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

PhD Simulator

research.wmz.ninja

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 285 posts

Re: PhD Simulator

#41

Post by milancurcic »

sgt101 wrote: post #32

It shocks me so much that publication has become the only metric of a Ph.D.

It's been mostly like this for a long time, but it is slowly changing. Open data repositories and scientific software libraries/products are beginning to count more and more (at least many of us are pushing for this). It also depends on the target career past graduation. Papers matter a lot for tenure-track positions, and much less for science support (scientific software developers, data engineers, lab managers etc.) in academia, or most jobs in the industry.

The 3 paper requirement in the game is also not a formal requirement in most universities--it's more of an implied requirement by individual PhD advisors. FWIW, my first lead-author paper I published a year past my PhD. During my PhD, I produced two relatively large scientific software applications (one open and one closed source) and a few open datasets. I'm now 8 years past my PhD and relatively successful in my field, 90th or so percentile based on common metrics--papers, citations, and funds raised.

Bottom line, papers are important but not the only thing that counts. Outside of tenure-track careers where they are crucial, it's possible to establish yourself as a scientist and be respected by your peers by publishing software and data.

Re: PhD Simulator

#43

Post by tibbon »

I find this highly unrealistic. Advisors do not notice nor care for your mental health. Breaks and rest are not offered nor advised. Back to the lab!

Re: PhD Simulator

#45

Post by spidersenses »

For some reason I found the font really hard to read. My brain has the impression that the text is vertically compressed, squished even. Just that no amount of resizing the window changed the strange effect. Is that only me?

Re: PhD Simulator

#47

Post by bogtog »

armchairhacker wrote: post #10

That was...a lot more straightforward than I thought. First try: Year 4 Month 5 Second try: a lot more things went wrong. Year 5 Month 11. Third try: Year 5 Month 11. I just followed these rules: - Study for the qualifying exam until I'm "very confident" - If I have no ideas, read papers - If I have an idea, work on developing it. If I have a preliminary result, work on developing it. If I have a major result, conduc…

> Whenever I get the "ask my advisor for a break?" say yes.

I thought that was a trap, and I was surprised my initial strategy of "say no but then slack off" didn't work

Re: PhD Simulator

#48

Post by bogtog »

milancurcic wrote: post #41
sgt101 wrote: post #32

It shocks me so much that publication has become the only metric of a Ph.D.

It's been mostly like this for a long time, but it is slowly changing. Open data repositories and scientific software libraries/products are beginning to count more and more (at least many of us are pushing for this). It also depends on the target career past graduation. Papers matter a lot for tenure-track positions, and much less for science support (scientific software developers, data engineers, lab managers etc.…

In what fields is 3 papers expected? In my field, Psychology, 3 first-author papers sounds like a reasonable lower bound, but that seems like it would be a lot to expect out of Biologists or hard scientists.

Re: PhD Simulator

#49

Post by ccppurcell »

The proportion of slackings off for which you are caught by your advisor is unrealistically high, but exactly as high as it feels. I definitely got my fair share of those emails...
Post reply on HN