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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)

#81

Post by squishypirate »

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…

Agreed. I'm an English PhD working in the tech industry and I am very happy. Left a great postdoc a year ago and it took me all of 3 weeks to find a job in industry. Not to mention I'm making double what I would have been making as a starting TT faculty member.

Re: How to leave academia (for science PhDs)

#82

Post by bearmf »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #62
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?

They would be a negative for some quantitative finance jobs. Not because they make you a bad quant. There is a perception among practitioners (who are mostly math/physics PhDs themselves) and headhunters that web development people do not know enough math to be a quant.

To quote one well-known headhunter: 'Good point, there seems to be a correlation between "web design" and only ever having done fluffy crap of no value in this line of work. Of course, correlation is not fact but as a headhunter it is hard to avoid that prejudice'

Re: How to leave academia (for science PhDs)

#83

Post by anotherthrow »

robrenaud wrote: post #56
hogu wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And also wrong. My wife left academia from philosophy and is pulling in north of 100k right now doing project management stuff. She got there within 3 years, though we're in NYC so it's easier to get more cash here. It was a hard to transition, most employers don't know what to do with a humanities degree, but she was able to do it. A programmer coworker of mine also worked in philosophy, and transitioned to programm…

Philosophy majors tend to be a lot smarter than the rest of the humanities. http://www.ncsu.edu/chass/philo/GRE%20Scores%20by%20Intended... http://www.umsl.edu/~philo/ETS%20LINK.pdf

Their salaries are not bad too:

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-Degree...

As a philosophy PhD, I find the Philosophy > Starbucks meme obnoxious, but it's especially silly when philosophy is amongst the best Art/Humanities degrees one can do from that perspective (particularly if one then goes on to do something like work for an international law firm for a while - the rather conventional switch I've taken).

Re: How to leave academia (for science PhDs)

#84

Post by bacr »

dxbydt wrote: post #75
VMG wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I believe the right answer is about 2.5% (0.0247) Here's some imperative scala: object particle { def main(args:Array[String]) = { val simulations = args(0).toInt val rng = new util.Random val reachedZero = (1 to simulations).map(_=> { var t = 0 var z = 1+rng.nextInt(1000) do { z += {if (rng.nextBoolean) 1 else -1} t +=1 } while( z != 0 && t scala particle 1000000 >0.024782 Some intuition: If there were only 2 positi…

Nice simulation work! Initially I thought this was a one dimensional random walk problem where the answer is a function of n (as other comments have pointed out). In that case, there (n choose k) paths that take k steps in a single direction of n total steps, and each occurs with p(0.5^n). In this problem we are given n, but not k. Given a starting point, we can easily calculate the probability of crossing 0.

So my question is, how are you dealing with the initial condition?

Re: How to leave academia (for science PhDs)

#85

Post by anotherthrow »

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…

I'm sure this is a personal thing, but I agree completely - and I think it's often self-imposed. It's only after leaving academia that I can accept that successfully completing my PhD wasn't a failure, or tantamount to admission that it was a mistake.

On PhD programmes you're often dealing with people have been conditioned from an early age to view themselves as defined by effortless academic success - finding something hard, or accepting that there are interesting challenges outside academia can be very difficult.

Re: How to leave academia (for science PhDs)

#86

Post by FreakLegion »

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…

Salve! I too tend to react negatively to summary judgment of humanities degrees. But the truth is that you and I and hogu's wife are outliers. For most humanities PhDs, those judgments are accurate. In fact, part of the reason I mastered out of my English PhD program was that the faculty and other students just weren't particularly bright (the other part was the academic politics). The humanities themselves are absolutely crucial subjects that all smart people should study -- but most people who study them aren't very smart.

Re: How to leave academia (for science PhDs)

#87

Post by sunahsuh »

slug wrote: post #80
sunahsuh wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seconded. Some of the most successful academics I know keep regular 9-5 hours and leave their work at the office, have spouses and children, etc. I've noticed a lot of them are fantastic at time-boxing and that some of my less successful colleagues aren't so much, and the freedom the academic schedule gives them ends up being more of a hindrance than a help.

Are those tenured professors that have their grad studends and post-docs do all the work for them ? :)

Haha, nope, lots of PhD students and junior profs that have their act together.

Re: How to leave academia (for science PhDs)

#88

Post by eli_gottlieb »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #66
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…

Not sure where the edit-button went, but here's a reminder:

I WROTE THIS WITH A DELIBERATE NEGATIVE BENT. I often perceive industrial programmers and entrepreneurs as unduly biased against academia, so upon the request to write an "irregular" anecdote bemoaning having strayed beyond the university walls, I tried to impart the same level of bias.

So:

* Take the above comment as pessimistic by design.

* Think a little harder about how you talk about academia, and how you feel when I talk that way about industry.

And for those thinking of leaving academia for industry:

* Think about what will really make you happy. Academia and industry aren't just different sets of problems during your workday (although they definitely are that!), they're different lifestyles. Don't think you're going to do the same work or live the same way "on the other side". Instead, look at what you can do "over there", and ask what you really want to do.

* Consider if you're just burned-out. If you are, you'll still be burned-out in industry.

Re: How to leave academia (for science PhDs)

#89

Post by msellout »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #65
bearmf wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The market isn't clearing right now. There are "data scientists" without jobs and there are companies without data scientists. Companies who can pay in that range can hire. Data people who can ask for that salary can get jobs. Sorry if that's cryptic.

Re: How to leave academia (for science PhDs)

#90

Post by eli_gottlieb »

bearmf wrote: post #40
Rickasaurus wrote: post #37

Just tossing in that Finance isn't your only option for a healthy PhD paycheck in NYC. With exactly those same skills you could work in silicon alley or at a company like mine which does analysis on bank (or other corporate) data. Also, you don't have to sell your soul to work outside of Academia. For example, we find terrorists and drug lord hiding cash in USA banks (Anti-Money Laundering) using machine learning. It…

Where are all this high paying jobs? Average data scientist salary at glassdoor is probably less than 100k.

Is it just me, or are we quite privileged when we no longer count a job paying less than six-figures as "high-paying"?
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