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I'm quitting my PhD

blog.derhagen.eu

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Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#311

Post by dr_dshiv »

dizzant wrote: post #149
matthewdgreen wrote: post #27

I feel for the student writing this piece and I'm sad that they've developed some bitterness at their advisors and the entire field (which I read in the piece, even if it wasn't the intent.) Everyone needs to understand something important: a PhD is first and foremost an apprenticeship. It is your opportunity to study under someone who has done a specific kind of research, and learn from that person. If that relation…

Thanks for this perspective. I am one of these mismatched PhD students. When I entered 6 years ago, no professors in my department had time to advise me. The professor for whom I was a GTA took pity on me after two years of rejection, and now serves as my committee chair despite having little to no expertise in my field. I am coadvised through a different department, but again, my coadvisor has little overlap with my…

Most good phd programs ensure that you won’t defend unless you will pass. That’s the purpose of the proposal. PhDs can be great— they mostly aren’t. But having a PhD is awesome. You can be an expert in anything the rest of your life. I say that sort of tongue in cheek. But really, your dissertation doesn’t matter.

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#312

Post by bsedlm »

cycomanic wrote: post #303
Emma_Goldman wrote: post #38

> "Aiming to produce PDF files that would be accepted at conferences (which seems to be easy-going if you sprinkle some fancy quantum vocabulary over something and hand it in to a non-quantum conference). I felt less and less comfortable in a setting that apparently expected me to pick some low-hanging – let’s call it fruits – and call it a day. After all, science is all about the pursuit of knowledge, even though th…

I disagree, generally it's important to get feedback often and early. Conferences and publications are an important part of the process. That is not to defend the salami strategies of some research labs, but science is moving to fast to wait for your deeply thought out 500 page opus dei, which likely has been obsoleted by some finding published at a conference 2 years ago that you didn't attend. I have seen the false…

there's too much science "up in the air" (to refer to the stuff that hasn't made it down to the text books)

it bothers me but I cannot do anything about it (other than be bothered by it)

> I have seen the false perception a few times that a PhD is mainly about sitting down and thinking deeply for a long time without talking to anyone and then getting an eureka moment and writing it all up.

also, a big part of the complaint from the linked and removed original blogpost is precisely the lack of being able to find people with whom to discuss. His advisors are not knowledgeable enough, (blog author claims) further, they advised them not to require so much in-depth knowledge in their thesis (!!).

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#313

Post by walleeee »

akjssdk wrote: post #243
dschuetz wrote: post #25

Good for him. Because of this: "My supervisors have a rather superficial understanding of Quantum Computing, and I feel like their idea to start a project in that domain was to a not inconsiderable extent motivated by the prospect of granted research funds , not primarily by their desire to achieve a deeper understanding of quantum stuff." It's always about grant money. Especially with anything that starts with Quant…

Why is no one considering that this PhD student is wrong and that his supervisor does in fact know what they are doing? Starting in a new field is hard, and it takes years to get a broad view of the field in order to understand what directions to take. As a PhD student you are not expected to be able to do this: this is why you have a supervisor who has enough experience. Maybe the supervisor does have a clear vision…

it's possible, but as far as I can tell enough of the quantum computing literature is overblown to make the anecdote plausible

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#314

Post by dehrmann »

sally_glance wrote: post #276
dehrmann wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'd be interesting to see someone with industry experience bring industry problems to academia and explore them there. As a bonus, they might be accomplished enough professionally that they aren't interested in the publication rat race, so they're more likely to produce meaningful results (or nothing, but that's ok!) than a pointless paper.

In most faculties this is already happening, mainly because solving a problem that big corp is interested in will make it more likely to secure funding (by big corp), and in general you probably want to discuss (or even evaluate) the practical applications of your (maybe theoretical) research. They will still be part of the rat race though. Actually it's been interesting to observe the opposite, I know some PhD stude…

> big corp offered them a nice position in their innovation branch with much more freedom (and financial security) to work on their favourite problem

I'm going to pick on Timnit Gebru, or at least what became more obvious with that debacle. Both the directional freedom and financial security are there, but part of your job is PR, and you don't have the same freedom a professor with tenure gets. If you have a paper that is critical of your employer or they don't like it for any reason, they can kill it. That's the deal.

