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The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time

economist.com

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Re: The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time

#61

Post by RK »

grav1tas wrote: post #18
Saad_M wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me earning a PhD was not about the money or wealth creation. It was about the chance to work on a exciting research project that could make a real difference and contribution to scientific knowledge. Besides, in the UK at least the scholarship funding is not bad at all. I found the £12K per year tax free funding was easily enough to be comfortable on whilst doing my research.

Agreed. PhD's in the US that pursue the hard sciences and engineering are generally funded fairly well.

I think you could say that they are funded well, in the sense that no one should be paying out of pocket, but that is different than saying that they get paid well. It depends a lot on school, location, and (possibly) subject.

Re: The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time

#62

Post by RK »

timr wrote: post #49
jforman wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer to "why not?" is pretty simple: opportunity cost. I spent three years in a computational biology PhD program before getting an e-mail from a college friend looking for people to join a new startup (where I am now a co-founder). I enjoyed the research I was doing, but I asked myself: should I really spend three more years here toiling away at very cool but very obscure science just to purchase a lottery tic…

"should I really spend three more years here toiling away at very cool but very obscure science just to purchase a lottery ticket? Where if I lose the lottery (which is the most likely result by far) I will have languished in postdoc roles until I burnt out past my prime?" Oh man, +1,000,000. As someone who made the other choice from the same position you were in, this is exactly the advice I give to any fresh-faced…

When I started, I don't remember any students talking about what we were going to do, postdocing, or the like. I think none of us had really thought about it very much. Definitely excitement about the subject was blinding at that point.

Now, my friends, who have finished, are either super depressed about (not) finding academic jobs or have moved to other fields entirely. Pretty sad.

I made more of a lateral move within my field, so am hoping for better results, but that has its own set of challenges.

Re: The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time

#63

Post by RK »

cperciva wrote: post #25
jteo wrote: post #9

The sole purpose of some PhDs is to serve as cheap labour for the research efforts of a professor.

Some, yes. But definitely not all. My supervisor only had a very vague notion of what I was doing most of the time (to be fair, I only had a very vague notion of what I was doing most of the time).

Did your supervisor think your work was good enough to attach his name to? I think that counts in the cheap labor argument, even if you aren't just a worker on the assembly line.

I think good advisors (should) enjoy supervising for the sake of supervising, but that doesn't mean it doesn't also boost their CV's.

Re: The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time

#64

Post by RK »

Aloisius wrote: post #38

Not all PhDs are the same. They vary in duration and difficulty from country to country, school to school and field to field. For instance, you are not guaranteed a PhD in Chemistry from Berkeley even if you go for 8 years. You don't get one until your research pans out. This is very different from some countries where you're essentially guaranteed one after 2-4 years.

In the US (and other places I assume), the endpoint of your PhD is determined by two things: successful completion of your research and your advisor's approval. (You could argue that your advisor's approval is the only thing). That means that the time to completion is an unknown.

This is a such a different feeling to what students I have met from the the UK/Europe experience, that it's almost like a different degree. They typically have 3 years to complete their projects, but I have no idea what "completion" means in that context.

The other one is funding, in that American PhD students could potentially be funded indefinitely, but that's a different issue...

Re: The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time

#65

Post by cperciva »

RK wrote: post #63
cperciva wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some, yes. But definitely not all. My supervisor only had a very vague notion of what I was doing most of the time (to be fair, I only had a very vague notion of what I was doing most of the time).

Did your supervisor think your work was good enough to attach his name to? I think that counts in the cheap labor argument, even if you aren't just a worker on the assembly line. I think good advisors (should) enjoy supervising for the sake of supervising, but that doesn't mean it doesn't also boost their CV's.

Did your supervisor think your work was good enough to attach his name to?

We did co-author a paper later, but it wasn't about anything in my thesis. I certainly didn't hear any indication from him that he disapproved of my thesis, though -- he was just happy to let me work independently, and it would have been entirely improper for his name to appear on work he hadn't contributed to.

Re: The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time

#67

Post by duffbeer703 »

IMO, a big issue is that many PhDs are simply not doing research that is actually useful to the real world... many of these folks are hyper-specializing in some arcane subject. Toiling away for a few years to come up with a new analysis of 20th century feminist literature or a sociological study of rodent societies exposed to mozart 24x7 is probably fascinating to someone, but doesn't necessarily translate into something more useful.

Another issue is that higher education in the US has turned into a consumer of federal loans. Universities cry poverty with respect to grad student employment while building lavish health clubs and football stadiums. They raise tuition at rates 2-4x inflation, but have multi-billion dollar endowments or only hire part-time professors to lower faculty costs.

Re: The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time

#68

Post by geebee »

johnswamps wrote: post #20

If 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

median JD: 160K (http://www.law.stanford.edu/school/facts/#graduates)

MBA is also way up there.

not sure about medicine...

keep in mind that elite MBA, JD, and even MD programs have very high completion rates, much higher than PhDs, and that MD and JD degrees can take less than half the time. MD degrees take as long as PhDs when you factor in the residency, but the job prospects and earnings are probably much higher.

From a purely financial point of view, it just doesn't make sense for someone who already has US citizenship to do a PhD. For non-citizens, though, it can be an excellent way to get into the country (though even then, an MS is usually enough to get that first work visa).

Re: The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time

#69

Post by j_baker »

gruseom wrote: post #32

The assumption in the article, and in most of this discussion, and of our society if not our civilization in general, is that the only things that matter are money and jobs (a.k.a. money). What pinched, impoverished excuses for human beings we are.

Really? The article makes it sound to me like a PhD isn't a good idea either from a monetary standpoint or from the standpoint of being satisfied.

"One thing many PhD students have in common is dissatisfaction. Some describe their work as “slave labour”. Seven-day weeks, ten-hour days, low pay and uncertain prospects are widespread. You know you are a graduate student, goes one quip, when your office is better decorated than your home and you have a favourite flavour of instant noodle. “It isn’t graduate school itself that is discouraging,” says one student, who confesses to rather enjoying the hunt for free pizza. “What’s discouraging is realising the end point has been yanked out of reach.”"

"Workers with “surplus schooling”—more education than a job requires—are likely to be less satisfied, less productive and more likely to say they are going to leave their jobs."

Re: The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time

#70

Post by RK »

cperciva wrote: post #65
RK wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did your supervisor think your work was good enough to attach his name to? I think that counts in the cheap labor argument, even if you aren't just a worker on the assembly line. I think good advisors (should) enjoy supervising for the sake of supervising, but that doesn't mean it doesn't also boost their CV's.

Did your supervisor think your work was good enough to attach his name to? We did co-author a paper later, but it wasn't about anything in my thesis. I certainly didn't hear any indication from him that he disapproved of my thesis, though -- he was just happy to let me work independently, and it would have been entirely improper for his name to appear on work he hadn't contributed to.

it would have been entirely improper for his name to appear on work he hadn't contributed to.

I do agree with that, but I think it's far from rare in academia.

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