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

The Ph.D Bust: America's Awful Market for Young Scientists

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 122 posts

Re: The Ph.D Bust: America's Awful Market for Young Scientists

#61

Post by pmb »

javert wrote: post #44
lutorm wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely not. Look at the publication record of any tenured professor at a non R1 university and you'll typically find that it's dropped to almost nil.

True, I really just meant "at R1 universities." Which isn't fair to all those other tenured professors at non-R1 universities (and I may possibly even be one, someday). Of course, I have heard of R1 tenured professors who claim to spend 50% of their effort procuring funding (though I think 10% is a much more representative estimate).

Writing a grant proposal is about as hard as writing a paper. So if they apply for three grants and also write three papers in a year, then yeah - that's 50%.

Re: The Ph.D Bust: America's Awful Market for Young Scientists

#62

Post by jacoblyles »

zeteo wrote: post #10
jseliger wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will no doubt be shocking news to Mr. Weissmann to find out that factors such as a desire to learn more or to make new contributions to human knowledge can motivate aspiring PhD candidates. "A desire to learn" and "Make new contributions to human knowledge" are laudable goals that I admire. But, even leaving aside the important question of whether grad school as it is currently structured is a good way of pursuing…

I've been to graduate school and disagree with your comment about expecting a tenure-track job. When you get to know them, PhD students are not poor deluded souls slaving away in the misguided expectation of a plush, secure position at the end. They are rather intelligent, motivated individuals, who choose to work on projects that are more interesting/important than optimal ad placement or crafty financial swaps, and…

You can work on more worthwhile things than ad targeting in industry and still get paid a full salary.

However, it is true that a disproportionate amount of jobs will follow the money.

Re: The Ph.D Bust: America's Awful Market for Young Scientists

#63

Post by jedbrown »

Evbn wrote: post #59
PeterisP wrote: post #49

Two points not made here: 1) It's quite common to study for PhD while getting paid for it instead of paying for it - and in that case, it should be treted as a fun and enriching (though not very high paying) job for a couple of years instead of "delaying 4 years". Getting into a huge debt for it is a whole different thing, though. 2) It feels that this problem is partly USA-specific. Sure, other places may have notic…

Opportunity cost. PhD stipends pay less than unskilled labor, after you subtract "tuition"

Tuition should be covered by grant funding (RA) or the department (TA). If a university "accepts" you in a science/engineering PhD program, but is not offering tuition and salary, they're really saying they can't take you. Note that at many universities, students will cost a grant more than postdocs for this reason.

Re: The Ph.D Bust: America's Awful Market for Young Scientists

#64

Post by huherto »

javert wrote: post #23
malandrew wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OT, but I find it amazing that the triangle of desirable traits applies in so many places. There's the obvious "faster, cheaper, better. pick any two" and yesterday I heard another one "sane, smart and beautiful, pick two", which I'm sure has a corollary like "handsome, sensitive and rich, pick two". It's as if Brook's "no silver bullet" can be applied to just about everything our life (or it's just that easy to pick…

That "amazing triangle" idea is just nonsense. For example, computers have gotten faster, better, AND cheaper over time. There definitely are women who are sane, smart, and beautiful. Are you kidding me? Just walk around any research university where they're doing graduate-level research and you will see lots of them. As for the other gender triangle, pg is definitely handsome, sensitive and rich, so there's your dis…

The point that breaks the triangle(rectangle?) is if you add whether or not she is interested on you.

Re: The Ph.D Bust: America's Awful Market for Young Scientists

#65

Post by javert »

aheilbut wrote: post #52
javert wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, I really just meant "at R1 universities." Which isn't fair to all those other tenured professors at non-R1 universities (and I may possibly even be one, someday). Of course, I have heard of R1 tenured professors who claim to spend 50% of their effort procuring funding (though I think 10% is a much more representative estimate).

Also, the research that people are writing grants for and doing is dictated by what is fundable, which is not necessarily exactly what they'd choose to be doing were there no constraints.

I know tenured professors who don't apply for grants, and therefore don't have any money to pay students, but they still get paid a salary by the department. They can do whatever they want (research, or not), modulo teaching responsibilities. Some profs actually do very good research, without students. It's a reasonable way to go, once you have tenure.

Problem is, you can't take that route to get tenure in the first place, unless you're an absolute genius.

Re: The Ph.D Bust: America's Awful Market for Young Scientists

#66

Post by malloc47 »

Evbn wrote: post #59
PeterisP wrote: post #49

Two points not made here: 1) It's quite common to study for PhD while getting paid for it instead of paying for it - and in that case, it should be treted as a fun and enriching (though not very high paying) job for a couple of years instead of "delaying 4 years". Getting into a huge debt for it is a whole different thing, though. 2) It feels that this problem is partly USA-specific. Sure, other places may have notic…

Opportunity cost. PhD stipends pay less than unskilled labor, after you subtract "tuition"

If you consider the sheer number of hours I tend to spend on my dissertation work compared to the stipend I get, I'm paid criminally less than minimum wage. But you're not given the leeway to focus "exclusively" on a single research contribution in a focused manner in other higher-paying options.

Even if you're not taking out a loan in the monetary sense, you're taking out a loan from your long term earnings, one that has little chance of being repaid, to put your mental assets/skills to a non-remunerable task, and get a certification that you did so. The problem is that the option to continue doing this (tenure-track academic jobs) are limited and (naturally) highly contested.

