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Ask HN: Is abuse from supervisors as common in industry as in academia?

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Re: Ask HN: Is abuse from supervisors as common in industry as in academia?

#201

I'm a professor and have worked in industry. Let me break down the issues a bit on the education side, first. Almost always by year 4+ most PhD students are fatigued and starting to get very weary. I was definitely one of them, and at times I did feel like my supervisor wasn't helping my career development or giving me enough mentoring. He is a wonderful, kind, and creative person and he spent 1-2 hours per week with…

> I eventually decided I felt that way because he didn't make his expectations for me finishing and tailoring those expectations to my career goals clear up front, and very few advisors do so.

I come at this from a different field (the biomedical sciences), wherein it is rare to find clearly-articulated career goals from the PhD students, and even harder to find supervisors who care. This problem is made worse when supervisors often rely on their students' naivete to keep their labs staffed.

The students can be forgiven for this naivete: they often start their degrees with the assumption that, if they work hard, a tenure-track or similar position will be available to them at the other end. Of course, reality is that they may fail to achieve that goal no matter how hard they work, simply because they have the wrong project/wrong mentorship/poor funding/etc. The supervisors, on the other hand, are often quite happy for their students to remain naive, as the incentives of students and supervisors are often misaligned.

The solution is probably twofold:

First, it should be essential for prospective students to come in with a very clear idea of their career goals (e.g. "I want a tenure-track faculty position in a leading research university" or "I want a dedicated teaching position at the community college level").

Second, said prospective students should be given clear, objective advice, along the lines of your expectations document, on what it takes to achieve those goals. This advice should help guide students in choosing a lab that will help them achieve these career goals, and ideally should come from a neutral third-party. One can't expect supervisors to be unbiased in this regard.

Re: Ask HN: Is abuse from supervisors as common in industry as in academia?

#202
I know this isn't in academia but I had an abusive team lead that projected his own insecurities and personal life problems on me and the team. He would gaslight us and accuse of stuff based on what previous people had done. Also my supervisor was a right wing loon that would allow sexual harassment to take place and participate in it. We would force his political agendas on people. Thank god I got let go for budget reasons.

Re: Ask HN: Is abuse from supervisors as common in industry as in academia?

#203
post #152
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In industry it’s much easier to leave tyrant bosses. Well, there is a lot of industry we collectively turn a blind eye to. Meat packing facility jobs is a hot topic right now due to stories about COVID conditions. The workers in the facilities are treated like the human equivalent of the livestock they process. But the employer is often the "only game in town" for those workers. Even if it's not impossible for them…

I appreciate this but in the context of this discussion when a PhD asks “is it better in industry” they do not mean going to work at a meat packing plant. Your larger point is true though and it would be great for there to be equity and dignity for all people of all professions!

I tend to agree that's a somewhat safe bet and it gave me pause making this comment.

However "industry" has not been thoroughly qualified and it has been used throughout the comments in a very general way.. Plus, I'm sure Tyson Foods employs some PhDs among its 141,000 workers :)

Re: Ask HN: Is abuse from supervisors as common in industry as in academia?

#204
No in industry if your boss stays around longer for 2 years he or she is on the shit list. Management moves around constantly to avoid being pinned down by consequences from previous decisions so you are almost alway granted to get a new boss in a few years if you hold out

Re: Ask HN: Is abuse from supervisors as common in industry as in academia?

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any chance you'd be willing to share some version of said expectations document?

It is basically the requirements for getting a job as a scientist in my field (machine learning) as far as graduating goes: 1) 1 journal paper as the first author, so that they learn how that process (often is a review or perspective paper on their field, which goes in their dissertation) 2) 2 first author papers in top-tier machine learning venues (goes in dissertation) 3) 1 first author paper in a top-tier or secon…

That's an insane workload to put out during a PhD. 5 Papers including 2 top-tier ones in 3-4 years? Is ML really full of such low-hanging fruit where that is possible?

In my stints around Denmark and Japan (Computational Chemistry) you basically need ~1 top-tier or ~3 mediocre papers during your 3-year PhD.

Re: Ask HN: Is abuse from supervisors as common in industry as in academia?

#208

Having been in both academia (albeit only for a Master's, so Ph.D. treatment I saw only from third-person perspective) and industry, the main difference is what happens when you do land in a bad situation (i.e. with a bad supervisor). If you are in industry with a job skill for which there is demand, if you have a bad supervisor you just start shopping for a new job. So, regardless of whether or not the % of bad supe…

Age might be a red herring. A bigger issue is that you can’t leave with a fraction of a PhD: 5/6ths of a PhD is effectively the same as nothing (or maybe a master’s degree). It doesn’t “vest” until your defense. Sometimes one can change groups, but that is often politically and financially tricky.

IDK, the main part of the PhD is the work that goes into your research papers; if you leaver your current program but already have sufficient publications, in many universities there's a process (not commonly used, but a legitimate option still) where you just write them up in a thesis and go straight to a defence.

It would be hard to switch if you have a year's work invested in some research that's not published yet, in that case much of that effort "wouldn't count", so switching once you're a year in or so loses progress, but if you're 5/6ths ready, then that's different. Also, what's 5/6ths ready at your institution probably is completely sufficient at a bit less prestigious institution - not optimal, but it's important to know that there is a reasonable exit, a Plan B that allows you to leave abuse.

Re: Ask HN: Is abuse from supervisors as common in industry as in academia?

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is basically the requirements for getting a job as a scientist in my field (machine learning) as far as graduating goes: 1) 1 journal paper as the first author, so that they learn how that process (often is a review or perspective paper on their field, which goes in their dissertation) 2) 2 first author papers in top-tier machine learning venues (goes in dissertation) 3) 1 first author paper in a top-tier or secon…

That's an insane workload to put out during a PhD. 5 Papers including 2 top-tier ones in 3-4 years? Is ML really full of such low-hanging fruit where that is possible? In my stints around Denmark and Japan (Computational Chemistry) you basically need ~1 top-tier or ~3 mediocre papers during your 3-year PhD.

Well, five smallest publishable units... optimizing for the wrong incentives that be.

Re: Ask HN: Is abuse from supervisors as common in industry as in academia?

#210

I'm a professor and have worked in industry. Let me break down the issues a bit on the education side, first. Almost always by year 4+ most PhD students are fatigued and starting to get very weary. I was definitely one of them, and at times I did feel like my supervisor wasn't helping my career development or giving me enough mentoring. He is a wonderful, kind, and creative person and he spent 1-2 hours per week with…

I can relate to the "fatigue" issue. I am an ABD from a big world class university, and plan on never going back after suspending my studies. During the course of my studies I became ill and even though some people on my committee expressed support, my chair did not really know how to mentor and encourage me while I was going through chemotherapy, trying to work full time (to keep medical coverage) and do the work necessary to complete the dissertation. My experiences working in other universities are even worse. Faculty who exploit students or punish them for perceived slights or lack of dedication are one of the key reasons for the mess that we are in. It's dreadful overall and would not suggest doing any doctoral studies to anyone. Your viewpoint about your students as apprentices is very encouraging but this is an attitude that is not conducive to most university settings that I have been involved with. Its about the money plain and simple.
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