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PhD Simulator

research.wmz.ninja

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Re: PhD Simulator

#241

Post by fugue88 »

cushpush wrote: post #230
fugue88 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had picked my advisor at the start of my PhD. I also had 2 backups. My pick was on sabbatical my first year. He and I agreed I'd load up on the required classes that year. He e-mailed me right before the year ended saying he had changed his mind and didn't want any more grad students, basically dumping me. Right around the same time, my first backup decided to retire. My second backup passed away. I was left no lon…

sorry this happened to you, wishing you success in spite of the setbacks

Thank you! I didn't have many options at the time, having a small family to provide for, so I went back to work as a software developer. The career has been good. I regret not being able to be a professor and devote more time to research, but I also try to make opportunities for those kinds activities in other ways.

Re: PhD Simulator

#242

Post by ftxbro »

eslaught wrote: post #240
ftxbro wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean the bad part comes after you get the PhD. The lucky ones it got bad during their study and they moved on.

I know people who quit and were glad that they did so. I know people who graduated, but with the realization that research wasn't for them, and they pivoted into something else. But I honestly can't think of anyone who stuck through it and was worse off afterwards.

So you're saying you've heard of people who quit and were successful and you've heard of ones who graduated and pivoted and were successful, but not ones who graduated and weren't successful. It's almost like when you hear of someone it's more likely because they were successful in some way and the unsuccessful ones you hear less often.

Re: PhD Simulator

#243

Post by thatfrenchguy »

glomgril wrote: post #123
eagleseye wrote: post #52

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?

As painful as it can be at times, it is a truly beautiful phase of life during which your main obligations are to become an expert in something that interests you and to make enough money to not starve and have a place to live. If you are single, coming directly from the "broke college student" lifestyle, and end up at a university with a good stipend, it won't even feel like you are "poor" and the money is mostly en…

> But the life of a grad student in a large public university can come with much more financial instability and heavier teaching loads from day one

Depends on whether you won federal grants though, although most of those end up thrown at PHD students from Ivys and Stanford (sadly?).

Re: PhD Simulator

#244

Post by armchairhacker »

ryandrake wrote: post #209
azangru wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lost all hope and quit. Something that happened to me in real life as well.

Every time I tried the game (using OP's described steps) I "lost all hope and quit". I thought that was the joke / funny commentary: that all paths through the game involve you ending up losing. Didn't know there was a path to actually win the game until reading the HN comments. So I kept trying it over and over doing the same steps and finally won once. I guess that's an even funnier commentary on how it's pretty mu…

I think you need to "Slack Off" more than once when your hope is low.

I wonder if there are other issues you can get e.g. if you slack off too much but your hope is still low, it just stops working.

Re: PhD Simulator

#245

Post by j7ake »

I played this game and got my PhD after 4 years. I am super surprised that the timing was close to the real phd.

Re: PhD Simulator

#247

Post by kelipso »

waveBidder wrote: post #172
hgsgm wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean they passed quals but couldn't get an advisor? Or failed quals?

er, right, what other people call quals we called prelims. our quals were a presentation of early stage work, so when the deadlines rolled around, they didn't have an advisor, or hadn't been working with them long enough to have any results.

It's funny, my CS program in US you had to have an advisor by end of your first year and your quals were basically the thesis proposal you did with your advisor.

Re: PhD Simulator

#248

Post by kelipso »

Aeolun wrote: post #155
jacurtis wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this depends on the field. For example in CS, my advisor straight up told me multiple times to stop worry about class work. His exact statement is that "There isn't anything more that you will learn in classes that you won't learn in greater detail doing research". 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 i…

I was thinking, this sounds very much like a person with a vested interest in getting you to do more research.

Which is literally all advisors. Once you have an advisor, grades don't really matter that much except that you need to pass the class.

Re: PhD Simulator

#249

Post by kelipso »

93po wrote: post #222
smodad wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You found one of your ideas appears in a recently published paper. You can no longer work on it. This is one of the things I thought of right away when ChatGPT got released last year. "God, there's probably so many PhD candidates right now in NLP feeling despair like all their work was pointless ...as if million of voices cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced." It's hard in the moment to know whether what…

I met someone recently who finished their PhD in computer vision related work a couple years ago and she said all of her specialization now felt useless, but that her PhD was still useful for understanding the fundamentals for a job she now has but does absolutely nothing with her research experience.

HmThat very heavily depends on the specialization. E.g, you did image processing, basically useless now, you did GANs, diffusion models took over. It's like that for probably most phds but the research skills, writing skills etc are with you forever.

Re: PhD Simulator

#250

Post by jszymborski »

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #150
jszymborski wrote: post #58

This is great but it's missing one thing: having to apply for funding each year (time consuming!) with the statistical expectation of not receiving it. Then having to TA to help towards making-up the difference (it does not). Then, spend egregious amounts of time each year filling out expense reports for conferences you attended. Also, take-up more part time work because it takes 4-6 months for the reports to get pro…

Do PhD students tend to apply for funding where you're at? In most CS PhD programs it's the advisors job to do that.

Profs apply for research grants that, depending on the grant terms, can be used to pay your stipend. There is no guarantee that your prof can secure that funding or afford to allocate it to support you. As a result, it behooves you to apply to funding agencies to get studentships that fund you.

Another note is that it is also a prestige thing. Getting grants as a graduate student makes you way more competitive when applying for PDF/PhD positions.

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