However, you make a good point--there's an underlying and insidious opportunity cost that is often unknowingly sacrificed: that of atrophying skill sets. It's easy for a PhD to be a hugely insular experience, if you let it, and if you take the easy way out and don't stretch your engineering skills (speaking in terms of CS here, since that's what I know), you're in for a rude awakening if you determine that academia is not for you. If you're not careful, you'll get good at writing papers, but might actually get /worse/ at writing portable, readable, and maintainable code. And as brilliant as your papers may be, if you can't ship good code, you're going to have trouble in industry.

The good thing, again at least for CS students like me, is that the "fun and enriching" environment of academia means a lot of opportunity for starting companies, creating libraries/frameworks, working on side projects, and doing contract work, so there's no reason you have to atrophy. Which is something that, sadly, the visions of the tenure-track academic job are engineered to beat out of you.

Re: The Ph.D Bust: America's Awful Market for Young Scientists

#67

Post by ssawyer06 »

I can only speak to electrical engineering and computer science since that's my field. I've been in the working world for 7 years, and here's what I've found...

First of all, I don't know any good engineers who are unemployed, regardless of their level of EE/CS degree. If you have an EE/CS degree, and you're having trouble securing a paycheck, this might not be the field for you. Sorry.

That said, if "getting a job" is your goal, a BS is all you need. A 5-year BS/MS program is a great deal if your school offers it. Otherwise, I'd look for a job with tuition benefits. I was able to get a Master's part-time at night, and it was completely paid for by my first employer. In my experience, an MS is definitely worth getting, as it will give you a slight salary increase, possibly a better job title, and is probably just expected at good companies.

A PhD in engineering is for teaching or being a research engineer (i.e. at a government/corporate lab or a university). I honestly believe you should only get an engineering PhD if you think (1) you're really smart, and (2) you can study at a top-tier university. If you're not an elite engineer, I don't see the point of a PhD. Work experience will look better on a resume than a thesis with an advisor no one's heard of. And a research job won't pay more, but it will require a bigger brain.

Re: The Ph.D Bust: America's Awful Market for Young Scientists

#68

Post by javert »

huherto wrote: post #64
javert wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That "amazing triangle" idea is just nonsense. For example, computers have gotten faster, better, AND cheaper over time. There definitely are women who are sane, smart, and beautiful. Are you kidding me? Just walk around any research university where they're doing graduate-level research and you will see lots of them. As for the other gender triangle, pg is definitely handsome, sensitive and rich, so there's your dis…

The point that breaks the triangle(rectangle?) is if you add whether or not she is interested on you.

Yes and no.

Yes, you're correct. No, she's not interested. :P

Re: The Ph.D Bust: America's Awful Market for Young Scientists

#69

Post by scarmig »

michaelochurch wrote: post #50
scarmig wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who's more likely to have physical and intellectual freedom: 1) A recent PhD with $40,000 to his name 2) A Google engineer who graduated from undergrad at the same time and has $400,000 to her name

How many PhDs have $40,000 to their name, as opposed to $4.00? How many MTV or NYC Google engineers have $400k to their name after 5 years, as opposed to $4,000 and a bunch of money torched on rent? Google pays well, but not as well as you seem to think. I'd say that (2) wins, if only because someone who sticks with Google for 5 years is probably one who made Real Googler and now has a fair amount of freedom. Google…

I don't want to veer into minutiae, but I think you underestimate how much someone can save in the amount of time it takes to get a PhD. Say, 5 years on the PhD, at $50k savings/year, gets you to $250k by itself. Add in investment earnings from that, and you top $300k. ($400k was a bit optimistic.)

But that's aside from the actual point. It's not even about what the Googler does after they've done 5 years. That kind of money is enough to do whatever the hell you want to kind of money. You want to read papers all day? You can do it full time and pay yourself a graduate student's stipend for life, without having to worry about pleasing the dictates of your advisor, academic fads, TAing, and internal politics. Even the lucky students who become professors still have to apply for funding and teach students, on top of producing popular research to get tenure: with route 2), you never have to apply for funding, and you can choose how much time you want to devote to teaching and what kind of teaching you want to do.

It's fair to quibble with the actual numbers, but the point is that money buys you a hell of a lot. The fact that someone might not save, or pathologically continue slaving away at the corporate behemoth they hate once they've saved enough, doesn't change that possibility.

Re: The Ph.D Bust: America's Awful Market for Young Scientists

#70

Post by matwood »

confluence wrote: post #48

The problem here is merely a misunderstanding of career statistics. The statistics for success in academia are thoroughly against any one Ph.D. The competition is too high, the rewards are too low, and the competitors are too desperate. This is not a place where you wish to compete - unless you have some kind of overwhelming advantage - aka really, really brilliant - you know who you are. For everyone else - look str…

The poker example is a great one. Years ago when I first started to learn to play a friend of mine told a similar story more succinctly.

When you sit down at a table if you can't pick out the sucker, it's you.

Pick your table, pick your game, do whatever you have to to slant the odds in your favor. If you're the sucker get up and move. Don't let your pride get in the way. Back when I started playing poker I could sit at tables in LV and do pretty well. As poker became popular LV became a much harder place to play. The quality (and recklessness of the player went up), so I quit playing.

The last time I played was on a business trip in Phoenix. After a couple of hands a woman already at the table and I realized we were the top ones at the table and just stayed out of each others way while drunk businessmen and golfers emptied their wallets :)

Post reply on HN