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T-Shaped People and Academia

bastian.rieck.me

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Re: T-Shaped People and Academia

#81

Post by periheli0n »

Topolomancer wrote: post #71
periheli0n wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I certainly do not want to exploit students. Then you must tell them that when they do “non-core-work“ they are essentially wasting their time; at least if they intend to stay in academia. Sure there is some technical housekeeping necessary to get research done and papers written. But it must be kept to an absolute minimum. It is nice to have students who polish the web site or set up CI on GitHub. But these studen…

I only partially agree with you there---as a PI, I also have an option to reward these sort of activities. I understand that it is not a good idea to employ someone for the wrong role, so any 'non-core work' activities need to be at least discussed with respect to potential ramifications. However, I find it somehow weird that we only ever measure success along one axis. Moreover, these students often serve as facilit…

> as a PI, I also have an option to reward these sort of activities.

But honestly, your options are very limited, especially in Germany. You cannot pay them more, and you also cannot offer them a permanent employment contract. Most of the time it’s even hard to extend an existing contract. You can perhaps send them to nice conferences, but then you would send the principal author to the conference, too.

But I totally agree that academia fails at rewarding people who facilitate the work of others. There is some perversion to this, since the key part of academia is precisely to spread and exchange knowledge.

In this light it is funny to see that in many universities (especially in Germany) teaching is not valued much for career progression.

Re: T-Shaped People and Academia

#82

Post by RhysU »

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'…

Speaking as an applied research manager in industry, I don't want to hire great academic students that cannot also be reasonably successful in delivering on these non-academic tasks.

Sure, for example, it's a waste to have a newly minted PhD set up CI systems. However, it's more of a waste to have them blocked waiting on someone else and then beholden to someone else every time there's an issue.

Researchers that can drop into the technology stack are great productivity multipliers for themselves and for their peers.

Academic types do their students a disservice when neglecting the development of such skills. Not everyone lands a professorship.

Also, didn't a bunch of these ML folks get undergrad CS degrees? Why should they be unable to do undergrad CS tasks?

Re: T-Shaped People and Academia

#83

Post by periheli0n »

Topolomancer wrote: post #76
periheli0n wrote: post #57

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 mu…

> 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. (I replied to another comment of yours, but wanted to get this in as well) Yes, absolutely, and this is somewhat painful to me, because I think that a PhD can also be a per…

> a PhD can also be a period of tremendous joy for such people because they might use it to experiment broadly with their skill set.

Definitely! But in the end they come out frustrated, because they get overtaken by their more focused peers on the career ladder.

There are other opportunities aside from a PhD where talented people can hone their skills while earning comparably low salaries. Startups, for example.

Re: T-Shaped People and Academia

#84

Post by Topolomancer »

periheli0n wrote: post #83
Topolomancer wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. (I replied to another comment of yours, but wanted to get this in as well) Yes, absolutely, and this is somewhat painful to me, because I think that a PhD can also be a per…

> a PhD can also be a period of tremendous joy for such people because they might use it to experiment broadly with their skill set. Definitely! But in the end they come out frustrated, because they get overtaken by their more focused peers on the career ladder. There are other opportunities aside from a PhD where talented people can hone their skills while earning comparably low salaries. Startups, for example.

Yes, I wonder what would be the best course of action. Pointing out the dangers to them early on, maybe?

Re: T-Shaped People and Academia

#85

Post by Topolomancer »

tgv wrote: post #63
periheli0n wrote: post #57

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 mu…

> It will be near impossible to get tenure if one develops T-shaped qualities. That's completely true in my experience, and not only because of the "lack of depth". Interdisciplinary work is simply not rewarded, because your papers are only partially recognized in the department you apply to. I worked in a cog.sci/comp.sci mixture with the focus on language (which adds linguistics), but the psychology departments did…

Author here---I agree with you in that interdisciplinary research is not rewarded. I want to stress that I am not proposing to exploit PhDs by making them do support work. If anything, I am saying: when hiring them, consider rewarding the support that they might have already done instead of just looking at 'no. of papers in high-impact venues.'

> PhD programs should only be allowed when there's a guarantee of a worthy curriculum, and sufficient supervision, and support. There'll be less PhDs, but that might even be beneficial.

Absolutely! Maybe that's the way forward.

