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How to leave academia (for science PhDs)

chrisstucchio.com

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Re: How to leave academia (for science PhDs)

#61

Post by lgieron »

dxbydt wrote: post #49
robertskmiles wrote: post #25

> 100 passengers have queued up to board a plane, and are lined up in the order of the seats on the plane (n=1..100). However, the first person lost his ticket and selects a random seat. The remaining passengers will occupy their assigned seat if it is available, or a random seat otherwise. What is the probability that passenger 100 sits in seat 100? It really worried me that I couldn't figure out how to work that ou…

Its 50%. For 3 passengers the seating possibilities are {123,213,231,321}, so 3 gets to sit on seat 3 50% of the time. For 4 passengers the seating possibilities are {1234,2134,2314,2341,2431,3241,3214,4231}, so 4 gets to sit on seat 4 50% of the time. From there you can do a proof by induction. If you like code: ---- import util.{Random=>rng} import collection.mutable.ArrayBuffer object passengers { def main(args:Ar…

Minor comment from a Scala fan - on that last line you could have used:

happyLast.count(_ == true)

instead of:

happyLast.filter(x=>x).size

Re: How to leave academia (for science PhDs)

#62

Post by yummyfajitas »

bearmf wrote: post #23

Seriously? Learn web development? No one hires PhDs for web development skills. It is only useful if you want to be a pure software developer, not a quant or a data scientist. It might even be a negative when applying for some jobs.

No one hires PhDs for web development skills, but knowing some basics certainly opens up some doors. I wouldn't want to hire a PhD who would couldn't build at least a demo himself.

Could you describe a circumstance where such skills would be a negative?

Re: How to leave academia (for science PhDs)

#63

Post by apdinin »

telemachos wrote: post #19

> Also, if your degree is in English, the best I can do is point you here (link to Starbucks job page). I know it's supposed to be funny (i.e., it's "just a joke") and I grant I may be sensitive since I have a BA in Comparative Literature (a graduating class of 1 in my major) and a PhD in Classics, but this came across as completely obnoxious and unnecessary. Don't know anything about Humanities? Fine. Don't talk abo…

I'd also add (as an English PhD) that maybe the author of the post should read up on his Paul Graham: http://paulgraham.com/hp.html

Re: How to leave academia (for science PhDs)

#64

Post by graphene »

dxbydt wrote: post #49
robertskmiles wrote: post #25

> 100 passengers have queued up to board a plane, and are lined up in the order of the seats on the plane (n=1..100). However, the first person lost his ticket and selects a random seat. The remaining passengers will occupy their assigned seat if it is available, or a random seat otherwise. What is the probability that passenger 100 sits in seat 100? It really worried me that I couldn't figure out how to work that ou…

Its 50%. For 3 passengers the seating possibilities are {123,213,231,321}, so 3 gets to sit on seat 3 50% of the time. For 4 passengers the seating possibilities are {1234,2134,2314,2341,2431,3241,3214,4231}, so 4 gets to sit on seat 4 50% of the time. From there you can do a proof by induction. If you like code: ---- import util.{Random=>rng} import collection.mutable.ArrayBuffer object passengers { def main(args:Ar…

shouldn't that be {123, 213, 312, 321}?

ie 231 is not possible since after 1 randomly decides to sit at 3, 2 has no reason to go sit in seat 1.

This doesn't change the answer to the problem though I think.

Re: How to leave academia (for science PhDs)

#65

Post by yummyfajitas »

bearmf wrote: post #48
Rickasaurus wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glassdoor doesn't seem to give me any salary results for "data scientist" in NYC.

Yeah, sorry, these hits were some other scientists. So what is the pay like in NYC?

For data scientist, probably $100-150, and it can definitely go up.

