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

Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

nature.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 485 posts

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#291

Post by [deleted] »

lmm wrote: post #214
currymj wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

their collapse didn't have anything to do with computer systems failing though. they just spent a period of about 10 years making sure they were involved in every major financial scandal due to poor judgment.

> they just spent a period of about 10 years making sure they were involved in every major financial scandal due to poor judgment. Hard to imagine any relationship between that outcome and a policy of exclusively hiring a demographic that's notorious for having high intellectual skills but low life experience. Wait, no, not hard. Easy.

[deleted]

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#292

Post by chefandy »

analog31 wrote: post #284
lthornberry wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most academics teach in departments that don’t grant phds. They’re at liberal arts Colleges or regional state universities. True that statistically only a small percentage of grad students will go on to have their own PhD students, but that doesn’t mean there are no jobs for the rest.

That may have been true in the past, but at this point even the smaller colleges are flooded with applicants for faculty jobs.

A billion applicants for 2 full-time faculty jobs, but they’ve always got a billion adjunct openings that pay shit, offer no benefits, and have no job security.

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#293

Post by t-writescode »

ocschwar wrote: post #213

Good. Academia is done growing. We're in a steady state, which means if you're in grad school, look at your advisor. Look at the other grad students who have him. Look at the work of the grad students who came before you, with this advisor. Think about the ones that will come after. Only ONE of you will take your advisor's place, statistically speaking. If you an afford to pursue a PHD for the sake of doing the work…

Isn't one of the requirements to work for Microsoft Research that you have a PhD?

PhDs might not be working in schools, but there's plenty doing meaningful research outside of academia.

I'm sure 3M hires plenty of PhDs; and venture-capital-backed health device companies; and oil companies looking for new ways to capture oil; and so on.

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#294

Post by DrFalkyn »

pinko wrote: post #171
declan_roberts wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only difference between a PhD and a hobby is money, or the presumption of it indirectly (certain jobs, etc) Or else we just call it pursing our natural hobbies and interests. You don't need to go to school for that. If you didn't need more money you wouldn't seek the accreditation.

In many disciplines, it is almost impossible to get oneself into an environment anywhere remotely as rich in collective expertise, resources, and academic-social interaction as a proper graduate research program. There are exceptions (e.g., aspects of tech where money can be made, aspects of social science that intersect with public policy or activism, etc.) but they are rare.

In my experience Academia lacks the resources that corporations can give you. This has been a big problem in AI. The transformers guys probably could not have pulled that off at a university.

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#295

Post by esafak »

mkoubaa wrote: post #106

Please if you do get a PhD, don't feel bitter if you don't get paid much more than people without one after you graduate. This is a toxic mentality that (anecdotally) I find quite common in the computational sciences specifically.

In the likely event you won't use your specialized knowledge much either, how could one not feel bitter?

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#296

Post by grandempire »

foobarian wrote: post #260
musicale wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only ONE of you will take your advisor's place, statistically speaking The academic pyramid was never sustainable. However, for some fields (science and engineering being good examples) there are decent jobs outside of academia.

> The academic pyramid was never sustainable Theoretically it wasn't, or every human on Earth would be a PhD candidate within the century. However there was a period after WW2 where a lot of empty professor chairs needed to be filled and so I believe that people came to expect the growth. So for example you would have the post-war generation push their kids into it, saying "but of course you can be a professor like m…

The period after WW2 wasn’t empty seats to be filled, it was the government funding science, engineering, and some social science. That changed the shape of universities forever.

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#297

Post by grandempire »

t-writescode wrote: post #293
ocschwar wrote: post #213

Good. Academia is done growing. We're in a steady state, which means if you're in grad school, look at your advisor. Look at the other grad students who have him. Look at the work of the grad students who came before you, with this advisor. Think about the ones that will come after. Only ONE of you will take your advisor's place, statistically speaking. If you an afford to pursue a PHD for the sake of doing the work…

Isn't one of the requirements to work for Microsoft Research that you have a PhD? PhDs might not be working in schools, but there's plenty doing meaningful research outside of academia. I'm sure 3M hires plenty of PhDs; and venture-capital-backed health device companies; and oil companies looking for new ways to capture oil; and so on.

Yes, for engineering and science a PhD is a path to stable employment, especially if you need to get past international gate keepersz

(Microsoft research is top tier researchers though. PhD is just getting started)

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#298

Post by grandempire »

xanderlewis wrote: post #165

From the discussion here, it seems that HN turns out to be a very money-centric place. Somewhat surprising. It doesn’t even seem to occur to people that one might pursue a doctoral degree because one is interested in the subject and wants to do research . It’s always talked about as if getting a PhD is just another rung in a long ladder towards… earning a lot of money? Not only that — it’s apparently such an obvious…

You can do a PhD for fun and interest. But if you’re trying to get an academic career m, you better leave the idealism at the door. You are playing a serious game as any corporate politics.

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#299

Post by grandempire »

davidgay wrote: post #126
ericmay wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but how competitive are those jobs to get? If one goes to a lesser-known university that has a PhD program and does related research are they getting an interview, or are these research jobs intended for specific university pipelines (Harvard, MIT, the usuals, etc.)?

The interview process for a place like Microsoft Research is essentially the same as for a faculty position - give a talk on your research, spend the day talking to researchers about your research, their research, convince them you have an interesting research agenda. Have dinner with more researchers, for a notionally more relaxed discussion :) [Tried, failed ;)] As with university recruitment, this isn't a case of…

You’re forgetting the part where the interview is just a formality and sanity check. They have to recognize you or your advisors name.

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#300

Post by insane_dreamer »

KPGv2 wrote: post #141
sweeter wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why pay an American worker 100k + benefits out of college when you can pay an H1B worker 60k for the same level of education and also have a massive amount of leverage over them?

Because this is ostensibly illegal, and it would be nice if someone enforced the fucking law (H1Bs must be paid the market rate, and it's supposed to be enforced by the Department of Labor). But the entirety of US government apparati are geared toward helping big corps make money. It's just a question of which big corps (modern Democratic party is soooo captured by Big Tech). Of course, one of them also supports fasc…

it's only illegal if it's enforced, which it isn't
Post reply on HN