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Dear brilliant students: Please consider not doing a PhD.

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Re: Dear brilliant students: Please consider not doing a PhD.

#91

Post by no_more_death »

guylhem wrote: post #54

I could not disagree more with the author - in fact at the moment I feel sorry for her. TLDR: PhD is not for whimps Yes it has the potential to break you, yes you will have very or little feedback loop and almost no money, and yes more people look forward being in academia for the freedom to pursue whatever research they fancy. But this whole interpretation is very very wrong. A PhD is a life changing experience - yo…

Yeah, as a contrary piece of information, Fred Brooks considered his single most significant act, ever, to be sending E. F. Codd to further education. Codd devised "Codd's 12 Rules," and invented the relational database.

Re: Dear brilliant students: Please consider not doing a PhD.

#92

Post by jpallen »

pmb wrote: post #53
jpallen wrote: post #24

As others are saying in this thread, I find myself disagreeing with almost every point the author makes about doing a PhD. I'm just about to hand in my thesis after 3 and half years of doing a PhD in theoretical physics in the UK. I've published 2 papers and have a third in preparation so I feel like my PhD has been 'good'. In contrast to the author, I've worked on my PhD no more than 40 hours a week, often less sinc…

The UK system is reputed to be far less abusive than the US system. The US system put me through the frigging wringer.

I don't have any experience with the US system, but I've heard similar things. In fact, when I started reading this article I assume the author was talking about the US system, so I was quite surprised to see it was in the UK system that she was referring too!

Re: Dear brilliant students: Please consider not doing a PhD.

#93

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

Wow, the pessimism.

I did my PhD and now have a tenure-track position. I can relate to all the obstacles described in the post (except for discrimination - at least in my country, if you want to find racist/sexist/homophobic employers, you'd better go to the private sector, not academia). And it's good for people considering a PhD to know that it's not a bed of roses. It does require working long hours for little or no pay, with unclear goals and little feedback. It is a lonely pursuit, requiring you to make an effort to keep your social life.

But what about the thrill of discovering new things? Of treading new territory that no one has seen before? What about the moment where, after thinking about a problem for hours or days or weeks, the pieces click together and you say "I got it"? What about the pride of getting accepted at a top-tier international conference/journal (depends on your field) and getting feedback directly from the most prestigious researchers in your field? What about the satisfaction of seeing your papers cited by other people that are using your research and finding it helpful? What about the pleasure of going to bed every night knowing that you are working to further human knowledge, rather than to further the profit of some corporation that often may do more harm than good?

For me, those rewards of working in research are much more important than the disadvantages pointed out in the post. Sorry if this sounds a bit condescending, but I suspect that the author of the post just didn't have enough vocation for research, or she wouldn't have such a negative opinion.

Re: Dear brilliant students: Please consider not doing a PhD.

#94

Post by seanmcdirmid »

Sulfolobus wrote: post #90
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> UK undergrad programs are a lot more focused, so students tend to be a lot further along before they start a PhD program. It depends. Definitely doing a theory-based PhD can benefit from a European (not just UK) undergrad education, but in systems or implementation, American undergrads actually have an edge (everything else being equal, which is never true). > PhD students are funded for a fixed time 3(?) years, an…

My other observation with the same corollaries is that UK students tend to be better at getting on with things as GENERALLY they have been given more independence and have been treated more as adults during their undergrads. US university can feel a bit like high school++ at times (e.g. compulsory gen ed, I've even seen classes take attendance, constant exams with an average grade instead of a few big end of degree e…

I went to UW, one of the toughest public universities in the states. Depending on the class, our grades were almost exclusively determined by finals, but some classes (like physics) had mandatory labs and homework, which you did but they didn't help you very much (they could definitely hurt you) since the classes were heavily curved anyways (i.e. dog eat dog). Physics was also a big weed out class for engineering like Chemistry was for pre-med; 30+% of the class was expected to fail, and many more probably actually failed!

I actually found in-major comp sci courses to be EASIER than the pelim courses I took before I got into the department.

To be honest, I've heard that UK universities were easy, even Cambridge/Oxford, compared to some of the tougher US universities. But I really have no clue!

Re: Dear brilliant students: Please consider not doing a PhD.

#95

Post by liedra »

10dpd wrote: post #20
cschmidt wrote: post #4

Boy, all the articles about Ph.D.'s on HN are so negative. I had a great time getting mine. I got a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon. I guess it must depend a lot on the subject you're studying. We mostly did classes for the first two years. We got an adviser in the second year, and gradually ramped up the research. I finished in 4 years and 3 months. Pretty much everyone in the program would finish…

Note that there is a huge difference between the UK PhD and the US PhD process. In the UK you are left to your own devices for 3 years, and only find out if the external examiner even approves of your research questions in the one and only final verbal exam. It is up to you alone to ensure the research is valid and makes a contribution. US PhD candidates have a lot more guidance and handholding that includes 4 years…

This is a failing of your supervisor and university if you have this experience in a UK university. I'm currently supervising PhD students at De Montfort University and we are required by the university to have AT LEAST monthly meetings with our students (usually 2-3 supervisors per student too). We support our students with seminar and theoretical workshop series, and encourage and support our particularly promising students to produce papers and submit them to conferences and journals.

There is a LOT of hand holding that goes on in our PhD programme. But your mileage may vary. I've heard that Russell Group universities can be a particularly mixed bag in this regard, but academics at other universities without such big names have more to gain by supporting our students.

