Why do older grad students become bitter? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why do older grad students become bitter?

#111

Post by DeathArrow » Fri, Mar 17, 2023, 7:10 PM UTC

YeahNO wrote: post #89

DeathArrow wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's a question of personal values and what one wants out of life. Many people of a philosophical predilection would find it unfulfilling, a waste, "insane", to devote themselves to wealth maximization. Arguably, If your goal in life is to be happy, from a philosophical perspective, maximizing wealth is a valid way to do it.

From a philosophical perspective, if your goal in life is to be happy, you will find it to be temporary at best or illusory. Better to strive for a meaningful life, with all the highs and lows that come with it. You have 70-80 years on this planet, is dying with the most toys the most fulfilling life you can think of?

>You have 70-80 years on this planet, is dying with the most toys the most fulfilling life you can think of?

No, but wealth can free your time to do what you wish. It can enable you to do things that are harder to do without said wealth.

Re: Why do older grad students become bitter?

#112

Post by lapcat » Fri, Mar 17, 2023, 7:25 PM UTC

DeathArrow wrote: post #111

YeahNO wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a philosophical perspective, if your goal in life is to be happy, you will find it to be temporary at best or illusory. Better to strive for a meaningful life, with all the highs and lows that come with it. You have 70-80 years on this planet, is dying with the most toys the most fulfilling life you can think of?

>You have 70-80 years on this planet, is dying with the most toys the most fulfilling life you can think of? No, but wealth can free your time to do what you wish. It can enable you to do things that are harder to do without said wealth.

You seem to be contradicting yourself. I want to pursue a philosophy degree, but you say no, I should pursue wealth maximization instead. Then you say wealth can free my time to do what I wish, but what I wish is to pursue a philosophy degree.

Re: Why do older grad students become bitter?

#113

Post by MereInterest » Fri, Mar 17, 2023, 10:45 PM UTC

jvvw wrote: post #94

MereInterest wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, PhD programs will usually be combined with the Masters, and will start with ~2 years of coursework. This can cause no end of communication issues when discussing how far one is along a PhD.

Can you leave with a Masters after two years then? I was vaguely aware that Grad School in the US wasn't quite equivalent to here. I went straight from my undergraduate to my PhD, but I guess because of the earlier specialisation that the second half of my undergraduate was vaguely similar to a Masters in the US say.

Yes, but there isn't that much of a point to it. For fields where the terminal degree is a Masters (e.g. Master of Fine Arts, Master of Business Administration), there's usually some jobs that will require them. For fields where the terminal degrees is a PhD (e.g. STEM fields), there isn't much you can do with a Masters that you couldn't have done with a Bachelors.

Re: Why do older grad students become bitter?

#114

Post by 86J8oyZv » Fri, Mar 17, 2023, 11:22 PM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #25

VLM wrote: post #18

I think the psychological aspect of first failure and injustice is rough on grad students. Hypercompetitive to get into a good enough BS program to get into a MS program yet unlike post-BS tracks like med school, 98% aren't getting that job in academia and will fail out. Its a pyramid with a very pointy top, much like college football usually doesn't lead to a NFL career. Meanwhile the "failures" who were not smart e…

But if you don't take out loans, you almost certainly guarantee failure to reach the top of the pyramid. So we're stuck with two bad choices. Either people take a risk on loans, or the academic pyramid becomes populated with only those with burnable wealth.

The most sensible option is that we remove academic credentials from job qualifications entirely. We’ve increasingly introduced non-credentialed ways to learn, and we have non-credentialed ways to determine what a candidate can do. So why are academic credentials related to our job applications at all? Why continue to enforce the whole miserable, class-hierarchy-reinforcing, metriculative education system at all?

The most straightforward option we have is to fund true public education, without credentials or metriculation. Simple, public class-by-class grades and recommended tests would suffice, and could be done with nothing more than HTTPS servers and .edu domains. We have no need for all the other cruft keeping people uneducated.