Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Abolish the PhD (2016)

blog.devicerandom.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 197 posts

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#131

Post by taylodl »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #115
taylodl wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My son is currently working on his Ph.D. in CS. I've been working in industry for nearly 40 years. Let me address some of your points. 1. Many, many jobs don't have an actual contract listing your hours or any sort of vacation policy. Even for the jobs that do, there's no guarantee you'll actually be able to take your vacation, or take it when you'd like. 2. See (1). Vacations are almost always worked around projects…

>You are correct that the wages are barely livable. I can tell you from the experience my daughter had in pursuing a Ph.D. that the stipends for CS students are considerably higher than the stipends available for other fields in science. Plus the CS students have the opportunity to work over the Summer and make the "big bucks." Altogether you should be making $60K-$70K per year, which isn't a lot as far as CS grads g…

I'm not sure why you spent so much time defending the PhD system in the US which is frankly broken and borderline abusive.

C'mon - the entire U.S. employment system is broken. What I'm saying is let's not pretend it's only the Ph.D. students getting screwed over. The implication was your life would be so much better if you just went to private industry. No it won't, at least not in the U.S. I guess all that is to say employment in general in the U.S. is broken and borderline abusive (though I'd argue there's no borderline - it's abusive). But hey - I can either emigrate to another country where I have few friends and no family (the bulk of my friends an all of my family is here in the U.S.) or you suffer through their game so you can put a roof over your head and food on the table. I think it's time we acknowledge the quality of life in the U.S. isn't all it's cracked up to be. Oh sure, it could be worse - and boy, don't they always remind you about that! - but it could also be a lot better, which is something they rarely talk about. I guess I'm supposed to be happy I can carry my gun anywhere without needing a concealed carry permit. Apparently none of our other problems matter.

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#132

Post by badpun »

urthor wrote: post #78

Just pay them more. That's it. The return on investment for a PhD student in Computer Science to society must be absolutely ridiculous.

> The return on investment for a PhD student in Computer Science to society must be absolutely ridiculous.

Are you sure? Most of them produce a bunch of either theoretical papers with little hope of ever being applied (e.g. guys squabbling about second decimal point of the constant in theoretical computational complexity of some algorithm), or, if they're in an applied field, their papers are heavily gamified to beat state of the art in some meaningless way (or just fake the results). Most of it is useless BS and I'd say is actually worsening the society, because journals and conferences are now filled with useless cruft which make finding the actual valuable contributions very hard.

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#133

Post by light_hue_1 »

ImprobableTruth wrote: post #23
light_hue_1 wrote: post #8

This identifies a problem: PhD students are treated badly both in terms of working conditions and pay. The solution isn't to abolish the PhD. It's to have better working conditions and pay! PhD students should be employees with all of the protections this gives them. They should have unions (I have been both at union and non-union shops, you want to be in a graduate student union). PhD students should benefit from th…

>The demand for PhDs in industry is huge across many fields ... is it really? CS is as far as I know one of the fields with the highest demand and even there the jobs that actually need a phd are pretty rare. As far as I can tell it's possibly only ML where there's a good amount of jobs that essentially require a phd.

> ... is it really? CS is as far as I know one of the fields with the highest demand and even there the jobs that actually need a phd are pretty rare.

Yes. Although, I don't blame you for being misled by terrible articles about the situation.

Historically, departments look at PhDs that go to industry as having pursued "alternate careers" that the only real goal is to stay in academia at all costs. So they talk about them as being failures. Although, that couldn't be further from the truth.

STEM PhDs have huge demand. Bio PhDs, CS, Math PhDs, engineering, etc.

How you value PhDs also matters. In many fields, a PhD will not net you more money. It will net you a much more interesting job though. In some fields, like ML, it will net you both more money and a more interesting job.

But. There is vast vast oversupply of non-STEM PhDs. These departments need to be shut down or completely reformed to stop screwing over their students.

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#134

Post by eli_gottlieb »

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…

>the same standards as I would treat a full time research employee. And while they are the primary workhorses of research

They can't be the primary workhorses and also not research employees.

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#135

Post by light_hue_1 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #50
pca006132 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess he means with protections provided by employment laws, as there are no laws mandating protections such as annual leave for students? I think extending employment laws to cover graduate students or setup additional laws might be more appropriate.

> there are no laws mandating protections such as annual leave for students? Did I have an unusually permissive advisor or something? My advisor didn’t control my leave - it was up to me to manage my time.