Re: T-Shaped People and Academia

#86

Post by Topolomancer »

periheli0n wrote: post #81
Topolomancer wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only partially agree with you there---as a PI, I also have an option to reward these sort of activities. I understand that it is not a good idea to employ someone for the wrong role, so any 'non-core work' activities need to be at least discussed with respect to potential ramifications. However, I find it somehow weird that we only ever measure success along one axis. Moreover, these students often serve as facilit…

> as a PI, I also have an option to reward these sort of activities. But honestly, your options are very limited, especially in Germany. You cannot pay them more, and you also cannot offer them a permanent employment contract. Most of the time it’s even hard to extend an existing contract. You can perhaps send them to nice conferences, but then you would send the principal author to the conference, too. But I totally…

Your comment is spot on.

> But I totally agree that academia fails at rewarding people who facilitate the work of others. There is some perversion to this, since the key part of academia is precisely to spread and exchange knowledge.

Yes. I saw quite a few talented people turn the backs on a career in academia for exactly this reason.

> In this light it is funny to see that in many universities (especially in Germany) teaching is not valued much for career progression.

Also yes---but that part is at least changing a little bit (even though the predominant thinking is still 'Yeah, who cares?') in the younger generation of PIs.

Re: T-Shaped People and Academia

#87

Post by bjornsing »

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 agree.

But I think there’s also a basic misunderstanding about what a T-shaped individual is and why they are sought after outside academia. It’s not because they can do a bit of everything, setting up the build system with one hand and designing the logo with the other. (That’s more what you’d call a jack of all trades.)

The reason T-shaped individuals are sought after in industry is that they are effective leaders. They understand enough about the problem domain(s) to identify meaningful problems and enough about the solution domain to help map out the solution space.

The reason you’d want more T-shaped people in machine learning research is that they will ask better research questions, not because they’ll design prettier logos.

Re: T-Shaped People and Academia

#88

Post by periheli0n »

Topolomancer wrote: post #86
periheli0n wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as a PI, I also have an option to reward these sort of activities. But honestly, your options are very limited, especially in Germany. You cannot pay them more, and you also cannot offer them a permanent employment contract. Most of the time it’s even hard to extend an existing contract. You can perhaps send them to nice conferences, but then you would send the principal author to the conference, too. But I totally…

Your comment is spot on. > But I totally agree that academia fails at rewarding people who facilitate the work of others. There is some perversion to this, since the key part of academia is precisely to spread and exchange knowledge. Yes. I saw quite a few talented people turn the backs on a career in academia for exactly this reason. > In this light it is funny to see that in many universities (especially in Germany…

> that part is at least changing a little bit (even though the predominant thinking is still 'Yeah, who cares?') in the younger generation of PIs.

Things are changing extremely slowly in academia. It’s always the old faculty that decides who becomes new faculty, and their decisions tend to be very conservative. What’s worse, I have seen very progressive young PIs become complacent and conservative once they had tenure. I wouldn’t bet on academia changing its tenure criteria.

Re: T-Shaped People and Academia

#89

Post by periheli0n »

Topolomancer wrote: post #84
periheli0n wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a PhD can also be a period of tremendous joy for such people because they might use it to experiment broadly with their skill set. Definitely! But in the end they come out frustrated, because they get overtaken by their more focused peers on the career ladder. There are other opportunities aside from a PhD where talented people can hone their skills while earning comparably low salaries. Startups, for example.

Yes, I wonder what would be the best course of action. Pointing out the dangers to them early on, maybe?

I would go even a step further, and expose them to industry through collaborations as much as possible. That way they can not only make up their own mind whether academia or industry is for them, but also create a network that might help them find a job.

Re: T-Shaped People and Academia

#90

Post by Topolomancer »

periheli0n wrote: post #88
Topolomancer wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment is spot on. > But I totally agree that academia fails at rewarding people who facilitate the work of others. There is some perversion to this, since the key part of academia is precisely to spread and exchange knowledge. Yes. I saw quite a few talented people turn the backs on a career in academia for exactly this reason. > In this light it is funny to see that in many universities (especially in Germany…

> that part is at least changing a little bit (even though the predominant thinking is still 'Yeah, who cares?') in the younger generation of PIs. Things are changing extremely slowly in academia. It’s always the old faculty that decides who becomes new faculty, and their decisions tend to be very conservative. What’s worse, I have seen very progressive young PIs become complacent and conservative once they had tenur…

> What’s worse, I have seen very progressive young PIs become complacent and conservative once they had tenure.

That's what I am worried about in myself, having seen this in others as well. I'll try to be more introspective.

> I wouldn’t bet on academia changing its tenure criteria.

No, I am not doing that either, but in this case, there's always the 'War Games' games response: 'A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.'

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