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Edit: Or startup pitching, M&A or even some sales - basically our deck team slide is "X PhDs, Y ex-Googlers".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've thought about this before because I've found the same thing. I think it's caused by an over reliance on education as a signal. If you have a stack of resumes you're likely to interview everyone with a PhD, but only the ones with the most stellar github profile if they have no formal education. During the interview if the PhD says something silly you'll probably disregard it. But the person without a formal educa…
This ^, and also most HR drones don't know how to properly vet tech candidates. They get a set of vague "wants" from hiring managers and if they see anything worded differently, they balk. I've had to personally talk with HR over the years to get them to realize that RedHat, for example, is Linux, it's not its own thing. Ditto the lazy coding candidates that list JS instead of the proper JavaScript. Let's not even ge…
Everyone is the hero of their own story. It sounds like your mentor is arrogant, and could use more intellectual humility.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I've heard and observed that the Ph.D teaches you one crucial skill - how to take a vaguely defined research problem that nobody has done before, where you're not even sure that a solution exists, and make tangible, rigorous progress on it. I'm not convinced, or I should say my experience does not support this. I think it is more likely that those that already have that skill are the ones that pursue the Ph.D path.
I completely agree with your observation. It's not that the Ph.D. prepares you for it, but that most people that pursue Ph.D. have that attribute. I don't think all Ph.D. students or any ordinary engineer can take a vaguely defined research problem and make it succeed. Ph.D. doesn't necessarily prepare you for the research part; it does, however, prepare you to advertise a very /bad solution/ as a novel contribution.…
Some PhD-holders were self-motivated before. Others learned it at school. Still others were motivated, but unfocused, and had to become disciplined.
Everyone who has a strong opinion on the topic is, by definition, extrapolating from limited data. Moreover, even if every single PhD learned nothing in school, it’s still a useful signal if it enriches the pool of candidates who are self-motivated and independent.
Also, anyone thinking about a PhD owes it to themselves to understand firsthand what that means before getting started. There is an excellent, low-cost way to do this by joining a research group in your field of interest at your undergrad university.
In every case, the students I saw who had the roughest time during their PhD were those who had not even bothered to try doing research during their bachelors.
A PhD degree is about conceiving and completing original research. If you've never done it, it's easy to overlook these points:
1. Your research project will isolate you. Almost nobody will really understand your project and few will care.
2. It will be thankless, praiseless work for the most part. Don't look to your advisor for high-fives.
3. Your project may fail after years of effort.
4. Your research group will have a lot to do with your success. You won't even know what to look for until you've seen a research group in action firsthand.
If any of these points bother you now, seek answers to your questions pronto - and don't even think of enrolling in a PhD program until you're ok with 1-4.
I didn't see anything other than anecdotes to back up the claim in the title. Did I miss something? Also, anyone thinking about a PhD owes it to themselves to understand firsthand what that means before getting started. There is an excellent, low-cost way to do this by joining a research group in your field of interest at your undergrad university. In every case, the students I saw who had the roughest time during th…
I wonder how much of this is that bachelor's degrees and many masters don't require independent work. If you want someone who can ace a class, those degrees can be great indicators, but a PhD is an indicator of something else. There aren't many degrees that would indicate the ability to design and run a good experiment with little guidance, and doing well in a statistical methods class doesn't cut it, sadly.
I worked with a bunch of a Ph.Ds at Google, and my dad had one. I myself have nothing more than a bachelor's, and no desire to get anything more. I've heard and observed that the Ph.D teaches you one crucial skill - how to take a vaguely defined research problem that nobody has done before, where you're not even sure that a solution exists, and make tangible, rigorous progress on it. Your actual doctoral topic as a P…
Here is a hand-wavy characterization that is hopefully useful. A bachelors degree in X is meant to take you from nearly zero to "thinking like an X", it is the high points of sometimes centuries of thought in an area, summarized and you are handheld through the process. A masters degree will bridge the gap between the "nice" standard courses and the "messy" current research front. It's meant to get you to the point o…
When I've worked with non-PhDs in a science environment, it's the rigorous breakdown of experimental approach that's often missing. Unless the individual had a really strong track record demonstrating this skill, I'd heavily favor PhDs for biotech/science positions on a leadership track.
That said, I'm quite biased, have to justify the years I lost somehow :)
Very few jobs require PhDs. Tech most certainly doesn't. I've been in this industry across three decades now, and by far the most talented people I've worked for or with have had nothing but HS diplomas and AS degrees. That's right. The bottom rung education levels. My dearest mentor, a man who has forgotten more about *nix, coding, and about anything else than I will ever know has a HS diploma and can and does run r…
I mean it really depends on what kind of tech you're doing. Tech is not just *nix, javascript, python and phone apps. If you're working on chip verification and formal methods, as some people I know are, then a PhD is a huge boon. These are rapidly developing and in some sense still emerging fields with lots of money to be made (especially in the arena of defense, medtech, etc). They are not your 'typical' valley fod…