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

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

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 85 posts

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

#71

Post by anthuswilliams »

naveensundar wrote: post #14

A PhD is all about wealth creation [1]. Also many of the technologies we take for granted were due to "lowly" PhD students toiling away. I can't even imagine how without decades of dedicated academic effort we can have semiconductor based electronics, massively layered software that work seamlessly, etc. Maybe the author can. "The fiercest critics compare research doctorates to Ponzi or pyramid schemes." The "fierces…

You've missed the point. The article readily concedes that PhDs are good for society as a whole. The argument is that they are generally a bad idea for individuals.

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

#72

Post by lutorm »

zerokyuu wrote: post #56
harshpotatoes wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 univ…

This very much depends on what field you're in. You'd be hard pressed to find business internships in astrophysics.

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

#73

Post by qdie »

Lewisham wrote: post #28
levesque wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the argument that PhD's might be underpaid a bit, but I think the author is exaggerating when he says that universities exploit them to get cheap research done, or that there are too many PhD's being produced by the system in general (as if this had a strongly negative impact on our society?)

I read a much longer article about this, and I wish I knew where it was, but the oversupply problem is far more pronounced in the humanities, where the average time to graduate is peaking towards 10 years, yet all the PhD confers is the ability to teach, where we know there are few jobs. I think that such a system is, in essence, exploitative. The problem is far less in Computer Science, where your skills transfer ov…

you mean this one?http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/07/arts/07grad.html

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

#74

Post by chancho »

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…

For every one of you there is another who dropped out of a PhD program to start a company that eventually went bust and now they are in the same position as you, but without the PhD. Everyone tosses the dice. Everyone has regrets. Don't beat yourself up about it.

Look on the bright side: your PhD is an insurance policy against ageism. When you are 50 you will still be able to find (or make for yourself) low-risk, high-paying work doing neat technical stuff. The VP and C-level peers that you envy so much now will essentially be managers for the rest of their lives.

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

#75

Post by jdhopeunique »

Lewisham wrote: post #28
levesque wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the argument that PhD's might be underpaid a bit, but I think the author is exaggerating when he says that universities exploit them to get cheap research done, or that there are too many PhD's being produced by the system in general (as if this had a strongly negative impact on our society?)

I read a much longer article about this, and I wish I knew where it was, but the oversupply problem is far more pronounced in the humanities, where the average time to graduate is peaking towards 10 years, yet all the PhD confers is the ability to teach, where we know there are few jobs. I think that such a system is, in essence, exploitative. The problem is far less in Computer Science, where your skills transfer ov…

Given that there is an oversupply problem in the humanities, why don't humanities professors get paid substantially less than science professors? In my experience, there seems to be little difference in pay between humanities professors and science professors.

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

#76

Post by cdavid »

timr wrote: post #52
harshpotatoes wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 g…

Although PhD is a lot of work, its non-fixed schedule allows for some kind of freedom that you can use for networking. For example, PhD is a great time to be involved with open source projects where you can significantly contribute to, which can bring a lot of valuable opportunities if you're good at it and the project fills a marketable niche.

I know that my PhD completely changes the nature of jobs I can hope to get - not really because of what I learned directly at my PhD, but for everything else.

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

#77

Post by impendia »

jforman wrote: post #44
impendia wrote: post #43

(Crosspost from my comments at economist.com:) Paul Halmos, a famous mathematician, was often approached by undergraduates who asked him if he thought they should go to grad school. He gave all of them the same advice: "No." Now mind you, he was extremely enthusiastic about academia, and he would cheerfully encourage students who didn't immediately walk away, but insisted that they really wanted to do academic resear…

The problem is that the people who are doing it to become a professor are playing a game that is stacked against them. And if/when you lose that game you're well behind your peers in opportunity cost (see my other post). I know several brilliant scientists (postdocs and PhD students) from my time at Princeton who had / are having a very hard time finding an academic job. At some point even the purest motivations will…

Fair point.

In math it is sort of hard to outsource the boring parts of your project to people working beneath you, so I didn't hear people complain that they were getting used. But I can imagine that this might not be the same in other disciplines.

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

#78

Post by timr »

chancho wrote: post #74
timr wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

For every one of you there is another who dropped out of a PhD program to start a company that eventually went bust and now they are in the same position as you, but without the PhD. Everyone tosses the dice. Everyone has regrets. Don't beat yourself up about it. Look on the bright side: your PhD is an insurance policy against ageism. When you are 50 you will still be able to find (or make for yourself) low-risk, hig…

"Everyone tosses the dice. Everyone has regrets. Don't beat yourself up about it."

Yes, life is always a dice roll. The difference is that one of the two bets has a much higher positive expectation. Done intelligently, neither choice will leave you destitute, but entrepreneurship could leave you rich.

I don't beat myself up over past choices that I can't change -- but I try to make my point forcefully to people who are about to go down the same blind alleys that I already know well.

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

#79

Post by cma »

j_baker wrote: post #69
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 decora…

The article also talks about having an office with better decorations than one's house! Now they'll never get asked to the school dance!

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

#80

Post by jbbuck »

timr wrote: post #47
Loic wrote: post #33

This 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…

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…

As a third year Ph D student I'd say that it's on the student to make the most out of their time in school. Part of that is networking, meeting people in related fields and mastering some of the softer sciences (presentations, writing style, etc.) A student that fails to build connections seems no different to me than the student that didn't gain as much knowledge from their courses or didn't master writing because they didn't have to.
Post reply on HN