Re: How to leave academia (for science PhDs)

#66

Post by eli_gottlieb »

hagy wrote: post #45

What about negative anecdotes? Has anyone here regretted his or her decision to leave academia? Particularly, have you found the work less rewarding or interesting? I ask as a grad student with a background in chemical engineering. I’ve known two professors who’ve done the inverse – industry to academia – and they’ve provided convincing stories for academia. In both cases they found academic research (in engineering…

>What about negative anecdotes? Has anyone here regretted his or her decision to leave academia? Particularly, have you found the work less rewarding or interesting?

I left academia after undergrad, despite applying and getting into graduate school. My degree is in Computer Science, my specialty track was Programming Languages and Compilers, and my senior thesis was in Systems Programming Languages.

I had job offers and eventually took one. What I found was that industry is smug, deceptive, fad-driven, cares nothing for fundamental problem-solving until you pay them for it, and (of course) near-fatally infected with live-to-work-ism and the Californian Ideology.

* Smug: despite many of them having MSc degrees or being PhD drop-outs, most of the professional programmers I've met deride research itself as essentially pointless. Someone once asked me point-blank at lunch why I wanted to publish an invention/discovery of mine in a research paper, why I didn't just go found a start-up based on it. My discovery is in type theory: not exactly the most amenable field for using Ruby on Rails to pump out a "minimum viable product". Further: type-theory results are mathematical rather than empirical, the proofs have to be checked. Peer review has its just place in the world, and thus so does Research Science.

* Deceptive: many of the people I met did not know or care whether their software served its intended purpose well, or whether that purpose was a good purpose, or whether (provided it was a good purpose, which I shall note that, say, investment banking isn't) it can be served well. The hiring binge I saw was completely uncorrelated to having an actual workload for the people they wanted to hire. The idea seems to have been to hire everyone's Hackathon friends.

* Fad-driven: look at the ads for hiring "rock-stars" and "ninjas", and then realize that most of these people earning six-figure salaries just build web-sites or silly mobile applications. Who thought Groupon was a good idea (I'll note that I never did)? Why should everything be an ad-based web application to the point that things other than ad-based web applications simply don't get built that often anymore?

* Cares nothing for fundamental problem-solving: Industry is infected with marketer-thinking (trying to please a perceived primary market of investors and secondary market of customers) rather than fundamental business-thinking (building cars instead of faster horses). The industrial programmers who can possess substantial skill in fundamental Computer Science, or who solve problems in Computer Science, are a vocal but still small minority. Think of Steve Yegge and his "cat-picture problems," and remember that Steve Yegge is talking about major companies like Google and Facebook spending their energy on cat-picture problems.

* Live-to-workism and California Ideology: I was astounded and offended to find myself hearing hour-long talks between otherwise intelligent, humane and respectful coworkers on libertarianism and Austrian economics. Further, the software industry is powered by "passion" (a component of the Californian Ideology), which has mostly just become an excuse for long, unbroken workdays, fanboyish loyalty to employers/companies, and programming-centered social events outside work. The programming profession expects you to love your job, no matter what it is. Not enjoy, not like, not perform competently, love. The assumption is that if you didn't love what you were doing, you would leave. Never mind real life, where the state of one's bank account is more than just a way of keeping score, programming jobs are clustered in some of the world's most expensive metro-areas, people have families, and they may have moved to enter their programming job.

I'm not quite back in academia yet (only admitted to one graduate school so far, with non-guaranteed funding, two other applications still pending), but I'll be damned happier when I get back there. And of course, unbias this anecdote by accounting for its kvetchiness and negativity, because you asked for a negative opinion about industry.

Re: How to leave academia (for science PhDs)

#67

Post by mturmon »

VMG wrote: post #53
robertskmiles wrote: post #25

> 100 passengers have queued up to board a plane, and are lined up in the order of the seats on the plane (n=1..100). However, the first person lost his ticket and selects a random seat. The remaining passengers will occupy their assigned seat if it is available, or a random seat otherwise. What is the probability that passenger 100 sits in seat 100? It really worried me that I couldn't figure out how to work that ou…

I think this is more slightly more on-topic as a reply here > Consider the integers from [0,1000]. Suppose a particle starts at position n. At discrete instants of time t=0,1,2,…, the particle moves up or down with p=0.5. What is the probability that the particle reaches 0 before t=1000? The answer is 50%, right? I can't explain it properly, but my thinking is that the random walk is symmetric and 0 and 1000 should h…

The problem may have a simple answer, but 0.5 is not it, because the answer will be a function of n, the starting position. If n is near 0, the chance you hit zero before 1000 steps is larger.

