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T-Shaped People and Academia

bastian.rieck.me

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Re: T-Shaped People and Academia

#51

Post by periheli0n »

bigodanktime wrote: post #6

Professors are rewarded for publications and almost nothing else (at least from what I've seen at the school I'm apart of), so because of it all effort goes towards publications, and this passes down to students and the folks they hope to hire. Its also unfortunate any work that is not done towards a publication is essentially invisible to everyone within that system. Even things like teaching are considered second c…

This depends heavily on the university employing the professor. At least in the UK there are universities where one can progress to the highest academic rank by excellence in teaching. Given that such universities draw the majority of their income from students, this makes economical sense.

Whether the economisation of higher education is a good thing is a different question, of course. But in the UK there seems to be a strong drive towards separating teching and research. And to be honest, it becomes increasingly difficult to be good at teaching and research at the same time. If done properly, either is a full time job.

Re: T-Shaped People and Academia

#52

Post by rscho »

throwaway1183 wrote: post #49

There are people for whom PhD is worth. If you are those people don't read this. It's easily knowable if you are or not. Now for people like me: Give me at least a million USD to invest in next PhD in CS. The most BS form of PhD is PhD in CS. It chirps your life away, with no clear benefits. It doesn't scale well enough in a field where innovation is rapidly progressing. Also when you are being underpaid while workin…

What you describe is not particular to CS. It's the same in every field.

However, most people don't view PhDs as a money-making endeavor. IMO, that's a good thing. And no, most of the important work does not happen exclusively in the industry. Academia is very valuable, just not for the same kind of stuff.

Re: T-Shaped People and Academia

#54

Post by Topolomancer »

zomglings wrote: post #47
Topolomancer wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here; thanks for this interesting take! What makes you arrive at the conclusion that the research funding is garbage? I am seeing this more as a problem in terms of providing hires with the wrong incentives. The replacements you mention fall exactly into that category: depending on where you are working, your teaching/outreach/educational aspects might actually count against you when it comes to advancing your…

My biggest problems with university research and its funding (speaking as an academic failure): 1. The grant system overly rewards proposals that grant givers can understand to have a high chance of success. This creates an echo chamber of what kind of research gets funded. 2. The acceptance of mafias based on mutual back-scratching. The dynamics of funding into these mafias. 3. The cut of research funding claimed by…

Thanks for outlining these positions!

> 1. The grant system overly rewards proposals that grant givers can understand to have a high chance of success. This creates an echo chamber of what kind of research gets funded.

This is indeed something I am experiencing across the board. There are few 'blue-skies research programmes.' The Swiss National Science Foundation had one a few years back and I was over the moon to get a grant there...because I could not really guarantee success.

I am still somewhat struggling when writing a proposal: on the one hand, I want to show that I considered all the angles that can be considered; on the other hand, it's research, so I probably did not foresee all the problems that might arise. Getting this balance 'just right' is a knack, it seems.

> 2. The acceptance of mafias based on mutual back-scratching. The dynamics of funding into these mafias.

I never experienced this so far, but I can definitely see that 'networks help.' When you are in the in-group, everything is a little bit easier.

> 3. The cut of research funding claimed by universities as operational costs. (How much of your grant money goes to your university as overhead?)

OK, that one hit close too home! I just had exactly this discussion with someone from our own admin team. They are doing an excellent job, but they are getting quite miffed by the overheads claimed from the grant admin people (a different division). The numbers are even bigger outside Europe, or so I am told...

I am definitely with you in that the system needs improving. At this point, I am still somewhat optimistic that I can at least try to enact some changes by playing the game according to my own rules, but I am not sure whether reality is going to catch up with me at some point, overriding my 'idealistic naïveté generation field.'

Re: T-Shaped People and Academia

#55

Post by rscho »

lmeyerov wrote: post #20
throwawaygh wrote: post #7

>Setting up a suitable build system. Writing some unit tests for the code. Creating a skeleton of the models that are to be developed. Designing nice mock-ups or logos. Creating animations or graphics for presentations. I actively advise students against joining labs like this and consider the whole enterprise unethical. I raise concerns whenever I'm reviewing grant proposals by folks who run their labs like this. I'…

I've been on the other end of such reviewers. Building community and engaging in it takes a whole ton of seemingly non-core work, but community-of-practice research is totally a thing, and for folks who empirically study innovation, one of the best approaches in practice. Likewise, it's common wisdom by systems researchers to invest in platform early to get compounding results later. Two of my best projects, include…

Good for you if your products do well. But making logos and such is your job as PI if you want it to happen. It's certainly not your students' job. They're here to learn academic skills and advance the field, not to make products that do well. Any material advantage they get from that should be incidental, and not a goal in itself.

