I'm quitting my PhD • Hacker News Board

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#41

Post by JackFr » Mon, May 23, 2022, 3:19 PM UTC

sdfhdhjdw3 wrote: post #20

I'm someone who finished a PhD, here's my perspective. You don't believe your supervisor or your research group and so you quit, great. It's great that you have the critical thinking abilities and confidence in yourself to make such a decision. However, I think it's extremely unprofessional to write a blog post saying that your supervisor is superficial or your research group is performative art. I don't say this bec…

Exactly. Giving the OP the benefit of the doubt -- that he is completely correct in his assessment of the group -- he is certainly doing himself no favors publicly throwing them under the bus. I imagine other prospective advisors, in any field, might be reluctant to take him on if this is a pontential outcome.

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#42

Post by radus » Mon, May 23, 2022, 3:19 PM UTC

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #16

I would love PhDs to be thought of as something you dive into when you have something to pursue, perhaps many years later in life rather than a follow on immediately after study. As a comparison imagine if VC funding only went to the highest scoring new grads and the business proposal was asked for after the invitation to take on VC funding. That's pretty much what's been happening with PhDs. You get the marks, you g…

This doesn't make sense for careers that require the additional training before you can be useful in your field.

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#43

Post by kongolongo » Mon, May 23, 2022, 3:20 PM UTC

I think the author was in a tough position to try and pursue this in the first place because, as they admit, they didn't have a direct background in the topic. That makes it difficult at the onset to look for programs and advisors with the the right type of experience to align with your desired research topic when you yourself do not have enough experience to make a fully informed judgement on how well their work in the field relates to what you want to explore.

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#44

Post by georgeecollins » Mon, May 23, 2022, 3:21 PM UTC

My experience with post docs in a science lab was that science was surprisingly tribal, and not in a completely bad way. Certain programs and labs trusted people and papers from other labs they knew. They tended to accept PhD students who were recommended by particular professors. And this clustering seemed to exist along some theoretical or subject matter divides. The benefit is that there is some consistency and some short hand or "lab lore" in common.

This article seems to be about a PhD candidate at a program that didn't really have people experienced in the field. If you want to get a science PhD, look at the papers by the tenured people in that program and see where they went to school. Look at who cites their papers. The schools that read their papers may be the ones that you can apply to later.

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#45

Post by gotbeans » Mon, May 23, 2022, 3:21 PM UTC

sdfhdhjdw3 wrote: post #20

I'm someone who finished a PhD, here's my perspective. You don't believe your supervisor or your research group and so you quit, great. It's great that you have the critical thinking abilities and confidence in yourself to make such a decision. However, I think it's extremely unprofessional to write a blog post saying that your supervisor is superficial or your research group is performative art. I don't say this bec…

> If you can't be specific enough to be scientific about it, just keep it to yourself.

It's a blog post, he definitely can say what he thinks, orthogonal to unprofessionality.

It's up to the reader to understand that's his view of reality and without any hard proof we should take his view as a data point, and potentially an erroneous one. Nothing more.

Last we need is people writing accusatory white papers to explain themselves over an opinion they had on a personal blog post.

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#46

Post by Aargau » Mon, May 23, 2022, 3:21 PM UTC

PhDs really require hard justification to continue. Especially in STEM where you can do as much research via a corporate job.

Happily left with an ABD to join Microsoft in 1995.

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#47

Post by AnotherGoodName » Mon, May 23, 2022, 3:21 PM UTC

radus wrote: post #42

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #16

I would love PhDs to be thought of as something you dive into when you have something to pursue, perhaps many years later in life rather than a follow on immediately after study. As a comparison imagine if VC funding only went to the highest scoring new grads and the business proposal was asked for after the invitation to take on VC funding. That's pretty much what's been happening with PhDs. You get the marks, you g…

This doesn't make sense for careers that require the additional training before you can be useful in your field.

Masters degrees are the way to learn something that exists in depth though. This is different to a PhD.

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#48

Post by balsam » Mon, May 23, 2022, 3:22 PM UTC

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #16

I would love PhDs to be thought of as something you dive into when you have something to pursue, perhaps many years later in life rather than a follow on immediately after study. As a comparison imagine if VC funding only went to the highest scoring new grads and the business proposal was asked for after the invitation to take on VC funding. That's pretty much what's been happening with PhDs. You get the marks, you g…

You got it. I don’t know how things worked in the old days before people started to think that becoming Einstein or Witten was a plausible career path, and academia oriented itself to deal with the demand. But. To imagine that culture-fit might allocate resources better than test-driven meritocracy! quantamagazine needs to start featuring more representative career paths like OP’s.

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#49

Post by pm90 » Mon, May 23, 2022, 3:22 PM UTC

sdfhdhjdw3 wrote: post #20

I'm someone who finished a PhD, here's my perspective. You don't believe your supervisor or your research group and so you quit, great. It's great that you have the critical thinking abilities and confidence in yourself to make such a decision. However, I think it's extremely unprofessional to write a blog post saying that your supervisor is superficial or your research group is performative art. I don't say this bec…

This is terrible advice (also from a smurf account).

Yes unsubstantiated claims can be harmful, but that doesn’t mean that no such claims should ever be made. The author is not just bad mouthing their research group, but presenting their perspective of what took place.

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#50

Post by diarrhea » Mon, May 23, 2022, 3:22 PM UTC

I will hand in my notice tomorrow, after circa 1 year as a PhD student. In fact, I'm switching fields: from a PhD in Mechanical Engineering (energy systems) to a software developer role in a non-engineering sector. Very little of my 7 years (MSc) and subsequent circa 1 year as a PhD will carry over.

Certainly an exciting step, although the program here was pretty excellent. Good supervision, full funding for the entire duration, topic of my choosing (I wrote parts of the grant).

The main reason I'm leaving is that Mech.Eng. PhDs just seem like such a conservative bunch. Most end up either in tiny, provincial ventures (think utilities companies, for my field) or as middle managers at huge companies (where I live, car manufacturers). They then are, for all intents and purposes, managers and not engineers anymore. The title is the ticket to a cushy life. Academia was never an option; the kind of work professors and researchers do seems horrendous! You're chasing grants and need to manage such a wide range of the most frustrating but also mundane issues.

Here's to hoping a software development career is more fruitful and fulfilling. A life-long IC position seems attractive. You get the benefits, but little of the fuss.

It seems like PhDs are sought after (if they are) for their frustration tolerances and project management capabilities. Maybe I didn't have enough of either. Then again, I'm absolutely convinced many more would quit prematurely if they had attractive alternatives. A lot of mechanical engineer PhDs don't, but thanks to the software world and my passion for it, I do.