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Syllabus for Eric's PhD Students

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Re: Syllabus for Eric's PhD Students

#21

Post by logifail »

My relationship with my (PhD) advisor was beyond dysfunctional. I complained at the time that it was just wrong for one human to have so much power over another, not that anyone was listening.

However, the three and a half years I spent in his group were some of the best years of my life, I got to do so much "cool stuff" with some pretty unique/expensive kit, was privileged to teach dozens of talented - and some not quite so talented - undergraduates. Every single one of them passed "my" course, and with the benefit of hindsight, I cared more about that than about the research in our lab...

Re: Syllabus for Eric's PhD Students

#23

Post by supernova87a »

logifail wrote: post #21

My relationship with my (PhD) advisor was beyond dysfunctional. I complained at the time that it was just wrong for one human to have so much power over another, not that anyone was listening. However, the three and a half years I spent in his group were some of the best years of my life, I got to do so much "cool stuff" with some pretty unique/expensive kit, was privileged to teach dozens of talented - and some not…

Maybe that's one reason why it's all the more important that you go into grad school with some strength of opinion and position on what you want to achieve. As opposed to "just more of the same" -- because random walking your way into/through grad school, you're much more likely to be jerked around and find yourself on the wrong end of a relationship.

Re: Syllabus for Eric's PhD Students

#24

Post by quineoa »

ta1234567890 wrote: post #20
n3ur0n wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a rising 5th year PhD in ML -- I could not agree with this advice more! I have very hands-off advisors. I spent the first 3 years "wandering the woods to find something". Last year, I really had to sit down and think about how I can finish up my PhD on time. I pretty much did what you outline here. A lot of tools I used were organization tools I learned from my business school/product manager friends. I honestly t…

> we need to teach students about project management, planning etc. This is a problem with education in general. Those things should be taught in middle/high school as essential tools for modern life. Same as personal finances, effective strategies for team/group work, overcoming social anxiety, managing stress and building/maintaining relationships (personal and professional).

Couldn’t agree more. Instead of learning those things in school. I got lucky and had privilege and learned some of them outside of school, and still need to learn others.

But instead, they made sure I knew the name of the boats Columbus sailed in, in 1492. The Niña the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. I was forced to submit to whatever story they told me about the relationship between Columbus and the natives, no matter how untrue it was. But maybe that was the real lesson....

Re: Syllabus for Eric's PhD Students

#25

Post by logifail »

supernova87a wrote: post #23
logifail wrote: post #21

My relationship with my (PhD) advisor was beyond dysfunctional. I complained at the time that it was just wrong for one human to have so much power over another, not that anyone was listening. However, the three and a half years I spent in his group were some of the best years of my life, I got to do so much "cool stuff" with some pretty unique/expensive kit, was privileged to teach dozens of talented - and some not…

Maybe that's one reason why it's all the more important that you go into grad school with some strength of opinion and position on what you want to achieve. As opposed to "just more of the same" -- because random walking your way into/through grad school, you're much more likely to be jerked around and find yourself on the wrong end of a relationship.

> it's all the more important that you go into grad school with some strength of opinion and position on what you want to achieve

Indeed.

I stayed on to do a PhD at the same institution where I did my undergraduate degree, with hindsight I think this might be a poor choice. There was very much a feeling of prospective grad students competing (indeed begging) for PhD places, with not much in the way of due diligence...

Re: Syllabus for Eric's PhD Students

#26

Post by asciident »

ta1234567890 wrote: post #20
n3ur0n wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a rising 5th year PhD in ML -- I could not agree with this advice more! I have very hands-off advisors. I spent the first 3 years "wandering the woods to find something". Last year, I really had to sit down and think about how I can finish up my PhD on time. I pretty much did what you outline here. A lot of tools I used were organization tools I learned from my business school/product manager friends. I honestly t…

> we need to teach students about project management, planning etc. This is a problem with education in general. Those things should be taught in middle/high school as essential tools for modern life. Same as personal finances, effective strategies for team/group work, overcoming social anxiety, managing stress and building/maintaining relationships (personal and professional).

I'm not sure I agree. Everyone's situation in a PhD is different enough that the only general concepts you could teach would be high level and useless. Personal finance classes in high school are filled with junk like "make sure to spend less than you earn" and "here's how you balance a checkbook" and "never forget to pay your bills". For group work, the workshops I've taken for it talk about "listen before speaking", "repeat what the other person said so you are sure to understand it". Sure they're kind of useful, but mostly not.

