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Abolish the PhD (2016)

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Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#101

Post by psi75 »

krastanov wrote: post #84
shioyama wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This a thousand times. > And while they are the primary workhorses of research, there are large swathes of their graduate student careers where they are not particularly (or often negatively) productive. Um, hello. This happens in industry as well. It's called training, learning, whatever. It's an investment on the part of the company in the future of its workforce. Why should academia expect to only pay employees wh…

You have a point, but graduate students are actually paid a salary, unlike what you suggested.

This is true in computer science, but not in all sciences, and certainly not in the humanities. Getting a TA-ship is considered undesirable in CS, but getting a TA-ship as a history PhD is considered rare and special.

There are a lot of problems, though. Your funding isn't guaranteed; you can be basically kicked out of the program (because very few people can afford to self-fund) for reasons that have nothing to do with you or your performance, and if this happens in your 4th or 5th year, you're fucked.

The other ugly fact is that even if you're not paying tuition, your advisor is. This means there's less money to send you to conferences or fund his lab, and it means he's under tighter financial constraints than he really should be. Your advisor gets his budget docked $80,000, and only $20,000 goes to you (the rest, to tuition). That's a bit ridiculous, especially because you're no longer taking many classes or using university resources except to do work on their behalf. There's no good reason you can't be paid $50,000 and your advisor has $30,000 more to fund his lab.

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#102

Post by [deleted] »

suyjuris wrote: post #67
Topolomancer wrote: post #33

There are some very good points in the article. As someone whose adviser proved troublesome when it came to graduating and letter writing (a horrible practice as well!), I second most of the points made. At the same time, there's also reason for cautious optimism. In the German system, for instance, PhD students are paid (mind you, it's an academic salary, which is not a lot but a first year PhD student with a full t…

> In the German system, for instance, PhD students are paid (mind you, it's an academic salary, which is not a lot but a first year PhD student with a full time contract already makes more money than the median German salaried worker) Just to put numbers on this: PhD students earn roughly 4300€ per month (before taxes and insurance), resulting in something like 2600€ take-home pay. This is for a “full-time” position…

[deleted]

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#103

Post by psi75 »

ModernMech wrote: post #90
xyzzy123 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In industry we just call those junior and senior employees.

Is it expected that a junior employee will remain as such for 5-10 years? Of course not. Junior employees are promoted and given more responsibility, or they are fired quickly if they are not performing well. Do companies let junior employees work on whatever they want? Manage their time as they want? No, one of the key indicators of an employee status is that their time and work is managed by their employer. If a ju…

What's notable here is not that academia is so great, but that becoming an employee has become so bad.

In the Bell Labs days, before our economy got taken over by criminals, smart employees really were treated as researchers-in-residence who could mostly pick and choose their projects. They didn't have as much freedom as tenured professors--they still had to work on things the company cared about--but they had a level of autonomy that, these days, doesn't really exist.

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#104

Post by ModernMech »

fruffy wrote: post #87
chrisseaton wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am not a mere "student", I am a full-time employee. Isn't 'student' the preferable option here? I was proud to be a student when I was doing my PhD. (I said 'doctoral student' when I wanted to be more clear.) Why do you want to work for someone else, on their hours, answerable to them, doing their research and teaching their classes, instead of working on your own research? I can't understand why you'd want to be…

>Why do you want to work for someone else, on their hours, answerable to them, doing their research and teaching their classes Well, you are still forced to do all that. After all, you often depend on your advisor's funding or expectations. They can make or break you. You get "freedom", but with that freedom 1) you do not have an actual contract listing your hours or any sort of vacation policy. 2) vacations in gener…

I don’t disbelieve your post, I’m sure you’re speaking from experience, but this is a YMMV kind of deal.

1) I did have a contract listing hours, and the vacation policy was the academic calendar: a week in the fall, 5 weeks in the winter, a week in the spring, 3 months in the summer.

2) I didn’t experience any work whatsoever during Christmas

3) Didn’t have a pension plan, but the University did offer reasonable health benefits, and the ACA covered the rest of my family at a low premium.

4) I definitely got paid regularly through the University payroll system.

5) I was given summer contracts to continue doing paid research over the summer. This was a choice, I could have taken internships or a vacation.

6) This is more of an issue with US visas, not really something academics can control

7) I was definitely well supported by my lab, peers, and advisors when I pursued my own research goals. They were very eager to see my results.

