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Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

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Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#451

Post by WalterBright »

scarface_74 wrote: post #424
WalterBright wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had the opportunity to know and work with many people who are way smarter than I am. I know one when I see one. Lots of people seem to think that Musk has blundered his way from success to success. Nobody blunders $20,000 into richest man in the world.

Being in the right place at the right time with the right connections and not having your equity diluted helps. There are plenty of “smart” people who aren’t rich.

I could have been a billionaire many separate times. I failed to notice the opportunity.

> There are plenty of “smart” people who aren’t rich.

Of course. And the biggest barriers to success are:

1. not getting educated in what you want to do

2. being risk averse

3. not willing to commit to the work needed

4. doing drugs and alcohol

5. believe your friends and acquaintances telling you you can't make it

This forum is part of ycombinator, an outfit looking for startups to fund. You're already in the right place at the right time.

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#452

Post by musicale »

chefandy wrote: post #292
analog31 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There can even be competition for those lousy adjunct positions.

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#453

Post by mnky9800n »

cantrecallmypwd wrote: post #426
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…

Unless someone really want to become a postdoc or tenured PI similar to the calling of a teacher, it's really difficult to justify the lower opportunity (time and money) cost of a Masters' or PhD in the US in tech, for example. After just a few years, one can make 250k USD/yr sometimes without even a 4-year degree in CompSci or related STEM field. I honestly feel dumb for pursuing the equivalent of a reputable BS EE/…

I am more motivated to find jobs that let me think my thoughts than jobs that maximise my income. People often say well but if you make a lot then you can pay for this. I have found that those that make a lot never find the time to pay for it.

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#454

Post by juniperus »

vonneumannstan wrote: post #425
avs733 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most stem PhDs actually go into industry. In fact, in my department I would say 60% or more go directly to industry and we are a field with growing faculty opportunities. The immediate post graduation employment of all PhDs is very high 74% in 2023 up from 68% in 2018 and the highest since 1993. Interestingly difference between stem and non stem is effectively moot. I continue to be shocked in this thread at the fact…

Whats the ROI vs a Masters for people going directly to Industry? Did they even intend to do that or realized the Academic Door was closed for them and had no other choice?

Not sure on this, but the type of job you can get in industry differs if you have a Master's or PhD... the difference between being a technician in a lab, and running a research lab, at least in my field. Also somewhat true for federal jobs. There are master's jobs, and PhD jobs.

The fields where you are bound to academia for a reasonable ROI are definitely the humanities, since there is essentially no demand for a history PhD in the private sector, or an English PhD. It can help for job hunting in an unrelated field, I guess. But, a chemistry PhD? or any other applied lab PhD, it's not like you're shooting yourself in the foot by getting an advanced degree in such a field.

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#455

Post by juniperus »

Tycho wrote: post #362

Anyone considered doing a PhD after retiring early from their primary career? Seems like it would be a good option if you were financially set for retirement and had “a few years to kill” before accessing your savings/investments. It would reduce the stress of doing it (no great fear of failure, more perspective), cover living expenses, and give you a socially respectable occupation. On the other hand, maybe it would…

You can't just wander into a PhD program, it's pretty competitive to get into a funded position. You're going to be up against a lot of fresh-faced undergraduates who may already have a publication under their belt. They also have a 3.8+ GPA, are in leadership positions in numerous clubs, have done study abroad and worked 3-4 different research jobs each summer of their undergraduate degree, and probably during the school year too. Thus, they know all the other lab heads (PIs) who could be their advisor, and when funding is available, they're the first ones to know to apply, and they're the most interesting for the advisor because they can be vouched for by other labs as being strong workers, or easy to train, or whatever. If you are just cold applying to labs you have no relationship with, that's harder. If you are just cold applying to a school, and just hoping to get placed in whatever lab has funding, that's even harder, and chances are you can end up working for a tyrant of a PI, which is why they have no students. Some advisors are so bad that people quit their degree, and it ruins them. This, aside from the expectation you work 40+ hours a week, you only get paid for 20 of those hours, usually around $30k/year, and you are bound to research whatever the lab you were lucky enough to get a position in is currently researching. So the next 4 years of your life could be spent on nematode gene editing or formulating lipid nanoparticles or whatever the lab is doing. You're basically never going to be able to just randomly pick a project because it interests you. Though maybe if you're doing a history PhD or something, you do exactly that. But that type of PhD is a deadend where you are competing for like the 75 jobs in the country that expect a history PhD.

All-in-all, it's not really a retirement hobby. If you're really rich and can self-fund your graduate studies, then you can probably go to all types of schools and work in all sorts of labs. A self-funded rich student would be great for most labs. Many schools will accept all types of people, but if you're not getting an acceptance letter with an offer of funding, it's basically like a rejection letter.

