize in places like China (or America, as of late), and the PR/propaganda campaign they run to convince everyone they're the best place on the planet. China is a prime example of subpar image/PR management. T…

I am from India, I was working as a Principal engineer in SV, after that in Germany and finally I am here in China. Your analysis is correct, I enjoy working in China the most. Work hours are not bad but after work hours are lot more interesting. There is lots of hustle and bustle, and the co-workers actually do invite you to their family events. I am lot more happy in China and play to have a family here.

Would you consider moving back to the tech scene in India? I am sure you can provide a lot of valuable lessons from Chinese tech companies to fellow Indians.
Post reply on HN