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Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89

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Re: Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89

#311

Post by BeetleB »

sulam wrote: post #263
BeetleB wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some cautionary comments: Often your advisor in grad school will force you to focus on what they want rather than what you want to learn. This is less likely in a math department, but more likely in a CS one. As with everything, it all depends on your advisor. The PhD is replete with hoops you have to take that will be orthogonal to your goal of learning (e.g. spending a lot of your time doing HW on the professor's p…

While everything else you say may be true, I take issue with efficiency being a function of age. Fundamentally you have no idea how many years you will get. Be efficient at all ages, and live like it might (and might not!) be your last year, regardless. Personally I’ve had close brushes with death a couple times in my life, and the dice roll could easily have gone the other way. I’m sure I’m far from alone in this.

I did not mean to imply one shouldn't be efficient at all ages - just that those doing their PhDs in their 20s do not value it as much as those in their 50s.

Also, those in their 20s often haven't lived long enough to know how to gauge their efficiency. The person who has spent decades working 40 hour/week jobs knows better the value of less free time.

Re: Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89

#312

Post by [deleted] »

lasfter wrote: post #291
bumby wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apart of few exceptions, professors need PhD students more than PhD students need professors. Can you elaborate on this? I'm not disagreeing, but colleges/professors certainly like to project the opposite in many cases

Professors depend on grant money and they need to push out papers to be competitive in grant applications. The vast, vast majority of work in research is done by grad students. Without students, professors would have to do everything themselves or compete with industry for talent they can't afford. Students by contrast need professors for training and advice. Whether they receive these from their advisor depends on t…

[deleted]

Re: Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89

#313

Post by ericmcer »

It's always comforting to know that if you weren't good enough to achieve anything of note in your youth you can always earn accolades for being stubborn enough to do it in old age. I have some unreasonable rock climbing goals that seem less likely but more impressive as I age. Also a 42 year old man just became the light heavyweight UFC champ last weekend so I guess... Keep fighting.

Re: Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89

#314

Post by riedel »

nextos wrote: post #306
pge wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I worked at a DoD lab in the 90s, there were PhD students that were essentially employees. Their thesis work was directly tied to the lab’s work, and they were at the lab every day. I do not known the compensation arrangement, but it certainly appeared that they were paid as full-time employees (and may have been employed there before entering the PhD program). May be worth looking into something like that

Same is quite usual in some Cambridge University departments. Also worth mentioning Scandinavian and Swiss universities treat PhDs like a regular industry job (job contract, paid at an acceptable discount wrt industry, pension contribution & other perks). This is how it should be everywhere.

Germany typically pays PhD students as research or teaching assistant (there are Grad schools in CS but this is the minority at least in my lab) When I started in 2005 the salary was even better than in many industry CS jobs (today the situation changed a bit). The problem I faced was that afterwards the PhD was not actually really valued by industry and I could not get myself to do a boring industry job without being paid 'adequately' to compensate for the loss of freedom. So I stayed at university again. I still have my freedoms but am kind of stuck in the academic system. If I would have gone to industry straight away my salary would probably be much higher by now.

Re: Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89

#315

Post by mkl »

IneficientPgons wrote: post #224
mkl wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree completely (my PhD is in maths). I don't know about the USA specifically, but this doesn't match my experience or that of anyone I know. Many maths PhDs don't go into academia, and those that do earn decent money (definitely more than our equivalent of middle school teachers). I don't know anyone who would describe the field as miserable, and I'm sorry to hear you have reached that conclusion (and confused…

> I don't know about the USA specifically My post was specific to to the USA. > Many maths PhDs don't go into academia, and those that do earn decent money (definitely more than our equivalent of middle school teachers). I meant during the PhD. In the USA, it's very common for math folks to teach for most of their PhD. Teaching every semester + summers is not common at all in the rest of STEM. Between the higher sala…

That does sound quite different. In NZ TAing during a PhD is completely optional, something you do for extra money. It's definitely a good idea to do some, but in general you wouldn't be allowed to do more than ~10 hours per week.

Re: Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89

#316

Post by geebee »

tombert wrote: post #305
geebee wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One factor - I was under the impression that European PhD programs are much more dissertation focused, whereas US based ones are intensely coursework focused for the first few years. Is this the case? I was in a US based PhD program (at Berkeley, mastered out), and I would attest to the heavy coursework load, but I've only heard that European/British programs are largely or purely dissertation based. Would enjoy hear…

Not in the program yet (and very likely won't be), but with the people I've been chatting with at University of York, this definitely seems to be the case. The professors I've been talking to indicated that I would be hopping directly into research towards an end goal instead of spending a bunch of time in coursework. They also seemed to assume a lot more knowledge about CS and math than most US grad schools do. Pres…

Yes, that is very different from what I experienced at Berkeley as well. There were some notable differences between my PhD application and undergrad, in that PhD admissions committees weren't really interested in the undergraduate dog and pony show of "tell me how your volunteer work and experience playing the flute in your high school orchestra shaped you as a person..." My personal statement was about what I intended to get out of a PhD program and a vague direction of possible future research interest. Interestingly, med and law school applications in the US are much more similar to the undergrad essay than PhD programs.

But still, even the PhD statement was nothing like the 5-6 page proposal with a clear research focus that you described. Sounds more like the kind of program I'd be interested in if I were to go back, as I'd be mainly interested in researching something deeply, not taking classes.

Well, good luck, hope it works out for you.

Re: Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89

#317

Post by jay3ss »

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…

I know of one person who worked part time in industry while obtaining a PhD (also part time) from a major university in the southern California region and another who is currently doing the same at a different major university in the same region. Both people were working for a very large, Fortune 200 company. At the time they were in their mid 20s but I was offered a similar path (I'm in my 30s), but I've since left the company

Re: Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89

#318

Post by skmurphy »

nitrogen wrote: post #120
skeeter2020 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if you had the capability to be one of the greatest PhD students in the world your strategy would be "do a bunch of stuff average instead"? How would you achieve such a high level of performance in the first place? Being a good grad student is as much learned and practiced as any other skill.

Being quite good at two things can sometimes be much more advantageous than being top notch at just one thing.

Scott Adams offered this as “Career Advice” (http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/07/care...) in July of 2007:

"But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths:

1. Become the best at one specific thing.

2. Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things.

The first strategy is difficult to the point of near impossibility. Few people will ever play in the NBA or make a platinum album. I don’t recommend anyone even try.

The second strategy is fairly easy. Everyone has at least a few areas in which they could be in the top 25% with some effort."

See also https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2010/04/18/jack-of-all-trades/ for an exploration of how deep knowledge of multiple domains enables opportunities for knowledge brokerage.

Re: Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89

#319

Post by bitwize »

sipior wrote: post #280
bitwize wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference comes from the fact that smart Europeans graduate secondary school with the equivalent of an American university grad's education. U.S. universities must therefore offer more coursework in order to bring their postgrads up to snuff with what's expected of a fresh university grad in the rest of the developed world.

Having lived in Europe for almost twenty years, with a spouse teaching in a European secondary school, and with the utmost respect to my European colleagues, please allow me to assure you that this is not even remotely the case.

Having grown up in the USA, gone through the "second high school" USA university system, and heard reports from personal acquaintances and sites like this one on what levels of math German and Russian students graduate with, I'm still gonna press X to doubt the truth of your assurance, as earnest and well-meaning as it may be.
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