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Abolish the PhD (2016)

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Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#161

Post by nautilius »

chrisseaton wrote: post #71
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…

> 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…

You want to be a PhD employee so that you don't have to pay college out of your own pocket.

Sure, most would prefer to be rich, or have their parents be rich, or having gotten a full ride or some other stipend. But that's not the norm for most PhD students. For most, the alternative to not being a PhD student employee is to leave college and become an employee employee.

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#162

Post by light_hue_1 »

jltsiren wrote: post #149
light_hue_1 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> PhD students in the EU make less than students in the US! And virtually all of them in the US get full benefits. > This is completely false. Then you don't know the US system. As evidenced by the fact that you say: > With +16% in bonuses, paid vacations, paid sick days, etc. With bonus the salary is 32364-40600 Which is more than 90% of US stipends. Every PhD student at every university I've ever seen has paid vac…

> Every PhD student at every university I've ever seen has paid vacation, paid sick days, etc. Conference travel all around the world, at levels that EU universities can't match. As a PhD student my program basically paid for vacations in: China, 4 different EU countries, 5-6 different US states + Hawaii + Alaska, Japan, etc. There are plenty of bonuses and perks. Conference travel and short-term research visits have…

> Conference travel and short-term research visits have nothing to do with vacation. They are just business travel, where you rarely have enough time to do anything interesting.

That's the European view for sure. In the US it's perfectly normal for PhD students to take a week off at the conference destination and enjoy. While the university pays for all of the flights, and the stipend paid during the conference is enough to cover the expenses of the vacation.

> I did my PhD in Finland and finished about a decade ago. During that time, I made business trips ...

Except that I got to take 1-2 weeks off at those places after every conference. As do many US PhD students.

> Also, this branch of the discussion was not about the EU but about "much of Europe". That usually refers to the West/North European countries that remained free after WW2

Sure. The example given was that of University of Amsterdam. Where students are not better off than in the US, and in many ways are much worse off (job-wise).

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#163

Post by light_hue_1 »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #153
light_hue_1 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> PhD students in the EU make less than students in the US! And virtually all of them in the US get full benefits. > This is completely false. Then you don't know the US system. As evidenced by the fact that you say: > With +16% in bonuses, paid vacations, paid sick days, etc. With bonus the salary is 32364-40600 Which is more than 90% of US stipends. Every PhD student at every university I've ever seen has paid vac…

>Then you don't know the US system. As evidenced by the fact that you say: I've been in it, stipends in my department were ~$18,000 per year with medical insurance and some funding for conference travel. No Vacation days, no sick days, nothing else. >I'm at one of these places. In terms of benefits, we far outstrip the EU. The flexibility we have to spend money on travel, equipment, perks, is incomparable. Columbia:…

> Columbia: No paid time off, no sick days: https://studentbenefits.provost.columbia.edu/content/compens...

Fun fact, your own page shows that the the minimum at Columbia is higher than the max at University of Amsterdam!

The idea that EU PhD students are paid better than US PhD students is just as absurd now, as it was when you stated it first.

> No paid time off, no sick days

There's a lot of confusion here. People look at lists like this and they assume they are comparable to their EU counterparts. In the EU the university tends to be king and sets the rules for departments. In the US departments are far more autonomous and many things are more informal. The university sets lower bounds that departments add to.

All you need to do is look at the department website: https://www.cs.columbia.edu/education/phd/policies/ CS PhD students at Columbia get two weeks vacation + 11 federal holidays. There you go!

> Find me Stanford's list of benefits showing they offer paid vacation.

Ok.. all you need to do is open the grad student handbook. https://adminguide.stanford.edu/chapter-10/subchapter-2/poli...

But again. You need to drop your narrow EU bureaucratic view of things. I have never applied to vacation as a grad student. Never, among my 50+ grad students so far as a single grad student applied for vacation. Not one of them has ever applied for vacation time. Grad students just tell me "Hey, I'll be gone these 3 weeks." And I say "Enjoy". That's it. Same with sick leave.

You cannot interpret US rules from the EU point of view. It's nonsense.

> I didn't backtrack at all. You're the one ignoring the fact that Amsterdam is the same cost as Chapel Hill but offers up to 15k more in salary and much better benefits and there's an even bigger delta in cheaper Dutch cities.

You have no idea about the cost of housing in UCN vs Amsterdam. Or what cheap means.

You can rent, right now, a 2 bedroom / 2 bath with a pool for $1100-1200 in Chapel Hill that's an easy walking distance to the university. That's without searching and at literally the worst time of the year to rent anything in a college town. And that's walking distance. If you want to drive to stay in a "smaller town" you can pay $800 for a 2 bedroom.

The US is far more sparsely settled than Western Europe. Cheap small towns here are far far cheaper.