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#315

Post by lumost »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #27

I feel for the student writing this piece and I'm sad that they've developed some bitterness at their advisors and the entire field (which I read in the piece, even if it wasn't the intent.) Everyone needs to understand something important: a PhD is first and foremost an apprenticeship. It is your opportunity to study under someone who has done a specific kind of research, and learn from that person. If that relation…

It seems like the PhD admission process is mismatched with the goal of admission. Phd students are recruited based on application rather than research interest. A candidate can easily go to an are which they have zero interest in.

Why not match students with professors pre admission? Phd from mit doesn’t mean much if you can’t work in your chosen field.

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#316

Post by aqsalose »

ModernMech wrote: post #298
dschuetz wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do PhD students have much choice which supervisor they can choose? Supervisors do not come in all sizes, most of the time you have to deal with whoever is out there, whether you like them or not. I have worked within academics, not as a researcher though, and from my experience academia is not about pursuing the knowledge and sciences. That's an intrinsic motivation some researchers still might have. Academia is rath…

> academia is not about pursuing the knowledge and sciences This criticism always gets me. Just how pure do you expect academics to be? They're already not working for the same money they could be getting in industry, now they also have to eschew prestige in their own communities, or else they're not driven by the pure intellectual pursuit of knowledge and science? When you're paid half of what you're worth, you find…

>They're already not working for the same money they could be getting in industry, now they also have to eschew prestige in their own communities, or else they're not driven by the pure intellectual pursuit of knowledge and science?

I think the common form of the complaint is that the prestige-generating mechanism has is too decoupled from the scientific advances.

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#317

Post by dr_dshiv »

chrisseaton wrote: post #297
matthewdgreen wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holding someone to a (US-style) thesis proposal is hard enough when they're already familiar with the area and have a couple of years of direct research experience under their belt. Doing it even earlier in the process sounds much harder.

> Doing it even earlier in the process sounds much harder. Right - which is why it's a better check before they embark on a PhD.

I disagree. It’s a final check to ensure that you will defend successfully. It is much easier to reject a proposal a year before the defense than to reject a defense.

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#318

Post by ModernMech »

afr0ck wrote: post #252
bumby wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested in hearing your perspective on what's broken, why, and what avenues are available to fix it. (Genuinely curious, I know the tone of that sentence may come across as dismissive. It wasn't intended to.)

Academia is no more motivated by a honest interest to understand things around us, raise questions and spend time deeply thinking and genuinely coming up with solutions that really make sense and bring change to the world. A lot of researchers are very mediocre and they treat research as a simple career where they superficially advise a bunch of PhD students. A lot of those researchers neither think nor raise questio…

Okay that's your problem with the system, but how would you propose to fix it? That's the important part. And be careful in your proposal that you don't end up reinventing the current system (but worse), because lots of proposals I've seen tend to go that way (coming from a place that doesn't actually understand the system they purportedly want to fix).

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#319

Post by lumost »

bumby wrote: post #301
ModernMech wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> from what I'm hearing so far: There is little to no value assigned to the _paper_ I was given this advice when I was wavering on whether to finish my Ph.D. In fact, a guy who had finished his Ph.D. told me don't bother, nothing changed from before or after he got it. Then I went to his wedding and he had the DJ refer to him as "Dr." the entire night in front of his entire family, and by God did they care. They were…

> and by God did they care. I find it generally bad advice to chase after something when the main driver is social prestige. For one, by definition, you hinging your esteem to the (possibly fickle) opinion of somebody else and two, the people who are in fields for status rather than because of intrinsic joy of the work itself are often not the most productive or ethical. For example, the surgeons I know who are in th…

A phd is a one time expense, you can choose to discard it or use it as needed. Unlike a surgeon, who must spend their career actually doing surgery or face financial ruin.

Anecdotally, I have seen phds create expectation vs reality mismatches for some. The degree can easily become an anchor which holds someone to problems that they no longer care about, or provides false belief in one’s credentials.

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#320

Post by mmastrac »

tomatowurst wrote: post #272
mmastrac wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone takes the post down, is it a good idea to post the text here? They clearly didn't want it left up in public.

There is no implicit agreement to privacy between the author and public. Especially when there is an effort to archive the internet.

There's no agreement, but is it _the right thing_?
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