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Abolish the PhD (2016)

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171–180 of 197 posts

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#171

Post by Fomite »

shioyama wrote: post #13
xyzzy123 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In industry we just call those junior and senior employees.

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…

I pay my graduate students.

But the expectations are different. "Well, what do you want to work on?" and tailoring a four or five year program to meet those needs is something I'm very unlikely to do for a staff scientist, but something I discuss with every one of my graduate students.

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#172

Post by Fomite »

kergonath wrote: post #125
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…

> But they are students . They are trainees or apprentices. Our job as supervisors is to show them how the thing is done, and then provide them conditions to do it themselves. Like with any trainee, it is true that productivity is initially not great, because they need training and experience. Apprenticeships are sometimes looked down upon because they tend to be associated with professions considered unglamorous, bu…

A number of them are also just flat out students in that they take non-trivial amounts of coursework. In my program at least, as well as the one I went through, they were still paid.

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#173

Post by Fomite »

_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???

I did, as did a number of my colleagues.

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#174

Post by Fomite »

watwut wrote: post #95
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…

> My students benefit heavily from me not necessarily treating them to the same standards as I would treat a full time research employee. Aren't PhD students working long hours already? I really dont see where is the supposed additional slack they are having. > I will take a chance on a promising student straight out of undergrad who seems like they might be interesting, knowing that it will take them some time to ge…

"Aren't PhD students working long hours already? I really dont see where is the supposed additional slack they are having."

They are - but I rarely impose my preferences for when they work, don't check to see if they've accrued enough vacation time, etc.

There's also slack that's not just "hours worked". A PhD student going down an intellectually stimulating but ultimately tangental rabbit hole that doesn't tie itself to a grant aim but might spawn a side project is something I'd encourage. I would not do the same for a staff scientist.

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#175

Post by Fomite »

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…

I did my PhD at UNC Chapel Hill. I was able to live without debt, pay for flights to see my (at the time) long distance girlfriend, and I got medical insurance when I needed it.

The dental plan was indeed appallingly bad.

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#176

Post by Fomite »

ur-whale wrote: post #108
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 ?

I miss it rather a lot - though I do do a fair amount of actual work myself still.

But I also take my responsibility to keep my lab - including both staff scientists and graduate students - funded rather seriously.

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#177

Post by Fomite »

urthor wrote: post #72
dsr3 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There is no doubt that in the US in a lot of universities graduate students are a cheap workforce that reinforces corporate interests through research that is funded by them to sway public opinion in certain directions." Citation is needed for this subject. Large amount of research in University is funded by NSF or the Federal Government. While industrial interest also contribute significantly to research fund, it i…

Industrial research contributes significantly? It was my understanding the vast majority of research funding in the US was either from the NSF, DARPA or similar, or the University. Corporations are a single digit percentage, no?

This will vary wildly based on university and field.

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#178

Post by Fomite »

renegadeuser wrote: post #157

One other component of this argument that I believe is missing is the PhD by publication. This would allow someone to be a researcher and work towards a PhD in the manner the author describes.

Most modern graduate programs, at least the ones I'm in, effectively do this. Your "dissertation" is an introductory chapter, several free standing publications that are at least in submission, and a closing chapter wrapping it all together.

While my postdoctoral mentor lamented the decline of the traditional dissertation, most programs even express their graduation requirements in terms of N Papers, in STEM fields.

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#179

Post by renegadeuser »

Fomite wrote: post #178
renegadeuser wrote: post #157

One other component of this argument that I believe is missing is the PhD by publication. This would allow someone to be a researcher and work towards a PhD in the manner the author describes.

Most modern graduate programs, at least the ones I'm in, effectively do this. Your "dissertation" is an introductory chapter, several free standing publications that are at least in submission, and a closing chapter wrapping it all together. While my postdoctoral mentor lamented the decline of the traditional dissertation, most programs even express their graduation requirements in terms of N Papers, in STEM fields.

Agreed. Mine was a fairly decent split, of publication and thesis. The perks of referencing yourself is an immensely satisfying experience.

Re: Abolish the PhD (2016)

#180

Post by jltsiren »

light_hue_1 wrote: post #162
jltsiren wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 en…

Ok, I missed that. Combining business travel with vacation is better than nothing, but it severely restricts what you can do with your vacation. I did that a couple of times as well, but it was rarely worth the effort. Flights were cheap, and I usually wanted to go somewhere else. Kilimanjaro instead of NYC, Everest Base Camp instead of Istanbul, and so on.

I've lived in four countries during my academic career: Finland, Chile, UK, and US (California). The standard of living for grad students was generally the highest in Chile. Cost of living was low, and academic jobs in good universities had relatively high status, which was reflected in salaries. Finnish grad students had lower domestic purchasing power, but they could afford internationally priced things like tech and travel better. With two incomes, buying a house and having kids was also a perfectly reasonable life choice as a grad student. Life in the UK was more austere: the salaries were lower, the cost of living was higher, and the regulations were stricter.

Today in California, grad students live in poverty. Their standard of living reminds me of undergrads in Finland, except that they can't afford to rent a whole apartment. Only the ones with a decent side gig (such as consulting) can afford something resembling the lifestyle of Finnish grad students 10-15 years ago.

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