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

Goodbye to academic research

blog.devicerandom.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 100 posts

Re: Goodbye to academic research

#31

Post by mkr-hn »

RiderOfGiraffes wrote: post #30

You're only getting one side of this, and before you find yourself in complete agreement ask yourself this: Are you agreeing because it confirms your bias and opinion of the academic system? I got a PhD from Cambridge. Everyone I worked with was helpful to a fault. Everyone shared credit when it was due, and declined offers of credit when they felt they hadn't contributed enough. I got my PhD, got a 3 year post-doc,…

That's the hard part about things like this. It's almost completely subjective, so doing a study would be difficult. We're left with dueling anecdotes from credible people.

Re: Goodbye to academic research

#32

Post by msg »

chime wrote: post #14
tjmaxal wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you just doing research for researches sake? If so good for you. If not, why try and do it independently? Don't you think you deserve to be rewarded for your work? i.e. compensated either with prestige or money? At the very least would you like to be compensated for you contributions to the field?

I guess I'm doing it for the end-goal's sake. I really do want people with disabilities to be able to communicate better, including my own cousin. As long as my bills are being paid (regardless of the source of income), I don't need any rewards. I'm not a saint or anything - I just don't want to deal with the overhead of funding, grants, scholarships, sales, marketing, clients, customers. I want to make a usable, inn…

You might not want "customers" but nothing will help you innovate like users. Where I work we get mountains of feedback and use it to justify new features and to prioritize bug fixes.

Re: Goodbye to academic research

#33

Post by amh »

Having spent some time in the academia sausage factory, I think this guy is fairly close to the mark. A lot of time and effort is consumed simply writing grants and genuflecting for government money. A perpetual stream of cheap labor (postdocs) is necessary to keep the cash spigot flowing, even though many of them have zero chance for a real career in their chosen field. I've seen incredibly petty behavior over attribution and credit on papers.

I think most scientific progress happens in spite of the academic system, and not because of it. In some ways the old system of patronage was superior -- you had a direct connection between a king or wealthy merchant who had an interest in something, and the scientists who needed funding to investigate it, instead of a vast bureaucracy that probably consumes more than the total amount it exists to allocate.

Re: Goodbye to academic research

#34

Post by bbgm »

RiderOfGiraffes wrote: post #30

You're only getting one side of this, and before you find yourself in complete agreement ask yourself this: Are you agreeing because it confirms your bias and opinion of the academic system? I got a PhD from Cambridge. Everyone I worked with was helpful to a fault. Everyone shared credit when it was due, and declined offers of credit when they felt they hadn't contributed enough. I got my PhD, got a 3 year post-doc,…

I complain about the state of academia all the time and went straight from my PhD to a startup, but I completely agree with you. My experience was rather wonderful.

Re: Goodbye to academic research

#35

Post by jtbigwoo »

This is how many, many professions work. Musicians, writers, inventors, athletes, research scientists, pilots, and even small business owners all have the same career path. A few really driven, really lucky ones win the lottery and get to be household names. A small minority (maybe 1 - 5%) make an upper middle class living. The other 99% work for poor wages until they give up or get used up. It sucks, but it's hardly unique to science. If you're in a profession with a massive oversupply of labor, you can pretty much be guaranteed to see this kind of structure.

I also spent half the article thinking that the author's struggles with vocabulary and grammar might explain his/her struggles to get ahead. Perhaps he/she is a non-native speaker and that's adding to the trouble?

Re: Goodbye to academic research

#36

Post by yummyfajitas »

beetmik wrote: post #9

Just to put it in perspective, I'm sure it's a real curse to have to spend the rest of your life doing something you purportedly absolutely love to do in a hell-hole like Pisa, Italy. That said, my heart absolutely goes out to this person who is apparently really depressed. Hope he can find his happiness in life.

According to someone I know who got a job there, Pisa is a very boring town. Some scenery plus a few tourist traps, low standard of living compared to the US [1], very little to do. Sounds fun before you go, much less fun after you've been there a few months.

[1] For hard numbers, I found this site, suggesting a professor in Italy has a real income about 2/3 that of a US professor: http://www.worldsalaries.org/professor.shtml

Re: Goodbye to academic research

#37

Post by [deleted] »

amh wrote: post #33

Having spent some time in the academia sausage factory, I think this guy is fairly close to the mark. A lot of time and effort is consumed simply writing grants and genuflecting for government money. A perpetual stream of cheap labor (postdocs) is necessary to keep the cash spigot flowing, even though many of them have zero chance for a real career in their chosen field. I've seen incredibly petty behavior over attri…

[deleted]

Re: Goodbye to academic research

#38

Post by scott_s »

achompas wrote: post #21

There is a second option, which is bare survival. What about the third option: get your PhD and work in industry? I keep coming across statistics and CS PhDs who now work for Twitter, the New York Times, and industry research labs (AT&T, Microsoft). Why isn't an industry job a viable option?

There are few industries which do the kind of research that they hire PhDs for.

Re: Goodbye to academic research

#39

Post by chime »

msg wrote: post #32
chime wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I'm doing it for the end-goal's sake. I really do want people with disabilities to be able to communicate better, including my own cousin. As long as my bills are being paid (regardless of the source of income), I don't need any rewards. I'm not a saint or anything - I just don't want to deal with the overhead of funding, grants, scholarships, sales, marketing, clients, customers. I want to make a usable, inn…

You might not want "customers" but nothing will help you innovate like users. Where I work we get mountains of feedback and use it to justify new features and to prioritize bug fixes.

I wholeheartedly agree and I intend to start working with my potential users very soon.

Re: Goodbye to academic research

#40

Post by rapicastillo »

chime wrote: post #4

Reading this article makes me realize I certainly picked the road not taken. Last year I quit my job as the Director of IT at a small pharma, dropped out of a company-paid MBA program, drastically reduced my expenses, and started doing independent research. A lot of people around me thought I was crazy especially since I wasn't going the PhD or startup route either. In my mind though, it seems pretty logical - I want…

This is the exact same thing i am planning to do. i am currently in a lavish tech consultancy firm, but the whole idea of being a "resource" is really stagnating my brain, and also objectivizes humanity. I still can't stand being called a resource.

Im planning on quitting soon, and doing independent research while creating non-startup apps. Posts like this (and the link above) really motivate me. :)

Best of luck to ya!

Post reply on HN