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

I Regret Quitting Astrophysics

marcelhaas.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 146 posts

Re: I Regret Quitting Astrophysics

#91

Post by hertzrat »

cbanek wrote: post #14

Let me just say to all those out there who have left academia and went into industry: academia would be happy to have you back! I went into "academia" (or close to it), doing software engineering for a telescope being built. Astronomers are a great little community out there, and they really need help writing code. A lot of them aren't familiar or have experience with best industry practices that could save them so m…

I applied for some academic-related software development positions a couple of times. In the interviews they never asked a single software development question and each time revealed they had decided to “just let IT handle the software details.” I am not certain that much of academia understands the complexity of the systems they want to build except from the viewpoint of their research

Re: I Regret Quitting Astrophysics

#92

Post by chriskanan »

Ma8ee wrote: post #79
concreteblock wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a PhD in math but I often dream about how nice it would be to get paid to write simulations for big shot mathematicians. Usually this work goes to undergrad/grad students. Maybe it’s just not worth paying for professional code.

It’s often hard to get money to fund anything else than PhD students or post docs.

Yep, and even then they don't get paid super well. A typical "small" NSF grant is for $500K over 3 years, and the university takes 45-65% of that, so with one award a PI has ~$83K to spread on their annual summer salary and ~2 PhD students at a stipend of around $30K per year each (with the remainder on conferences, publication fees, equipment, etc.).

Re: I Regret Quitting Astrophysics

#93

Post by atemerev »

supernova87a wrote: post #68
atemerev wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You also can do quantitative finance!

What I found, even by the middle 2000s, was that since there were entire grad programs now dedicated to producing quants, someone trying to switch from physics, etc. was already less attractive unless it was a very special company paying attention to the potential of former scientists. The days of a physicist being a top hire for quantitative finance based on potential in a new field, are largely over.

Ex-physicists are still welcome. The mathematics involved is similar, and what’s more important, physicists have the right attitude to work as quants. “Hack and approximate until you can solve the seemingly impossible”. Of course, some genuine interest and preliminary exploration of the field are essential for anyone aspiring to work there, physicist or not.

Re: I Regret Quitting Astrophysics

#95

Post by BlueTemplar »

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #70
38298ruhdi9 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all highly field dependent but I doubt a thesis-like investment is required. Maybe being involved in a publication or two somehow without pay but not a thesis. Having been a tenured professor who left (sort of, not completely), these issues are really salient to me. I was surprised when I left how many stories I heard of others doing the same. They just aren't mentioned for many reasons, including institution…

Again, this depends on field, but a lot of academic hiring, at least at the level of faculty, is about branding of sorts, of building up a story of them being on a meteoric trajectory of genius so brilliant it can't be contained by fate or circumstances of any sort. I've read it referred to as the madonna-whore complex, which is quite accurate. It's hard to explain unless you've been on the side of faculty hiring, bu…

Those angular faces are tripping people up...

Re: I Regret Quitting Astrophysics

#96

Post by peter303 »

Funny, I have been going in the opposite direction of learning more astrophysics as a retirement hobby. So many university seminars and professional conferences are online now, I practically drown in them. Plus there is so much data online too, and tsunamis of data as the new super telescopes come online. My PhD training in another branch of physics allows me to understand the math and data analysis. What is lacking is a PhD level understanding of the research frontier, i.e. what constitutes a unit of research that is significant and achievable in a publication cycle. That you obtain by apprenticing yourself as a grad student/postdoc in a quality research group.

Re: I Regret Quitting Astrophysics

#97

Post by ramraj07 »

unemphysbro wrote: post #16

I'm a new-isly minted biophysics PhD. The reason I got into physics was because it felt fulfilling and my opinion of industry was shaped by a high-school internship at a defense contractor which was a total slog. During my PhD, I got the full experience, drumming up new ideas, grant/proposal writing, managing and setting project goals, maintaining collaborations and doing the actual work. It was fulfilling and fun es…

There will always be regrets, but at least you'll sleep better and rub your tears with Benjamins if you leave academia and regret that :)

Academia will always look like the grass is greener "I can do whatever I want" type. But we shouldn't forget actually you can't, you can only do what others think you're good at, and what the grant review panels think you can feasibly do.

My plan is to just use the extra money from a tech job to open my garage lab. It's getting easier by the day. A fancy deltavision microscope costs less than a cheap boat, so it's not even an expensive hobby if you think about it. You really can do whatever you want, you'll just be limited by money than by other people :)

Re: I Regret Quitting Astrophysics

#98

Post by willis936 »

bumby wrote: post #54
ghaff wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big tech comp numbers that get thrown around--and that are often inflated and have been at least partly driven by stock market gains--lead a lot of people to set them as the bar. And to feel that's what they need to achieve even if they don't especially like the work given that they can't imagine doing something that "only" pays $100K or $150K or whatever.

> they can't imagine doing something that "only" pays $100K or $150K or whatever. “Comparison is the thief of joy” I saw research from a few years back that indicated happiness peaked a little over $100k in salary and actually tended downward above that. It’s been my experience that people who are solely focused on salary tend to do so because they don’t know what else to optimize their life around.

$100k is close to twice what you make in academia unless you’re a professor.

Re: I Regret Quitting Astrophysics

#99

Post by [deleted] »

LetThereBeLight wrote: post #11

What the author appears to be describing is the experience of being a PhD student/postdoc that he misses. As faculty you are (usually) no longer running experiments and analyzing data, but managing people/projects, writing/reviewing papers, teaching, sitting on committees, and constantly applying for grants. While it is indeed unlikely he can find a faculty position after 7 years of being out of academia, he may in f…

[deleted]

Re: I Regret Quitting Astrophysics

#100

Post by selimthegrim »

38298ruhdi9 wrote: post #47
in_cahoots wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read it as being difficult to go back to the same type of work they were doing before they left. Marcel's expertise was in simulations and theory. As you note it's (relatively) easy to get a job in telescope software development coming from industry, but it's much harder on the theoretical (and probably experimental) side where it's less about technical skills and more about being up-to-date on the literature and a…

This is all highly field dependent but I doubt a thesis-like investment is required. Maybe being involved in a publication or two somehow without pay but not a thesis. Having been a tenured professor who left (sort of, not completely), these issues are really salient to me. I was surprised when I left how many stories I heard of others doing the same. They just aren't mentioned for many reasons, including institution…

Which Atlantic article?
Post reply on HN