> So you can make up numbers all you want and pretend that conference travel is somehow better than Bonuses, PTO, Sick days and Pension plans but no one buys that.

Your own numbers completely refute your story. And even the simplest Google search shows that perks in the US are actually far better than perks in the EU. That vacations are good, conference travel is not "business travel" in the US, that you get paid time off, etc.

But you don't want to look even at the evidence you find. You want to believe what you believe. I'm out!

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#164

Post by selimthegrim »

dls2016 wrote: post #110
linuxftw wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

At UCSB there was a 403b plan set up by the UAW under UC auspices

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#165

Post by selimthegrim »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #75
_8j50 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't believe I didn't know this, I thought yoy had to have masters before phd.

The thing is, if you don't have top grades or an exceptional background, most universities will expect you to have a Master's, instead. But if you do have top grades, or an exceptional background, then you can probably go straight into a PhD from high school, or anyway many universities will accept you. It matters a lot whom you have impressed with your skills, your knowledge and your dedication, it goes without sayi…

In the US this is not usual. I had one but I was changing fields.

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#166

Post by selimthegrim »

light_hue_1 wrote: post #148
adamsmith143 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The EU is in many ways worse. You have the same problem except that your PhD is worth much less. This is debatable. >PhD students in the EU make less than students in the US! And virtually all of them in the US get full benefits. This is completely false. The absolute highest stipends in the US are at places like Stanford or Columbia and even then only reach something like 45000 per year and both Palo Alto and NYC a…

>> PhD students in the EU make less than students in the US! And virtually all of them in the US get full benefits. > This is completely false. Then you don't know the US system. As evidenced by the fact that you say: > With +16% in bonuses, paid vacations, paid sick days, etc. With bonus the salary is 32364-40600 Which is more than 90% of US stipends. Every PhD student at every university I've ever seen has paid vac…

>Every PhD student at every university I've ever seen has paid vacation, paid sick days, etc

I’ve been both at a UC and a private Southern university and I’ve never seen this.

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#167

Post by selimthegrim »

light_hue_1 wrote: post #163
adamsmith143 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Then you don't know the US system. As evidenced by the fact that you say: I've been in it, stipends in my department were ~$18,000 per year with medical insurance and some funding for conference travel. No Vacation days, no sick days, nothing else. >I'm at one of these places. In terms of benefits, we far outstrip the EU. The flexibility we have to spend money on travel, equipment, perks, is incomparable. Columbia:…

> Columbia: No paid time off, no sick days: https://studentbenefits.provost.columbia.edu/content/compens ... Fun fact, your own page shows that the the minimum at Columbia is higher than the max at University of Amsterdam! The idea that EU PhD students are paid better than US PhD students is just as absurd now, as it was when you stated it first. > No paid time off, no sick days There's a lot of confusion here. Peopl…

>The university sets lower bounds that departments add to

My university abolished its Graduate School staff after Katrina. Pray tell, what lower bounds again?

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#168

Post by selimthegrim »

Test0129 wrote: post #160

I dropped from my PhD program after 2 years because I could not afford it. I didn't even get the masters, even though I had no problem maintaining class work with an external job. There was too much pressure for funding and I was excluded from a lot of good research because I was "paying my own way". They offered me a 13,000/year stipend if I was an RA + teaching summer classes. I could not take this because even wit…

The problem is that “paying your own way” is synonymous with “no one prevetted these ideas so publication will be harder”

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#169

Post by bunbunbun »

chrisseaton wrote: post #120
adamsmith143 wrote: post #114

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, instead of working on your own research? Did you actually do a PhD? You ought to know that you are completely beholden to your advisor, what they want you to work on, what papers they want you to write, the classes they want you to take etc. As an employee you actually have rights, benefits…

> what they want you to work on, what papers they want you to write, the classes they want you to take etc This isn't my experience. A PhD is supposed to be your own research, not your advisor's.

Yeah, it is supposed to be that in theory. But in practice, I had to be trained through multiple research positions doing work for other people, none of whom had managerial experience or training. It was very chaotic and I rarely had time to work on my own research until dissertation.

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#170

Post by Fomite »

bunbunbun wrote: post #169
chrisseaton wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what they want you to work on, what papers they want you to write, the classes they want you to take etc This isn't my experience. A PhD is supposed to be your own research, not your advisor's.

Yeah, it is supposed to be that in theory. But in practice, I had to be trained through multiple research positions doing work for other people, none of whom had managerial experience or training. It was very chaotic and I rarely had time to work on my own research until dissertation.

A PhD should be, at least in theory. Whether it is or not is a question - and "until dissertation" is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

Importantly, a staff scientist position will never be. If you cannot tie your project to one of my grants, you are losing me money. For a student, that might be acceptable. For a staff scientist, it's not.

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