Re: Dear brilliant students: Please consider not doing a PhD.

#96

Post by rdfi »

While doing a PhD:

1. You are very dependent on your supervisor. Not in terms of doing your work, but in terms that s/he can make it impossible for you to get your degree

-This opens the door for abuse. If your supervisor asks you do to something, even if unrelated to your phd subject, you'll probably do it. If you supervisor is a decent person this won't happen, however if you decide to do a phd you will be in a position where this can happen.

2. It's a huge vague task and even if you are extremely successful you will have publications about it with many citations. You'll get some pats on the back, and that's it. There's no real reward. The only reward is relief when you finish.

3. If an academic career is your goal, you have to be aware that it is not very rewarding financially.

4. Apart from the personal skills that you will most definitely acquire (being able to learn more quickly and in-depth any new subject), the actual knowledge that you acquire from doing a PhD will probably not be useful outside the inevitably narrow subject your phd targets. And unless that subject has demand in the industry, you will only be able to use it in academia.

5. Writing scientific papers is not fun, the review process is not fun. I don't think I've met anyone that gets genuinely excited when they have to review or write a paper.

I could go on, but let me tell you about the positives. If you can publish, you can travel to conferences, get to know new places and meet interesting people. And that's about it.

My personal opinion now (after leaving academics) is that if you really like a subject you should pursue it on your own. The effort that you have to put in a PhD is so big that if you used it for something else, you will probably end up with something that you are really proud of. I say this because when you do research, at least in my personal opinion, you don't always feel you are doing it for yourself, you are doing it because you have to publish, because that's the nature of the game in academics, you have to publish. And, again, writing and reviewing papers is not fun.

Anyway, a couple of years ago there was an article in the economist named the "The disposable academic" that neatly describes how the system is broken: http://www.economist.com/node/17723223

Re: Dear brilliant students: Please consider not doing a PhD.

#97

Post by microtonal »

I recently finished my PhD at a Dutch university. If I had to make the choice again, I would accept it immediately. It was great to have the time to do in-depth research and to be able to try practically any crazy idea I had. I had a great and very bright supervisor, who I learnt a great deal from (and hopefully work helped him). The colleagues were great and doing inspiring things. I could practically arrive and leave at any time, as long as work was done. And I got a good salary, holiday money, a bonus (1 month extra salary) and more holiday hours than I could spend.

The only thing that was unfulfilling was writing the actual thesis. I'd rather have spent my last year publishing two or three more articles than rehashing what I had published already.

If you go for a PhD, be sure to accept a position with a proper pay, enough holidays, and a good supervisor. Having the opportunity to teach a few weeks per year is a nice bonus.

Re: Dear brilliant students: Please consider not doing a PhD.

#98

Post by ucee054 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #72
ucee054 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you never have any students, because it sounds like the abused will become the abuser.

WTF!? Critique is a common learning method in many other fields, like art, music, design, journalism, and politics. Hand feeding and teaching is fine a dandy at the beginner undergrad level, but you reach a point quickly where you have to rely more on yourself to become better. Criticism starts out from your teachers and peers, and eventually you learn how to be self critical on your own. But you are right, this isn'…

A PhD isn't about critique. It's about:

A) finding a grant-buzzword-friendly research direction (Green ICT social networking for wireless sensor motes anyone?)

B) politicking to get as many publications squeezed out from one's meagre results as possible (Buddy, submit to the special edition of this journal because I'M the guest editor)

If the advisor doesn't TEACH the student how to navigate the bullshit, the student is hosed.

PhDs aren't for everyone ...I bet including many of the people who actually do them.

Re: Dear brilliant students: Please consider not doing a PhD.

#99

Post by djt »

kanzure wrote: post #36
polyfractal wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is highly dependent on field. My field, biology, is basically like flipping a coin. Do you graduate in five years or nine? Will you come out with a golden road to tenure or a life destined to work sad, lonely, post-docs? Flip that coin! No matter how smart you are, the Gods of Biology are fickle. You may end up with a shitty protein, an assay that only works when the moon is aligned with Venus or cells tha…

I wish there was some way to fix the situation with protocols in biology. Maybe we could attempt to identify the reasons that they suck, and then fix those reasons. There was a stackexchange site for protocols called methodmint, but nobody used that. Biologists either hate the internet or they hate computers because all of the attempts to get informal web communication happening have failed (even by email). It compli…

Dont forget that each machine you use is slightly different, so there are protocols that exist for those labs and those particular pieces of gear set up that way.

Re: Dear brilliant students: Please consider not doing a PhD.

#100

Post by eli_gottlieb »

raverbashing wrote: post #87
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was do 3 papers, write your thesis, and get out. I'm a CS grad student at Technion, and that's basically how my advisor has described our grad-school process. Paper 1: your MSc thesis. Papers 2 and 3: If related to paper 1, combine into your PhD thesis. 3 related papers on one broad topic => thesis, you're done. http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/

There's one important issue with this picture You don't have the bigger picture. In fact sometimes you don't even know that a person in another country (or why not, maybe in another university in the same city) did what you were trying to do, or already knows something you don't. Not to mention the Feuds, aah the feuds. Like something showing up in IEEE but in ACM it's gone and forgotten (or the other way round)

Well yeah, this is why we have a couple of things:

* Literature reviews. Check the published literature before thinking you've got an original research proposal.

* Conference/journal reviewers. If something's unoriginal in your paper, they will reject you in an instant.

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