The keyword is "random walk hitting time".

Re: How to leave academia (for science PhDs)

#68

Post by dxbydt »

graphene wrote: post #64
dxbydt wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its 50%. For 3 passengers the seating possibilities are {123,213,231,321}, so 3 gets to sit on seat 3 50% of the time. For 4 passengers the seating possibilities are {1234,2134,2314,2341,2431,3241,3214,4231}, so 4 gets to sit on seat 4 50% of the time. From there you can do a proof by induction. If you like code: ---- import util.{Random=>rng} import collection.mutable.ArrayBuffer object passengers { def main(args:Ar…

shouldn't that be {123, 213, 312, 321}? ie 231 is not possible since after 1 randomly decides to sit at 3, 2 has no reason to go sit in seat 1. This doesn't change the answer to the problem though I think.

uh, nope.

     xyz => 1 sits on seat x, 2 on seat y, 3 on seat z
     So the only possibilities are:
     123: 1 sits on seat 1, 2 on seat 2, 3 on seat 3
     213: 1 sits on seat 2, 2 on seat 1, 3 on seat 3
     231: 1 sits on seat 2, 2 on seat 3, 3 on seat 1
     321: 1 sits on seat 3, 2 on seat 2, 3 on seat 1

     passenger 3 is happy twice out of 4, hence 50%
In the code, the happyLast variable counts the number of times the last passenger is happy ( happy == when he gets his assigned seat)

Re: How to leave academia (for science PhDs)

#69

Post by sunahsuh »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #59
sunahsuh wrote: post #14

I recently left my PhD program too (I'm "mastering out" in local parlance ;)) and what this post doesn't address is what I found to be the hardest part: making a decision to leave a world where people that leave are construed as a failures (note: contrary to my expectation, I've only received support in my decision from my awesome and anomalous department.) (Also, I should note that I left a software industry job to…

Do keep in mind, while we're all bashing academia, that there are those who go the opposite direction. I finished a researchy undergrad, went to industry, basically got miserable , and have gone right back to apply for PhD programs. I'm incredibly happy to know I have at least the one admission, even if it doesn't have guaranteed funding!

Just for full disclosure, I did the same, in that I did research and publication as an undergrad, worked in industry briefly and then went back to do a PhD (in my case, I had gotten in before I finished undergrad and deferred my admission to work for a bit.)

Personally, I'm not bashing academia per se -- I think it's great for people with the right mix of temperament and motivation. The travesty is that so many people that start PhDs go in without a clear understanding of what the degree entails and what characteristics are necessary for success in their programs and the tenure race. I could go on for a long time about the reasons but I think a lot of it boils down to the way schools work up to undergrad -- the kinds of qualities that get you good grades up through college are not well correlated with the things that make you a great researcher. The worst is in fields where the norm is for undergrads to go straight into PhD programs.

And please note I'm not at all saying this as a comment on your situation. I suspect the fact that you've done research as an undergrad probably means you have a good handle on what you're getting yourself into =)

Re: How to leave academia (for science PhDs)

#70

Post by sunahsuh »

arethuza wrote: post #16
sunahsuh wrote: post #14

I recently left my PhD program too (I'm "mastering out" in local parlance ;)) and what this post doesn't address is what I found to be the hardest part: making a decision to leave a world where people that leave are construed as a failures (note: contrary to my expectation, I've only received support in my decision from my awesome and anomalous department.) (Also, I should note that I left a software industry job to…

"to leave a world where people that leave are construed as a failures" That was very much the view when I left - is it a view that is particularly common in the UK?

I can't speak to that, except what my British advisor said =)
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