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

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 226 posts

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

#211

Post by chriskanan »

quantum_magpie wrote: post #206
chriskanan wrote: post #183

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.

Norms vary per academic discipline and niche. My requirements are pretty much the standard for my field if you want a job doing research at FAIR, DeepMind, Adobe Research, Google Research, OpenAI, etc. Without meeting those goals students will not be able to get research oriented jobs at top places.

In the US, PhD students in Computer Science and similar fields usually require 5-7 years to finish. They typically do not have MS degrees, unlike in Europe, where the expected graduation time is 3-4 years and they must have MS degrees.

You would be surprised how often there is a lot of low-hanging fruit. I'm good at asking "easy" questions that nobody knows the answer to, so a student just has to put in the work to get the answer. Many advisors don't give as much initial hand holding as I do.

So far my PhD students have taken 3-6 years to finish. Those that have graduated so far have finished with 3 papers (3 years), 9 papers (3 years), and 12 papers (5.5 years). The senior ones still in my lab (year 4 or 5) are on track to have around 3 first author papers in top-venues and about 9 papers total each. Their first author papers are in CVPR, ICCV, ACL, ECCV, BMVC, NAACL, ICLR, AAAI, etc.

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

#212

Post by rsj_hn »

I've always had pretty good supervisors in both academia and the workplace. The worst manager I had was a guy whose only real fault was phoning it in, but he just had a baby and I didn't blame him. No one was abusive.

But I had friends who were in tougher spots. In grad school a friend of mine in the physics department was basically a slave of his advisor, needing to do IT admin work for his advisor that was unrelated to his field of study and constantly doing errands for him. There is a big difference between fields like physics where you are living off of your advisor's grants and math where you are not tied to your advisor financially at all.

In the workplace, I had a friend who had kind of a frumpy annoying manager who didn't appreciate him. But the level of professionalism was much higher than academia.

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

#213

Post by btheshoe »

varjag wrote: post #36
fgstart wrote: post #13

I'd say that the issues in your first paragraph also occur in industry, albeit with plausible deniability and not directly. Further annoyances in industry: - Teams can suck you dry, you begin to lose your identity and get mediocre (since that is the safest and most valued option). - Managers take the credit for your work. - Managers can be entirely unrealistic, often demanding things that are not possible from a CS p…

In this market is an important caveat. Most people here have no recollections of what a bad market is, but it'll really make you wish you were in academia.

What does a bad market look like?

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

#215

Post by mattkrause »

PeterisP wrote: post #208
mattkrause wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's a bit circular: one of the major reasons people want to leave a group is because it is not productive. If your PI won't invest in data collection or sits on manuscripts for years, you won't have the raw materials for a thesis-by-publication.

As for transferring, other than a lab moving, I've never heard of someone switching just to defend. Most programs have "residency" requirements of a few years (ours is two years after a master's and at least 2/3s of the coursework, for example).

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

#216

Post by pts_ »

munin wrote: post #152
Rapzid wrote: 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!

Brain on a stick is still livestock.

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

#217

Post by alexgmcm »

URSpider94 wrote: post #147
temp8964 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people fail to grasp the idea that the world does not always work surround them. And they have a very different definition of "abuse" than others, which basically goes to: you are abusing me if you don't actively take care of my emotions. For those people, it is much easier to find "abuses". Academic supervisors are not your personal friends. They have no interest in observing your emotions, because they have a…

The reason you don’t have personal relationships with students is not because of MeToo or the current political environment, it’s because it’s inappropriate, and always has been. And please don’t tell me it’s because of nerdy academics not being able to handle it. If you find yourself meeting with a single student anywhere but the office, discussing things that aren’t related to work, for any significant amount of ti…

This is a bit sad though, one of the Professors at my University used to invite even his undergraduate tutor group to his house for dinner with his family to get to know them better.

It was a bit unusual but it seemed to work, I mean he was one of the most popular professors and you felt like you could approach him about anything.

Although to be fair, I suppose that wasn't a single student, and they probably spent most of the meal discussing Physics and their goals at University.

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

#218

Post by michaelmior »

chriskanan wrote: post #183
michaelmior wrote: post #173

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…

Thanks! That makes sense. My requirements for my students aren't quite at the same level. (And I arguably didn't meet those myself for my own PhD.) 10 first author papers is seems a little crazy to me. As a relatively new faculty member, I haven't met that bar myself yet. But of course as you say in another comment below, it differs by field.

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

#220

Post by tabtab »

As somebody with 3+ decades of experience at multiple kinds of orgs as a contractor and an employee I can say with confidence YES!

Especially when they know you are in a jam, such as recessions or family issues.

Dilbert is a comic strip and a documentary. I suggest students read more Dilbert so they are less shocked when they get a real job. Humans are very human. Vulcans would go nuts on Earth.

Post reply on HN