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Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

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Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#391

Post by tialaramex »

viraptor wrote: post #384
w-hn wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> don't mind the darkness This was weirdly exciting and depressing at the same time :) What are the chances in trying to go for a non-STEM Masters/PhD (or higher studies in general) in Norway (or one of "those" countries) after studying E for UG and then working in E for more than a decade (in the third world) and having no other experience at all? Or anywhere for that matter? Is there a way to go about it? (Now, thi…

> This was weirdly exciting and depressing at the same time :) And, depending on how far north you go, should be taken seriously. In Iceland, out of my exchange students cohort of ~10, once the winter hit, one had to escape home and two were hospitalised after too much drinking. It can be a really tough experience, especially when you don't have close friends/family to contact and lose track of time.

Yeah, not all humans do well in the dark. I wonder if this happens for some of the submariners ? Maybe on boomers (the nuclear powered missile submarines) since those spend a very large proportion of each mission underwater ?

I expect I'd be fine with this because I don't normally interact much with sunlight, the windows in my home have the blinds down 24/7, etc. But you can't really tell for sure without trying it.

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#392

Post by kgwgk »

throw098320923 wrote: post #390
kgwgk wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now I am freeloader and get NOTHING!!! https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/freeload... a person who uses money, food, a room in a house, etc. given by other people, but who gives nothing to them in exchange

Yes, and because you only worked there 15 years, you did nothing and are freeloader! Read laws, locals who only worked 15 years are also not entitled!

> Yes, and because you only worked there 15 years, you did nothing and are « a person who uses money, food, a room in a house, etc. given by other people, but who gives nothing to them in exchange »!

Ok then.

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#393

Post by Justta »

DanielHB wrote: post #69
daft_pink wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another great thing about PhD programs is you generally don’t end them with 6 figures in college debt from the degree. As long as you get the PhD in something that gives you a marketable skill, it’s not going to hurt too much vs all the MBAs and Lawyers I know with a ton of debt and just marginally increased career choices.

You are discarding opportunity cost in your assessment.

If you consider opportunity cost is above fulfilment don't do PhD.

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#394

Post by squigz »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #306
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…

Education? The PhD path commits you to learn more and more about less and less. The opportunity cost isn’t just in life-time earnings, it’s also the time you sunk hyper focused on one very specific topic.

This strikes me as a really strange take on acquiring expertise and experience in one's field?

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#395

Post by mnky9800n »

w-hn wrote: post #357
mnky9800n wrote: post #352

Incidentally if you are interested in doing a PhD the University of oslo has 64 open phd and postdoc positions currently. PhDs will get a competitive salary (typically something like 50-55k USD/year, this is much higher than anything in USA for example), free healthcare, pension, in the first year you qualify for cheap student housing if you have moved from abroad, and tbh, Norway is kind of nice to live in in my opi…

> don't mind the darkness This was weirdly exciting and depressing at the same time :) What are the chances in trying to go for a non-STEM Masters/PhD (or higher studies in general) in Norway (or one of "those" countries) after studying E for UG and then working in E for more than a decade (in the third world) and having no other experience at all? Or anywhere for that matter? Is there a way to go about it? (Now, thi…

I think that there is some options at University of Oslo for example. I work in geophysics and ML, so I don't know so much. But at some point I entertained the idea of doing a PhD in science fiction which is an option at UiO. There is also a large linguistics department and social sciences faculty as well as two centers for education research.. I imagine there are many options, but I think it is hard for me to know since I don't do that kind of work.

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#396

Post by FrustratedMonky »

Am I out of loop.

This is supply / demand.

There were just a bunch of articles about 'not enough' positions for PhD's.

So, now there are fewer enrolled.

Doesn't this happen in every field. There are two many people for the jobs, so people stop perusing those fields. Then the cycle kind of moves around, to, now we don't have enough people.

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#397

Post by jajko »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #351
jajko wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And if you decide after your PhD, that you’ll join the industry, you’ve lost out on 5 years of compounded growth financially and personally. It’s not like a PhD gets you more money in 95% of the jobs. 5 years of professional experience beat a phd title in 98-99% of IT job searches, no question there. I would even more deeply probe such a candidate for good personality match with rest of the team and company overall…

So you want coworkers who don't care much for the quality of their coding work?

No project I ever delivered in my 20 years of work was ever perfect, shortcuts and even 'hacks' were needed. We don't live in ideal world, budgets are constrained, changes come at last minute that sometimes require massive refactoring, you get unexpected delays on weird bugs or processes taking too long or other teams facing issues or their processes taking too long, and so on and on.

Business doesn't care nor understand any of this, they want their features, without visible bugs, on time, the rest is mostly irrelevant academic discussions for them. I don't say its ideal but this is world I live in and worked in, all big companies are same in this regard. They just don't view IT stuff as something unique and super fragile and treat it and expect form it cca same level as from other parts of their businesses. I've never worked for FAANG type of company as you can see, IT is always just a cost center.

I give stakeholders honest feedback with taking into account their view and expectations, and never ever over-engineer things since from what I've witnessed its mostly selfish endeavor of bored brilliant people or CV chasers, not something business would want to see since risk exposure is a big '?'. KISS is really above it all and business loves it, especially long term. Can't sell a lot of BS with it but thats not my style. I call it being a dependable professional.

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#398

Post by FrustratedMonky »

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…

" might pursue a doctoral degree because one is interested in the subject and wants to do research"

Dude, you got-a eat.

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#399

Post by Lanolderen »

jlarocco wrote: post #30

As a software engineer, a PhD doesn't seem worth it. It's a lot of work and time, and most companies don't particularly need PhDs. Maybe a PhD gets a boost in pay starting out, but 5 years of experience cancels out most of the benefit. I suppose PhDs can get a shortcut into Prinicple or Senior roles, so there's some tangible benefit. On the other hand, if a company is hiring PhDs and doing research, I feel those jobs…

My observation is PhDs make mostly great salesmen in normal tech companies that aren't doing anything crazy. It's a pretty good strategy to have a team of theoretically competent, titled, well spoken and well dressed employees to send/show to clients to get work and then outsource that work to cheap labour.

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#400

Post by sega_sai »

throw098320923 wrote: post #364
mnky9800n wrote: post #352

Incidentally if you are interested in doing a PhD the University of oslo has 64 open phd and postdoc positions currently. PhDs will get a competitive salary (typically something like 50-55k USD/year, this is much higher than anything in USA for example), free healthcare, pension, in the first year you qualify for cheap student housing if you have moved from abroad, and tbh, Norway is kind of nice to live in in my opi…

> pension Not sure that is a perk. In EU (not sure about this exact offer in Norway) to get ANY money out of pension, you have to work like 30 years at the very same country (not EU). But it is mandatory social insurance (tax) of 10% to 40% of your income.

You mean similar to social security in the US ? Where you only can get anything out of it if you have enough credits?

In fact it is similar in many countries (i.e. UK) where there is a minimum period required to get anything

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