> Did I have an unusually permissive advisor or something? My advisor didn’t control my leave - it was up to me to manage my time.

You indeed have a nice advisor. Some advisors are hard people who manage their student's time at 3am on a Saturday. Or who insist on 14 hour days. Students under these people (let's face it, they're not working with them, they're under them) have no good options.

I know many such students. Some universities are particularly prone to such behavior from faculty. I warn all of my undergrad students to go visit labs at 7-8pm and see how happy people are to be there before accepting an offer.

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#136

Post by light_hue_1 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #127
empyrrhicist wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you thinking of "union" in the sense of a building or common area? That's different. I mean an actual union chapter.

The National Union of Students is a pretty big and active union in the UK. I don't know what qualifies something as an 'actual union chapter' or not.

That's a union as in, we're students getting together to have fun.

People here are talking about a union as in organized labor. Where you have a leadership who negotiates a contract with the university, where you're a dues paying member, where you go on strike when advisors systematically abuse students.

You aren't part of a union sadly :(

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#137

Post by chrisseaton »

light_hue_1 wrote: post #136
chrisseaton wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The National Union of Students is a pretty big and active union in the UK. I don't know what qualifies something as an 'actual union chapter' or not.

That's a union as in, we're students getting together to have fun. People here are talking about a union as in organized labor. Where you have a leadership who negotiates a contract with the university, where you're a dues paying member, where you go on strike when advisors systematically abuse students. You aren't part of a union sadly :(

> Where you have a leadership who negotiates a contract with the university, where you're a dues paying member, where you go on strike when advisors systematically abuse students.

The NUS does all these things though. They have a leadership who negotiates with the university, they strike sometimes (a bit self-defeating - nobody suffers except their own education,) they take dues from you (via the university, so you don't see them.) They even campaign against politicians, and once made a concerted effort to get members of parliament unseated. That's more than most blue-collar unions do.

Except negotiate contracts, as you don't have a contract because... you're a student not labour - the crux of the issue under discussion!

But you're right I wasn't part of it - I opted out because as I say all they really achieved was running a mediocre cafe.

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#138

Post by light_hue_1 »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #112
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…

It's simple, much of Europe has already figured this out. Pay PhD students appropriately, and give them full benefits. The idea that they are only contributing work worth the equivalent of minimum wage in the US is completely absurd and ensures only students with particularly forgiving attitudes or ones from wealthy backgrounds can reasonably complete PhDs here. I recently saw PhD stipends at UNC Chapel Hill advertis…

> It's simple, much of Europe has already figured this out. Pay PhD students appropriately, and give them full benefits.

The EU is in many ways worse. You have the same problem except that your PhD is worth much less.

PhD students in the EU make less than students in the US! And virtually all of them in the US get full benefits.

You just said good salary, and listed University of Amsterdam as offering 27900-35000 per year.

At UNC, minimums are: bio $33k, chemistry $28k, CS $25k. And North Carolina is far cheaper than Amsterdam.

PhDs in the EU live often in much more expensive areas and make less than PhD students in the US.

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#139

Post by marcosdumay »

_8j50 wrote: post #20
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…

You can go from undergrad to phd???

Some countries impose (or almost impose) a masters in between. but it's more the exception than the rule.

(Also, those countries tend to have shorter PhDs. So it's not exactly wasted time.)

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#140

Post by rencrisa »

cashsterling wrote: post #126

I got my PhD in chemical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. - I was paid a stipend that actually covered all basic living expenses for my wife and I. - there was a 5 year limit for finishing PHD research, after which both the student and professor have to sign that they want to continue and the department would only allow that for about another year. - I was treated very fairly and respectfully by my adviso…

I am in a CS PhD at a top 10 institution, and I've had a great time in my lab. My advisor has a saying "You can never make me do something I'm not interested in!" Thus, I've personally never worked on anything I didn't enjoy. I learned a lot from my lab mates and my advisor.

Of course, I think this is super dependent on the subfield and advisor. Based on our department surveys, ML / AI / Graphics students rated the lowest in satisfaction, happiness, and highest in hours worked per week. While, Theory, HCI, and Systems are overall pretty happy and have regular working hours.

EDIT: In response to other threads, my pay is also very comfortable. I can take vacations, eat out, and afford a nice studio apartment. Free health insurance as well.

Post reply on HN