Who does a PhD to get a job as an Academic? I did a PhD to have the opportunity to learn something that nobody else did.
The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
51–60 of 85 posts
Re: The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your experience is completely atypical. Most PhD students -- at least the ones I know in the states and overseas -- spend most of their time in school trapped in a lab or office. A few make time to "network" with people outside the department, but most have to be forced to socialize with a broader audience than can be found at the weekly beer hour. The far more common pattern for a PhD student is to spend years busti…
So the PhD students you know don't go to conferences and the like? Odd.
They did...but the one or two conferences you attend a year as a student isn't even close to what I'd call "networking". And frankly, that kind of interaction doesn't get you closer to a job, and it doesn't matter even a little bit for getting a professorship, unless you're giving a major talk (which, in all likelihood, you aren't).
The best networking I did in grad school was attending startup-related events. That got me my first paid gig, which led to greater street cred as a developer. Attending events held by the career center was a close second, because those led to interviews. Everything else was fluff.
Re: The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
#53Philip Greenspun has addressed this to some extent, although focusing on graduate study and advanced degrees in science and engineering:
http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science
Re: The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
#54On underpay: this varies highly by country. I am a PhD candidate in The Netherlands, and am employed by the university for four years (as most PhD candidates here). This gives around modal income, a 13th month of salary, holiday allowance, and about two months of holidays per year. This is a bit less than one would earn going into business immediately, but it buys you a lot of freedom. The education/research split is…
It kind of depends on your point of view, I suppose. Let's take a look at two examples. > Example 1: Highschool dropout with no advanced education earning minimum wage; 23 years old: Gross minimum wage for 23yo and above € 1424,40 per month, assuming a 40h workweek. Usually with paid overtime and some benefits depending on employer. > Example 2: Student who excelled at high school until 18, completed bachelor at 21,…
As a phd in Switzerland, one can only dream about a 55 square meter apartment. O well, doing research is good for the soul, isn't it?....
Re: The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
#55If anyone is curious, here are the median starting salaries for graduates from Stanford's CS/EE departments (survey was self selecting so the numbers are probably skewed up, but there were a large number of responses): Undergrad: 80k Masters: 87k PhD: 114k
It would be interesting to see how much the undergrads are making after two years (expected amount of time to finish the degree), and the masters after four (to finish the PhD).
And also, the variance in the amount of money undergrads make after 6 years, compared to the variance in the $ that PhDs make. Some undergrads could earn MUCH more money than PhDs, but it's also ENTIRELY possible that undergrads could fizzle out/make a major mistake and end up in a perpetual cycle of low-wage jobs (and this can happen to the highly intelligent too)
Re: The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your experience is completely atypical. Most PhD students -- at least the ones I know in the states and overseas -- spend most of their time in school trapped in a lab or office. A few make time to "network" with people outside the department, but most have to be forced to socialize with a broader audience than can be found at the weekly beer hour. The far more common pattern for a PhD student is to spend years busti…
So the PhD students you know don't go to conferences and the like? Odd.
Also seems odd that there were no collaborations or internships with businesses. People in my lab have interned in research labs at IBM, AT&T, and Telefonica. Additionally, we've worked on projects with people from Google, Akamai, Vuze, and Skype. These seem like pretty decent opportunities to establish contacts and fairly typical (at least in CS). On top of that we've also collaborated with researchers at other universities.
Sure the majority amount of my/our time is spend sitting and working in the lab, but going to a few conferences per year, doing an internship most summers, and having weekly meetings with other researchers adds up to establishing a lot of contacts in the research community that I wouldn't have without graduate school.
Re: The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
#57This article only take the money value of PhDs. It forgot the most important stuff in doing a PhD: Networking. Doing PhD is like doing SEO in the real world. First, you need to pay attention to your supervisor, select a good one, one ready to trust you and give you freedom of action. Second, grab a university where there is effectively budget for you to travel to conferences and meet people. Then, work hard and netwo…
All the "networking" opportunities I had in graduate school were all with academics on the research track and were utterly worthless once I started doing something else.
The other day I found that a bunch of braniacs at the local Uni were working on something a lot like what I'm doing... More advanced in principle, but without the need to have a product that actually works at the end of the day. I talked with four people involved with the project but there wasn't a single one who had any interest in commercialization or knew anyone who was interesting in commercialization of this kind of technology.
Of course, I'm the kind of guy who shows up at seminars and always asks the same question "Is this development commercializable?" although I always ask it in different words... It's just a whole different world.
Re: The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
#58I've always explained to my friends and family that the only real requirement of one passing a PhD is stubborness (or tenacity if I'm feeling charitable). It's certainly not intelligence that's the determining factor, although there is a minimum threshold you need to be over. You have to be stubborn enough that despite all the crap the Economist article is describing, you still want that certificate. But there is rea…
I dunno. I think they let me out with an honorable discharge because I might have made too much trouble for them otherwise.
Re: The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
#59This article only take the money value of PhDs. It forgot the most important stuff in doing a PhD: Networking. Doing PhD is like doing SEO in the real world. First, you need to pay attention to your supervisor, select a good one, one ready to trust you and give you freedom of action. Second, grab a university where there is effectively budget for you to travel to conferences and meet people. Then, work hard and netwo…
From what I hear, Denmark universities pay grad students unusually high salaries.
I do agree that networking is very valuable. As a PhD student I do about 95% of my work from home, but I also have been able to attend a lot of conferences and workshops. (I already have 5 lined up for 2011.) My experience has been that I will meet random people and then see them again and again. This has lead to collaborations, letters of support for grant applications, and ideas for new projects. I have no doubt that it will help me when I take the next step after graduating.
Re: The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
#60On underpay: this varies highly by country. I am a PhD candidate in The Netherlands, and am employed by the university for four years (as most PhD candidates here). This gives around modal income, a 13th month of salary, holiday allowance, and about two months of holidays per year. This is a bit less than one would earn going into business immediately, but it buys you a lot of freedom. The education/research split is…
What is a 13th month of salary? Is that like a bonus?