131–140 of 285 posts
As a former PhD student who is now faculty, I have to say that the pace of the game is one of the most realistic aspects. Every small step forward takes about a month, it may or may not pan out, but it passes in the blink of an eye. It's a game, so it can't model everything. But I thought the biggest missing thing was "leveling up." As you accomplish more, you should have a higher likelihood of future success, and yo…
Based on my experience, there needs to be a chance that your advisor is a narcissistic child who pushes you repeatedly to spend your entire PhD either fixing the mistakes in their own PhD thesis (without changing anything they did) or doing unpaid unpublishable production work for their half-assed startup. And hobbles your attempts to establish connections outside of their control. And also does a lot of things that could be termed "fraud" and "embezzlement" if the university cared to investigate when you and others before and after you complained about it. And probably some more mess involving petty politics with post-docs and competing professors.
I loved grad classes and research, but I hated academia.
As a current 4th year graduate student, I opened the link and found the choice to accept or decline the admission offer, I don't know why I clicked decline without thinking.
I've never gone for a PhD, so I can't relate to the experience of this simulation, but found this game was actually really easy. I completed my PhD in 4 years and 11 months, which feels quite reasonable. My "hope" never dropped below 45, and by the end, hope was 76. If anything, this simulation just made me think getting a PhD would be a fun opportunity to do a lot of study, and didn't put me off at all. EDIT: Why do…
Most PhDs aren't so lucky, regrettably.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One dynamic I experienced that also isn't in the simulation: if you focus too much on classwork early on in order to pass your RPE, it can actually be hard to find an advisor. Classwork is basically dead-end work and the more you focus on it the less you have to show for yourself when trying to convince an advisor to work with you. Your goal should be to optimize for doing just well enough to pass your classwork. Als…
This would be incredibly bad advice in half of Physics and most of Math. An adviser would simply not trust a graduate student with middling grades to be competent enough to work with.
His logic is that when you are doing research, you are pushing the envelope into new territory that can't be taught in a classroom. When you are in a classroom you are learning old material that is already well-known and established.
This is very true in CS. But far from true in Math and Physics where there probably is a lot of advanced learning available in classes. The few classes I had that he actually endorsed being "worth your time" were Math classes focused around encryption (of which I took 3 different ones).
But my advisor was unique because he was 100% there for the research. He only taught because the university forced him to. He lived and breathed research and that was the only reason he was in academia. He was truly passionate and worked 10+ hours a day on research, but thats why he was there. He had a very low opinion of classroom teaching.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One dynamic I experienced that also isn't in the simulation: if you focus too much on classwork early on in order to pass your RPE, it can actually be hard to find an advisor. Classwork is basically dead-end work and the more you focus on it the less you have to show for yourself when trying to convince an advisor to work with you. Your goal should be to optimize for doing just well enough to pass your classwork. Als…
Or your advisor retiring in year 2...
I notice a lot of negativity and "do not recommend" regarding pursuing a PhD on HN recently. That raises the question: Why would you go for it?
A PhD is one of those rare periods of life where you are completely on your own, navigating unknown territories without anybody telling you what you should or should not do, where your professional success depends entirely on your own ideas and decisions. The reason to try a PhD is that you are truly free to test your limits. It can be liberating, but also daunting. And definitely humbling. In some ways, it is not so…
At least for me, that was actually worth the hardship. Although there was a lot of hardship. It was still an incredible, and ultimately empowering, experience.
As a former PhD student who is now faculty, I have to say that the pace of the game is one of the most realistic aspects. Every small step forward takes about a month, it may or may not pan out, but it passes in the blink of an eye. It's a game, so it can't model everything. But I thought the biggest missing thing was "leveling up." As you accomplish more, you should have a higher likelihood of future success, and yo…
I have never heard of a "happy PhD"
This is great and exactly captures the PhD experience. Both in the simulator and in real life, I mostly survived until the end by slacking off frequently, and needed around 5 years. Some highlights: > INBOX: Based on the reviewers' comments, we regret to inform you that your manuscript has been REJECTED for publication. One of the reviewers pointed out that there is no comparison with a state-of-art method. > You cam…
> Teaching obligations any advice for people aiming for teaching instead of all the publishing stuff?
Even if you are an awesome teacher, you are going to be required to continue publishing a minimum amount every few years and you will be hired based on what you published.
Sorry, but that's just academia. If you want to teach without doing research, then maybe look at Community Colleges, High Schools, or getting a job at a corporate job and being an Adjunct Professor for 1-2 classes a semester.