Re: Syllabus for Eric's PhD Students

#27

Post by chrisseaton »

n3ur0n wrote: post #11
supernova87a wrote: post #2

I will just offer some unsolicited advice about PhDs, as it came up a few weeks ago also. And the author touches on this. Of course this mostly applies to empirical sciences, but maybe some theoretical ones too. An effective PhD advisor/thesis isn't wandering the woods to find something. It's a guided coaching exercise, with an outcome in mind. Test whether the PhD advisor you select knows this and has a history of t…

As a rising 5th year PhD in ML -- I could not agree with this advice more! I have very hands-off advisors. I spent the first 3 years "wandering the woods to find something". Last year, I really had to sit down and think about how I can finish up my PhD on time. I pretty much did what you outline here. A lot of tools I used were organization tools I learned from my business school/product manager friends. I honestly t…

What does 'rising' mean?

Re: Syllabus for Eric's PhD Students

#28

Post by g_p »

n3ur0n wrote: post #11
supernova87a wrote: post #2

I will just offer some unsolicited advice about PhDs, as it came up a few weeks ago also. And the author touches on this. Of course this mostly applies to empirical sciences, but maybe some theoretical ones too. An effective PhD advisor/thesis isn't wandering the woods to find something. It's a guided coaching exercise, with an outcome in mind. Test whether the PhD advisor you select knows this and has a history of t…

As a rising 5th year PhD in ML -- I could not agree with this advice more! I have very hands-off advisors. I spent the first 3 years "wandering the woods to find something". Last year, I really had to sit down and think about how I can finish up my PhD on time. I pretty much did what you outline here. A lot of tools I used were organization tools I learned from my business school/product manager friends. I honestly t…

I have seen a trend in UK PhDs in the last 10 years or so to include much more of the "practical skills" type work. There's certainly been a big push around the "Researcher Development Framework" [0].

I would say that there's no one-size fits all for a PhD, but that I think something PhD students need taught how to do early on is identify their own development needs, and either address them, or seek the support to do that.

It's important that we don't turn PhDs into a taught course though, since ultimately the goal is to learn to direct your own research project from fruition to results, as an independent researcher. There's also a growing number of "structured taught first-year" PhDs (that then last 4 years rather than 3, with the first year akin to a "professional masters" with qualification at the end of it)

EngD degrees are probably a bit more like the JD or MD (if you're doing engineering, that is), but I don't have much experience of that approach. It does seem to be more along the lines of what you highlight a need for though (the project planning, management, etc.)

[0] https://www.vitae.ac.uk/researchers-professional-development...

Re: Syllabus for Eric's PhD Students

#29

Post by Upvoter33 »

n3ur0n wrote: post #11
supernova87a wrote: post #2

I will just offer some unsolicited advice about PhDs, as it came up a few weeks ago also. And the author touches on this. Of course this mostly applies to empirical sciences, but maybe some theoretical ones too. An effective PhD advisor/thesis isn't wandering the woods to find something. It's a guided coaching exercise, with an outcome in mind. Test whether the PhD advisor you select knows this and has a history of t…

As a rising 5th year PhD in ML -- I could not agree with this advice more! I have very hands-off advisors. I spent the first 3 years "wandering the woods to find something". Last year, I really had to sit down and think about how I can finish up my PhD on time. I pretty much did what you outline here. A lot of tools I used were organization tools I learned from my business school/product manager friends. I honestly t…

"it is amazing to me that at no point do we receive any training regarding practical components of research" - this varies A LOT based upon advisor. I'd be wary of drawing conclusions from a small data set. I've seen huge variances in what students learn from advisors, within the same department, within the same discipline, etc. It's too easy to paint "the PhD process" with broad brush strokes...

Re: Syllabus for Eric's PhD Students

#30

Post by supernova87a »

bonoboTP wrote: post #19
supernova87a wrote: post #2

I will just offer some unsolicited advice about PhDs, as it came up a few weeks ago also. And the author touches on this. Of course this mostly applies to empirical sciences, but maybe some theoretical ones too. An effective PhD advisor/thesis isn't wandering the woods to find something. It's a guided coaching exercise, with an outcome in mind. Test whether the PhD advisor you select knows this and has a history of t…

> Concretely, even if you don't know what the answer is going to be at the end of your research, you must think about, or have an idea about, the format of what that amazing answer is going to be. Write the outline of your thesis and "ghost out" what the major charts will be. Write the intro sentences of each chapter -- what are they? (and I don't just mean the boring review of the field part, but your findings part)…

Well, I think one of the shifts that happened is that research changed from "I'm charting my own course in an undiscovered field and accept all liability" to "a university factory promises me a degree and experience".

But here there is an incomplete jump -- in some programs it looks like a well-charted degree program, but has all the liability of research that may not work out. That's why I think (as pointed out above) some practical engineering fields do much better than purely theoretical fields in this regard.

It has also become much more expensive to give it a try and be wrong.

People who don't understand these factors and go in with the wrong expectations are highly likely to fall through the cracks, and not recognize when their program is going sideways or their advisor/topic relationship is not working out.

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