I've heard of people in retirement becoming a student for the healthcare benefits some schools offer though. They maintain enough credits to have the right status so they aren't paying a boatload, but can still be on a student healthcare plan that gives great benefits.

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#456

Post by juniperus »

rs186 wrote: post #14
novia wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Often private companies list a PhD as a requirement for research roles

There are very few of such roles. Of course PhD is often an advantage when it comes to job application and promotion, but outside very specific roles (think about OpenAI looking for a PhD in LLMs, or Intel looking for a PhD in certain engineering fields), it's more often a nice-to-have.

maybe in CS, but if you have a PhD in a STEM field, you're not going to be looking at a wasteland in private industry for jobs that demand a PhD. Good luck getting a job running a big firm's private research lab without a PhD, and tens of thousands of companies demand that PhD. Chemistry PhD? what company doesn't need one of them, if not dozens. Materials science? yeah, you are going to be finding lots of companies that want their product development team run by someone holding a PhD at least. BioTech and Pharma aren't being run by people who just have a bachelor's, and there are over 10,000 private pharmaceutical research labs. Even your Wonder Bread has more than one food science PhD behind the scenes working on it. Any random big agribusiness alone is going to expect you have a PhD in crop science to conduct trials for pesticide development, and they're going to want a chemistry PhD to help develop the formulation, and an entomology PhD to investigate the effect their product has on insect biology, a soil science PhD to study the effect on soil, biochem PhD, biotech PhD, all sorts of engineering PhDs, probably some statistics/math PhDs...

Now, if your PhD is in the humanities, you're not looking at the same situation. It's almost bizarre they call the degree the same name, since a PhD in the humanities takes you on a completely different path. I don't think many companies are demanding a History or English or German literature PhD. Sometimes this can make you a competitive candidate for a job in a completely unrelated field, but those jobs have no need for a PhD, it's just something that makes you stand out when 100 overqualified people are applying for the same job. So will a candidate working in the Peace Corps. Or volunteering hundreds of hours a year. Those getting a history PhD are competing for the...what, 60? 90? jobs in the entire nation that require a history PhD, which is being a professor that gives other people history PhDs. So of course, you will only get such a job if you go to a top 10 school, and the chances of this are basically less than becoming a professional athlete. So the vast disparity between a humanities PhD which has no sustainable aspirational track, vs. a STEM PhD where you become a qualified candidate for both academia/the government which hires many PhDs, and industry, which also has a demand for PhD-trained candidates. Probably 3/4 of STEM PhDs don't work for a school or the government.

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#457

Post by juniperus »

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.

even the company making King's Hawaiian bread probably has a food science PhD, and a materials science PhD, maybe a chemistry PhD, the grain is produced probably with products developed by another chemistry PhD, with a biotech PhD developing the seed, and a crop science PhD running the trials on these altered seeds, treated with pesticides developed by another chemistry PhD working with an entomology PhD sprayed with a machine using programs developed by a CS PhD, on a field monitored by a soil science PhD, then milled on machinery overseen by a mechanical engineering PhD, later using yeast developed by a fermentation science PhD... and maybe there are some math and statistics and economics and marketing PhDs involved somewhere in this. lol

Not that every job in the supply chain requires a PhD, but look at any big company, and it's not like having a PhD in a STEM field is going to hurt your job opportunities for private industry. You just may end up competing for fewer, but better paying jobs.

The situation with humanities PhDs, where you only have an academic position to hope for if you want to use your philosophy PhD or medieval studies PhD or art PhD is a very different situation from someone studying a hard science at the PhD level. Kind of confuses people who only know the infamous situation with humanities PhDs when they realize a STEM PhD can actually lead to a well-paying private industry job.

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#458

Post by analog31 »

musicale wrote: post #452
chefandy wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There can even be competition for those lousy adjunct positions.

Indeed, and those positions have had semi-legitimate purposes in the past but have now become a treadmill. For instance, they often served as "academic spouse" jobs. I have a friend who had an English degree, and his wife was a high level science professor. Teaching classes wasn't hopelessly taxing, and they kept re-upping his contract year after year. The flexible schedule allowed him to manage their kids.

I used an adjunct job as a stopgap when I was an "academic spouse" too. It was in the EE department at a Big Ten university. I spent my time networking, and one of the other teachers helped me get a permanent job in local industry.

Re: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

#459

Post by selimthegrim »

scarface_74 wrote: post #448
selimthegrim wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in New Orleans. I went to the same school he did. Thank you for conveying my point.

I see nowhere in Musks history that he went to school in New Orleans

I meant as WalterBright, and the school wasn’t in New Orleans.
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