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I'm quitting my PhD

blog.derhagen.eu

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Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#261

Post by JanisErdmanis »

koksik202 wrote: post #32

The opening line about not having prior exposure before PhD is something that makes me wonder if author did have industry experience prior to this undertaking, there are application and network security hands-on problems that can be solved with quantum computing. I have zero practical experience with quantum computing myself but I can count at least 2-3 practical projects I could work on before starting PhD in that f…

It is a generally accepted and being prove true countless times that all head on solutions to known problems have been already tried and published. What remains are solutions resembling "performative arts", like ones combining machine learning with quantum error correction. Sometimes works, but when they don't you can't explain why and are being instructed to try harder.

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#262

Post by throwaway68642 »

b215826 wrote: post #132

https://github.com/derhagen/derhagen.github.io/commit/71c934... I don't understand what's so controversial about this post that the author had to take it down. Seems like a level-headed criticism of modern-day academia to me. Sturgeon's rule applies to everything, including academia.

Posting his commit history seems like a bit of a transgression though. If he's taken the post down I don't consider it any of our business.

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#264

Post by JanisErdmanis »

sydthrowaway wrote: post #240

To paraphrase a former HN user, isn't quantum computing obvious bullshit?

A question what could one do with large `SU(N)` matrix accelerator is academically interesting. Also, interesting question is whether there are fundamental limits on the size of quantum computer which can be built for which you can't make an answer before have experienced struggle in building one.

Generally, the idea that quantum computing would solve many issues of practical importance is overinflated hype. If it ever gets built with arbitrary scale it would add another attack vector for known cryptographic primitives.

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#265

Post by bumby »

chrisseaton wrote: post #241
bumby wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we wouldn't have anyone trained to do research Can you explain this further? I don't follow how, for example, if I wait 10 years to begin a PhD there is somehow no research being conducted. Even if everyone suddenly waited 10 years, there would only be a lag for the first generation.

If you do a PhD at 21, you’ve got 40 years of productive research ahead of you. If you do one at 40 you’ve only got 21 years. Less time to research, so missed opportunity.

Thanks for replying. I think I would push back a bit on the idea that research generally only commences after a PhD. Maybe in academia, but in industry (engineering at least, I don't know on the CS side), an awful lot of research is done at masters or even bachelors levels.

The people I know who've gone for a PhD later in life were already doing research and generally took the path because the credential opened professional doors (e.g., to become a supervisor or director), not necessarily facilitated greater amounts of research.

To play devil's advocate, you could in theory increase the amount of research by opening avenues for non-traditional PhDs. There will still be those who start a program at 21, plus those starting at 40 who would normally not engage in a program.

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#266

Post by chinchilla2020 »

rickstanley wrote: post #88

I haven't finished the whole article, but I can resonate with this specific statement: > "However, just a couple of months into my project, I figured out, I wouldn’t find anyone to discuss my research with..." While studying physics and math, many, and I mean *many* of my friends had a difficult time trying to understand both, sometimes they would get bored and just try to get the "just right" grade to pass. I had th…

There is also the matter of what stage of your journey you are in.

People pass through many different interests on their journey and often become bored with areas they have already passed through. For you and me, we could help a child with their algebra homework but it would not be something we would be passionate about. The child, on the other hand, might find algebra fascinating and want to talk more about it.

It is very rare for two people who are in the exact same spot in life to collide. It happens rarely in university, even where those people are concentrated heavily.

The same story is true with personal hobbies and interests.

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#267

Post by selimthegrim »

zackmorris wrote: post #90

For what it's worth, I burned out sometime in the late 90s just after video cards came out around 1997, because I could see how they would drive video game design towards a narrow branch of DSP/rasterization and building derivative games with cookie cutter libraries. At the time, I was more interested in getting away from all of that and exploring stuff like ray tracing and artificial life. My interest in video games…

What you’re looking for exists with stuff like Gleason’s theorem and noncontextuality, but it’s not what you would train up in if you wanted to be “productive”.

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#268

Post by throwaway4220 »

dotnet00 wrote: post #206
throwaway4220 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically I started a PhD, and told myself if I don't submit anything to publish anything in a year, I'm gonna quit. I found I just don't have the discipline and self-motivation for a PhD. I had already taken a year of classes so I qualified for the MS. I was only joking about the "dishonorably discharged" - that's just how I felt not being able to cut it.

As someone doing a PhD right now, I think not having something to publish within a year isn't all too unreasonable. After transferring from masters to PhD, it has still taken a little over a year for my collaboration with my advisors and other PhDs to mature enough to result in several publications happening roughly around the same time. I did initially have someone scare me into thinking that if I didn't publish eve…

No absolutely, it really was a challenge I gave myself and I failed. Several of my classmates didn't publish until their fourth year or so.

But I saw how much work they put in, how organized and passionate they were, and felt like i was just a moth in the lighting section of a hardware store just going towards the next brightest thing. I finally picked a lab and project under a postdoc (who took 6 years to finish his PhD, and was coming upon his tenth year of being a postdoc which should have been a huge red flag). I did about 6 months of reading, some microscope work (was a dev biology lab, another huge red flag given I was basically under the engineering dept). I would come in late night when the lab was free, and felt like I was working hard, but really I had no direction.

When I realized 6 months out that I basically knew nothing, had no goals/interesting ideas, I panicked a bit. I went home for a week to ruminate. My dad actually told me something (I thought at the time) prophetic: I should be giving my school/academic institution a good name, not the other way around. I realized there's no way I could live up to that standard, but I could see people in my class definitely do that (Impostor syndrome? probably, but I'd add laziness to it).

I basically then told myself: publish something in one year, or apply to medical school which I was slowly starting to get interested in.

PhDs (esp in biology/chem/physics) are a different breed in my eyes, and get lots of respect. I wish you the very best!

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#269

Post by aqsalose »

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…

His accusations in the web archive snapshot that I pulled are ... quite mild, concrete and specific enough: Nobody to talk about in the university about your projects or topics. First PhD student. No postdoc working on the same topic. Advisors who suggest to do a thesis on something else, less difficult or familiar ... and the project seems to be less and less about the hot buzzword in the advertisement or grant proposal.

This is spots on description of what happens if you waltz into some university department or research group intending to "do a PhD" in something that isn't the core competency your group. This is very common in "provincial universities" but also happens to lesser in top schools if you just happen to come in with expectations that are misaligned with the reality. It is a side product of the sad aspect of academic reality that finding funding for a PhD student is often much easier than finding funding for a post-doc or more senior member, even though that is exactly the wrong way to build a good research group.

Philip Guo's the PhD Grind describes many of the same challenges.

I also share a memory of older member of the faculty suggesting that your PhD is supposed to a formality to endure. "A driving license", not real real research with your own ideas. It was very depressing thing to hear, because I too went in with an attitude of "I shall study a question I was interested in my undergrad, but seriously this time".

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#270

Post by passivate »

Kranar wrote: post #157
passivate wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's not exhausting, you're just refusing to understand the other side of the argument. Do you also accept the "other side" of the argument that the author of the blog post could be wrong?

I don't accept either side of the argument as true, my point is simply that telling someone to keep their story to themselves unless they can present an argument that satisfies a scientific standard is missing the point being made. People make arguments that are purposely vague to avoid causing undue harm both to themselves and, believe it or not, to the people they are accusing. Usually you do this because you're no…

>telling someone to keep their story to themselves unless they can present an argument that satisfies a scientific standard

I don't see where they made this claim, or a reference to a 'scientific standard'. Can you please point to it?

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