Re: T-Shaped People and Academia

#56

Post by bryanrasmussen »

I remember Clifford Stoll in The Cuckoo's Egg had an observation that went something like this:

The astronomer's thought I wasn't that great an astronomer but a great programmer, and the programmers thought I wasn't a great programmer but a great astronomer.

So maybe Stoll appeared as a T-shaped person to others but a line to himself?

Re: T-Shaped People and Academia

#57

Post by periheli0n »

It will be near impossible to get tenure if one develops T-shaped qualities. You simply cannot amass the number of grants and papers necessary when dancing on several academic parties, or even doing devops. I've seen too many PhD students doing that and then hitting an academic dead end in their first postdoc or directly after graduating.

It's great for the PI if they have T-shaped students on their team, but they must make it clear to those highly talented people that academia is most likely not for them. Which puts in question whether it makes sense for them to do a PhD at all.

The problem is, the PI has hardly an incentive to tell these valuable, lowly-paid and highly motivated people that they made a bad career choice by starting a PhD.

Re: T-Shaped People and Academia

#58

Post by zomglings »

Topolomancer wrote: post #54
zomglings wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My biggest problems with university research and its funding (speaking as an academic failure): 1. The grant system overly rewards proposals that grant givers can understand to have a high chance of success. This creates an echo chamber of what kind of research gets funded. 2. The acceptance of mafias based on mutual back-scratching. The dynamics of funding into these mafias. 3. The cut of research funding claimed by…

Thanks for outlining these positions! > 1. The grant system overly rewards proposals that grant givers can understand to have a high chance of success. This creates an echo chamber of what kind of research gets funded. This is indeed something I am experiencing across the board. There are few 'blue-skies research programmes.' The Swiss National Science Foundation had one a few years back and I was over the moon to ge…

Haha, I am quite a bit more jaded than you and I think the current academic system is impossible to improve. I say this after having spent over a decade within it.

I have also spent almost a decade in and around the US healthcare system and similarly think that it is impossible to improve.

The thing is, there are enough people at the fringes of both those systems who genuinely believe in the ideals of those systems. I think those people, working together, can build better institutions that exist in parallel to the corrupt, diseased, broken systems that are a burden on our society today.

For example, the T-shaped people who are undervalued by academia but still choose to focus their efforts there rather than in industry.

Re: T-Shaped People and Academia

#59

Post by rscho »

BeetleB wrote: post #27
throwawaygh wrote: post #7

>Setting up a suitable build system. Writing some unit tests for the code. Creating a skeleton of the models that are to be developed. Designing nice mock-ups or logos. Creating animations or graphics for presentations. I actively advise students against joining labs like this and consider the whole enterprise unethical. I raise concerns whenever I'm reviewing grant proposals by folks who run their labs like this. I'…

The counter is that only a small minority of people who graduate with a PhD get to do research in their fields after graduating. It's a disservice to them if they don't gain skills beyond research. It's why many PhDs can't get jobs in teams like mine - they don't have the skills of people with lesser degrees, and while we're not against training new candidates, we don't want to pay them large sums of money when the g…

This is a systemic problem of universities having become money-making machines, hence opening as many PhD positions as they can with as few tenure-track positions as possible. Changing PhDs to become vocational schools is like putting a band-aid on a skull fracture.

Re: T-Shaped People and Academia

#60

Post by throwawayarnty »

Topolomancer wrote: post #48
throwawayarnty wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice to hear from you! I guess for me it is assumed that one who does the work can also communicate the work in various forms (text, formal presentations, informal discussions). Perhaps it requires separate skills? But to me they sound like a continuation along the same "I". When one hears a nice talk from (what I would call) an "I" researcher, it is usually communicated well, but the techniques and scientific questi…

Ah, I think I see the distinction now! :-) I was thinking more in terms of skills that translate between different projects, such as the large degree of software engineering skills that help in every ML project. I realise that this is a relatively narrow definition of 'T,' and yours is much, much larger. Science is definitely benefiting from all types of researchers; I was just observing that some hiring committees i…

Thanks for your article and responses.

I was thinking about famous "I" and "T" scientists in history and I think there is a connection between "T" and "I" scientists and Freeman Dyson's "Birds and Frogs" essay.

Examples of Frogs or "I": Francis Bacon, Freeman Dyson, John von Neumann

Examples of Birds of "T": Descartes, Yuri Manin, Hilbert

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