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Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89

brown.edu

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Re: Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89

#51

Post by bmer »

silisili wrote: post #42
selectodude wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went back to school with the same fears. It comes back to you.

Genuinely, thanks for sharing. I always want to go back, but fear I'll embarrass myself. Or at least realize my age is catching up eith me. Out of curiosity, what did you go back for, and how did it go?

Also, I don't think you ought to consider "when I was 17, I could do basic calculus in my head" as a sign of more ability than you have today. The problems were likely not that hard, since you were 17.

Do you practice doing long division every day, without pen and paper? If not, then I think you ought to try that before making the judgement "I can't do it". Practice is very important, especially when it comes to memory intensive tasks. The other key bit is coming up with efficient algorithms for doing division in your head that take into account the pros/cons of memory vs. pen and paper (why should we expect algorithms that run well on paper to be effective in our memory-only execution as well?). Over the years, people have developed a wide variety of "mental arithmetic" algorithms.

Finally, doing long division in your head isn't important. No one will judge you by it, when you're applying for a PhD, and so you should not judge yourself by it. There are way bigger fish to fry, even in mathematics.

Re: Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89

#52

Post by micromacrofoot »

silisili wrote: post #9

This gives me hope. I'm not even half his age, but already worry about my brain going. When I was 17 I could do basic calculus in my head. Today I struggle to carry numbers in long addition problems. It already has me thinking about my career and future - it certainly is downhill from here. Then something like this happens and just makes me feel like a big baby. Hats off Mr Steiner.

isn’t this likely just a matter of practice? at 17 I spent hours a week studying calculus so it was easy… then I stopped using it for 20 years and it’s very difficult.

I feel like I’d get good at calculus or anything by dedicating similar amounts of dedicated study time

Re: Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89

#53

Post by steve_adams_86 »

ghaff wrote: post #30
boberoni wrote: post #13

As a university student in my last year of undergrad, I've been tempted to go work as a software engineer, even though I'm interested in doing research. The opportunity cost just seems too large to give up. Working as a SWE will allow me to earn a massive income in my 20s, during which I have few defendants and a lot of leisure time. While many of my peers are planning to do graduate school right away, I feel like my…

Be aware that the meme that any developer with a pulse can make so much money they can retire in their 30s plays out very rarely. (ADDED: And if you're in that top tiny percent of success, will you really just drop out?) That said, you'll almost certainly make more money as an SWE than in academia. I do know someone who got a PhD in their early 40s or so in a pause from tech and is back in tech. I gather they thought…

Yeah, this is important to consider. The barrier to entry is lower than ever, but truly excelling in software development is still non-trivial.

Re: Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89

#54

Post by tooltower »

tombert wrote: post #44
melvinmt wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, part-time PhD's are pretty common in Europe. They also commonly take 3-4 years instead of 6...

Which I find weird; are European/British PhDs generally considered less valuable than American? I didn’t think they were but there’s a lot I don’t know about this.

They make a sharper distinction of PhD being a post-Masters degree. In USA, I started the PhD program without a Masters, others started with me who had a Masters. We all took roughly the same amount of time to complete the PhD

Re: Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89

#55

Post by eyeundersand »

soheil wrote: post #37
School-Cotton wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many PhD students have you known? The successful ones at least work extremely hard already; there is no such thing as working twice as hard as them.

Take the top 1% of successful phd students. Does your statement apply equally to them? What about the 0.01%?

If you don't mind anecdata: I'm in the third year of my PhD and would classify myself as an average hard worker compared to my peers. It is highly improbable for someone to work three times as hard as an average PhD in any half-decent program. A lot depends on your adviser but anyone serious about their work will demand a certain level of output from their grad student (like any other manager situation) which necessitates a certain level of work. PhDs and post-docs are notoriously underpaid for the amount of work they do.

Re: Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89

#56

Post by throaway1990 »

tombert wrote: post #44
melvinmt wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, part-time PhD's are pretty common in Europe. They also commonly take 3-4 years instead of 6...

Which I find weird; are European/British PhDs generally considered less valuable than American? I didn’t think they were but there’s a lot I don’t know about this.

European PhDs have better structure and rigid filters to weed out the unworthy dweebs. And the students take far less courses and generally work harder.

US PhD system is slow and often leads to counter-intuitive, interesting or just weird results, which may or mayn't pan out in the long run.

US PhD system has to be longer because

i) US undergraduate system is absolute trash (like worse than 3rd world 12th grader at their worst), specially in STEM, so the extra 2-3 years are essential.

ii) US students don't work that hard

iii) Quite a few STEM grad students are foreign students, sometimes from different undergard backgrounds than PhD topic, so they benefit from 1-2 years of background training and acclimitising to foreign land.

Re: Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89

#57

Post by baby »

tombert wrote: post #3

This is really cool. I'm 30 right now, and only just recently finished my bachelors and have been looking to get a PhD, but it's really hard to find a program that will let you work full time while doing it. It doesn't help that a part of me does sort of feel "too old" to do this sometimes. The PhD system in the US is really tailored around the assumption that you haven't entered the corporate world yet. Anyway, it's…

Try France, it’s very common to do a PhD inside of a company.

Re: Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89

#58

Post by ghaff »

bmer wrote: post #51
silisili wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely, thanks for sharing. I always want to go back, but fear I'll embarrass myself. Or at least realize my age is catching up eith me. Out of curiosity, what did you go back for, and how did it go?

Also, I don't think you ought to consider "when I was 17, I could do basic calculus in my head" as a sign of more ability than you have today. The problems were likely not that hard, since you were 17. Do you practice doing long division every day, without pen and paper? If not, then I think you ought to try that before making the judgement "I can't do it". Practice is very important, especially when it comes to memo…

I would probably have to figure out (or more likely look up) how to do long division these days. I probably haven't done it in decades.

Re: Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89

#59

Post by unobatbayar »

tombert wrote: post #25
azhenley wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Professor here. You definitely aren’t too old, but I would never take on a PhD student that wants to continue working elsewhere. A PhD is a full-time job. It took me 6.5 years and was hard enough with very little outside distractions.

> You definitely aren’t too old By "old" I didn't mean actual biological age exactly. I guess the more appropriate word would be something more like "settled". As it stands, I have a mortgage and whatnot to take care of, it's not really realistic for me to quit my job and focus full-time on a PhD for the next 5-6 years. > but I would never take on a PhD student that wants to continue working elsewhere That seems to b…

> I'm 30 right now,

   > You definitely aren’t too old

      > By "old" I didn't mean actual biological age exactly.
In my opinion, the replier was referring to your chronological age.

Re: Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89

#60

Post by baby »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #53
ghaff wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be aware that the meme that any developer with a pulse can make so much money they can retire in their 30s plays out very rarely. (ADDED: And if you're in that top tiny percent of success, will you really just drop out?) That said, you'll almost certainly make more money as an SWE than in academia. I do know someone who got a PhD in their early 40s or so in a pause from tech and is back in tech. I gather they thought…

Yeah, this is important to consider. The barrier to entry is lower than ever, but truly excelling in software development is still non-trivial.

I’d assume anyone on HN already has an advantage
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