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Why you should quit your technology job and get a Ph.D. in the humanities

chronicle.com

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Re: Why you should quit your technology job and get a Ph.D. in the humanities

#2

Post by zdw »

I see a humanities degree as nothing less than a rite of passage to intellectual adulthood. A way of evolving from a sophomoric wonderer and critic into a rounded, open, and engaged intellectual citizen.

This is somewhat insulting to to those of us who, despite being "sophmoric" technologists, are actually quite well rounded.

Re: Why you should quit your technology job and get a Ph.D. in the humanities

#3

Post by _delirium »

zdw wrote: post #2

I see a humanities degree as nothing less than a rite of passage to intellectual adulthood. A way of evolving from a sophomoric wonderer and critic into a rounded, open, and engaged intellectual citizen. This is somewhat insulting to to those of us who, despite being "sophmoric" technologists, are actually quite well rounded.

Despite actually being a big fan of the humanities (though a computer scientist myself), it's sadly not really what the median humanities degree gets you either. You can learn a lot of interesting stuff and become well-rounded, like in many fields. But, also like in many fields, you can also become the world's foremost expert on an extremely narrow subject that may or may not be even on the right track to anything. I believe this is one of several reasons for the big dropout rate in humanities PhDs--- signed up for the broad education in philosophy and knowledge, but dropped out when it became clear that it was a path to becoming the world's expert on Gendered Discourse in the Hungarian Mining Industry, 1872-1876; or perhaps on a very narrow technical problem in analytic philosophy.

Re: Why you should quit your technology job and get a Ph.D. in the humanities

#4

Post by phyllotaxis »

The sentiment is unimpeachable- but the advice isn't. Get the education, and the perspective that come with it- absolutely. But it doesn't require a retreat to academia for several years to gain it anymore.

The internet is the collective knowledge and experience of all humanity. To seek this information is wise and wonderful- but I respectfully suggest that dropping ones life to go back to school, chained anew in debt, isn't necessary for the attainment of that wisdom.

Re: Why you should quit your technology job and get a Ph.D. in the humanities

#6

Post by gruseom »

phyllotaxis wrote: post #4

The sentiment is unimpeachable- but the advice isn't. Get the education, and the perspective that come with it- absolutely. But it doesn't require a retreat to academia for several years to gain it anymore. The internet is the collective knowledge and experience of all humanity. To seek this information is wise and wonderful- but I respectfully suggest that dropping ones life to go back to school, chained anew in deb…

I don't see the internet as a source of wisdom, or even knowledge, depending on what one means by the word. Information, certainly. But the mental habits that the internet as a mass medium fosters are antithetical to study and reflection.

I love the internet, not least because of the ease with which I can obtain information that used to take hours in the library. But obtaining specific facts is not the same thing as learning or thinking.

From observing myself and others, I believe that something is wrong. I'm getting way more brain stimulation from the internet than I used to without it, but in terms of things that matter to me in the long run -- growth and learning -- it is of poor quality. I remember the quality of a life spent with books, and this is definitely not it. I feel like I'm experiencing my own atrophy, and it dismays me. Sometimes I think that one of these days I should post a list of books to HN and promise not to come back until I've read them.

So no, consuming information from the internet is in practice nothing like getting an education in the humanities, for anyone whose brain is wired like mine and those of people I know.

Books are food, the internet is a drug.

Re: Why you should quit your technology job and get a Ph.D. in the humanities

#7

Post by jobeirne »

To a young undergraduate, frustrated with the lack of rapid progress on tough philosophical questions, AI seemed like the great hope, the panacea—the escape from the frustrations of thinking.

Yeah, that'll go away in short order after taking a few AI classes.

Re: Why you should quit your technology job and get a Ph.D. in the humanities

#8

Post by gwern »

> If you are worried about your career, I must tell you that getting a humanities Ph.D. is not only not a danger to your employability, it is quite the opposite. I believe there no surer path to leaping dramatically forward in your career than to earn a Ph.D. in the humanities. Because the thought leaders in our industry are not the ones who plodded dully, step by step, up the career ladder. The leaders are the ones who took chances and developed unique perspectives.

Apparently when he abandoned his sophomore technologist beliefs, he also abandoned the need to provide evidence.

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