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Dear brilliant students: Please consider not doing a PhD.
111–120 of 134 posts
Re: Dear brilliant students: Please consider not doing a PhD.
#112Never understood why you would do a PhD anyway. Try 5 startups in the same time and become rich. Then you can buy your own lab and research on whatever you want.
Re: Dear brilliant students: Please consider not doing a PhD.
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is because American PhD and English PhD are fundamentally different . English PhD programmes usually have no curriculum (or only coursed to bring everyone up to the same level coming from their previous degrees during 4-year courses that are highly interdisciplinary). In the sciences, people either do 4 year undergrad degrees followed by 4 year (usually funded) PhDs, or they do 3/2/3 years (undergrad/Masters/PhD…
We had a couple of years of light course work in my phd school, followed by research. We didn't have a masters in our path either (I don't have one). But a master degree is not very relevant to a CS phd. We (US vs. UK PhDs) aren't that different, we compete at about the same level on completion (with typical personal variations, of course). Even the length of the PhD program doesn't seem to be as important as total l…
> Even the length of the PhD program doesn't seem to be as important as total length in field.
Oh, I by no means meant to disagree with this!
My point was that the programs themselves are differently structured, so comparing the actual time a PhD takes does not really work, since there are a number of possible combinations of undergrad/grad(/grad)-degrees that make up the length of an individual project. In the end, people will probably be at about the same stage, but that does not mean that going from undergrad straight into a PhD in the US and the UK work he same way. As a further example, in Germany, you were able to do just a PhD, as your only degree ever, until relatively recently. In the end, it probably wouldn't matter, since PhD is PhD (in a way), but your way there is hardly comparable!
Re: Dear brilliant students: Please consider not doing a PhD.
#114I did a PhD in Computer Science in the UK and whilst it is definitely an emotional challenge, I mostly enjoyed the PhD and found it very rewarding. I never found it overwhelmingly difficult, and I never considered giving up.
My advice for any new PhD starts is to treat it like a job, work 9-5 steadily throughout your PhD, read as much as you can during your first year, and do things outside of your degree to stay sane.
RS
Re: Dear brilliant students: Please consider not doing a PhD.
#115Boy, 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…
I did my PhD in Comp.Sci. at the University of Liverpool. It lasted 3.8 months (as I took more time to write my thesis in English). At the end of each year my progress was reviewed in several way (a 1 on 1 interview with a thesis advisor, a departmental presentation, etc).
I had the best supervisors I could ask for (yeah I got two of them). Every week (first year) or every two weeks (second year) I met with them to discuss about my progress. Shit, they even helped me on the "culture shock" of a Mexican living in the UK (and coping with the heavy NW accent).
Moreover, one of my supervisors invited me to join a EPSRC project which led me to work (in my own chosen subject) with great scholars from different parts of the UK ( and form people from the industry.
Although I have a great experience during my PhD and in the 3 years postdoc I did in Germany, I decided academia was not for me. I got tired of the "publish or perish" part , and I decided to pursue my real passion: programming software.
Re: Dear brilliant students: Please consider not doing a PhD.
#116My experience was quite different from that of OP, and I suspect most people who walk that path. I'm 56 in a few days, and got my PhD in computer science in 1983. I was lucky enough to go to a high school that had a real computer, a PDP-8M, and I was hooked five minutes after I sat down at the DecWriter. At college, I was theoretically pre-med. A month into my freshman year (1974), I went to a party at the house of a…
I don’t think saying PhD is good or bad in general makes sense. It depends on what alternatives you have on your hands. If you are from a third world country and PhD is the only chance to take you a batter place, it makes sense. For the ones who already live in a decent country, it only makes sense if you are very very passionate about being an academician and you should carefully question the arguments making you passionate about that. I think doing PhD is much tougher now than 1983. There is a huge literature you gotta scan and there will be so many other people from both academia and industry working on similar topics so it is very difficult to make an original contribution that is satisfactory enough for the most. Especially in engineering, hot topics having an application area are already studied by the high tech firms. One can work in one of those companies and still can do research, which can be more satisfactory since you can see it applied to the real life. Plus, you will have strict deadlines, much better salary and the time you spend there will be considered as a work experience when you make a new job application. So, in the end of the PhD, there is a risk of finding yourself where you started and asking yourself where you did wrong, especially if you didn’t consider the after-PhD phase during the PhD (wrong topic and wrong supervisor choice, not building connections, not doing an intern in a related company etc.) However, having a supportive supervisor with good connections can hack the game and put you some levels up.
Re: Dear brilliant students: Please consider not doing a PhD.
#117this is the twitter account of the original author https://twitter.com/individeweal
Re: Dear brilliant students: Please consider not doing a PhD.
#118Dear brilliant students, if you are truly brilliant, do what you wish to do with your life. If you wish to study, by all means do so. Just don't equate PhD with income earning ability.
Re: Dear brilliant students: Please consider not doing a PhD.
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 .
Of course. But even with this sometimes it's hard And reviewers sometimes skip things. This is a very good reason for open-access, searchable publications.
Completely agreed.
Re: Dear brilliant students: Please consider not doing a PhD.
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I believe this is wrong, because anyone who wants to do that believes that its own interests are for some reason better than what the market values. It's good and all, do whatever you fancy, but not on my dime - not on public money. Get a real job. If that's your chosen frame of reference, then that's not your dime. Or the public 's dime. At that point it's the market 's dime. And the market doesn't particularly ca…
True, the market doesn't care. However, I do. I just believe any given individual is less likely to be right that the market, as an emanation of the will of many many people (at least on a statistical basis) Traditionally, academia wants to work on the problems it deems worth its time. I don't like that - it's working on a fancy, on the public dime. My dime. Working on the market dime on something the market fancies…
I just believe any given individual is less likely to be right that the market, as an emanation of the will of many many people (at least on a statistical basis)
Markets only know what everyone knows. They are vulnerable to imperfect information, yes, and also mass delusions and hysterias of every sort.