I wouldn’t say that your bullet points really represent my institution, so “across the board” usually has a boundary at a specific department or school. I wouldn’t generalize your or my experience to all schools, as they can vary substantially.

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#105

Post by chrisseaton »

empyrrhicist wrote: post #97
fruffy wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why do you want to work for someone else, on their hours, answerable to them, doing their research and teaching their classes Well, you are still forced to do all that. After all, you often depend on your advisor's funding or expectations. They can make or break you. You get "freedom", but with that freedom 1) you do not have an actual contract listing your hours or any sort of vacation policy. 2) vacations in gener…

Do you not have a graduate student union?

Ours just did nonsense like run a cafe.

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#106

Post by ModernMech »

psi75 wrote: post #94
chrisseaton wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am not a mere "student", I am a full-time employee. Isn't 'student' the preferable option here? I was proud to be a student when I was doing my PhD. (I said 'doctoral student' when I wanted to be more clear.) Why do you want to work for someone else, on their hours, answerable to them, doing their research and teaching their classes, instead of working on your own research? I can't understand why you'd want to be…

The problem, I think, stems from the fact that a doctoral advisor, because he influences your reputation in all of academia rather than just one company, is even more of a career SPOF than a corporate manager. The good news is that your advisor is safe (tenured, or at least likely to make tenure) in most circumstances, so he's not going to fuck you over unless he's a truly terrible person, and 90 percent of people ar…

> If the advisor's getting cheap or free grunt work

This is a huge misconception. Yes, as a grad student you aren’t paid well. That doesn’t mean you are cheap for a PI. They have to pay your tuition, as well as university overhead related to your stipend. You don’t see a lot of that money in your bank account, but it is leaving the PI’s research grant nonetheless.

The most productive students are those who are about 3 years in when they are done with classes. The least productive ones are those about to graduate; they typically have a serious case of “senioritis”, and are often busy making contacts in industry and planning a career. Keeping them around makes them less productive, not more.

Professors want to graduate them to free up resources and to bolster their promotion portfolio.

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#108

Post by ur-whale »

Fomite wrote: post #6

"Problem is, “graduate students” are not students. They are workers." Graduate students are both . My students benefit heavily from me not necessarily treating them to the same standards as I would treat a full time research employee. And while they are the primary workhorses of research, there are large swathes of their graduate student careers where they are not particularly (or often negatively) productive. I will…

> "And while they are the primary workhorses of research"

If find this sentence borderline offensive, and for many reasons.

I'll just lay out the most prominent one: don't you miss doing actual work yourself?

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#109

Post by sybercecurity »

mr_mitm wrote: post #42
Topolomancer wrote: post #33

There are some very good points in the article. As someone whose adviser proved troublesome when it came to graduating and letter writing (a horrible practice as well!), I second most of the points made. At the same time, there's also reason for cautious optimism. In the German system, for instance, PhD students are paid (mind you, it's an academic salary, which is not a lot but a first year PhD student with a full t…

> In the German system, for instance, PhD students are paid Sometimes paid. In engineering and CS you might be able to land a full position, but for example in physics you can call yourself lucky if you get a half position -- with the same amount of work, obviously. Many must apply for scholarships, which is comparable to a half position but has the downside of not paying into unemployment insurance. In the humanitie…

It also depends on the university. There are usually positions as a teacher's aide in both STEM and humanities that provide a stipend for grad students. You are paid to grade undergraduates and sometimes teach, tutor, help in labs, etc. Depends on the university but one of the few ways to support grad students in the humanities.

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#110

Post by dls2016 »

linuxftw wrote: post #92
fruffy wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a current CS PhD in the US I find this sentiment aggravating. I am not a mere "student", I am a full-time employee. I do not take classes and I am not interested in taking classes. I would either like to teach or work on my research in a collaborative environment with other like-minded peers. Many PhDs are in their late 20s/early 30s, coming from all swaths of life. They are not children. However, in the American…

> Unfortunately, I think this is a systemic issue that is not easy to solve. It's incredibly easy to solve. Quit your PhD and encourage others to do so as well. You're being used.

Or, you know, unionize like regular workers. (Former UAW-represented PhD student, here.)

I then spent some time in the Swiss system as a postdoc... night and day! I went from the "American Riviera" (UCSB) to the "Swiss Riviera" (EPFL), and so living costs were about the same. But PhD students were paid more than twice what I was paid in the US.

Also much less teaching at EPFL, but that was probably due to differences in the "type" of institution.

(And what is a riviera?!)

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