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Thesis Hatement

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Re: Thesis Hatement

#61

Post by fyi80 »

michael_miller wrote: post #57
rmk2 wrote: post #49

This is the perfect article to be submitted to HN. Because it brings out the worst in HN. The saturated, self-congratulatory, better-than-thou crowd that is smug about their income, prospects and worth . Many here already believe that everything that isn't programming or engineering is virtually worthless and should be killed. This reinforces them. But credit where credit is due: Academia, especially in the humanitie…

Very well said. At the risk of taking away from your original point, going into academia (especially a non-engineering field) can give you a very different perspective and release you from the tech mindset. As an example, the CEO of Palantir, Alex Karp, has a PhD in German social philosophy. How the hell did he end up leading a billion-dollar tech company? Basically he was really smart, and his PhD gave him the frame…

Uh, thanks for the hagiography on Karp. German social philosophy teaches you how to think about privacy concerns in an espionage organization?

He's a smart, good-looking guy who has a lot of powerful friends in multiple locations.

His knowledge of German philosophy isn't really relevant.

http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/6717

Prior to Palantir, Alex established the Caedmon Group in 2002. Based in New York and London, the Caedmon Group offers clients access to high-quality investment opportunities in the areas of hedge funds, venture capital, private equity, and intellectual property in the United States and Europe.

Alex earned his law degree at Stanford University and received his Ph.D. in neoclassical social theory at the University of Frankfurt, Germany. A U.S. citizen, Alex is bilingual in English and German and fluent in French.

Re: Thesis Hatement

#62

Post by dhstylez »

wisty wrote: post #35
crusso wrote: post #23

Don't most of us think, "Duh?" to an article proclaiming that getting/being a PhD in Literature is hard and mostly pointless? Upper level education costs a lot of money and involves years of time, don't these people think about what they want to do with their lives? Don't they do at least cursory research into what that degree will mean to their careers? Every high school has some sort of career counselor. Colleges h…

> Every high school has some sort of career counselor. Colleges have many of them. They typically won't tell a student "sure, you can go for a PhD, but it's a waste of time." Schools and colleges tend to be biased towards thinking more education is always better.

There was a time in high school where I came to the realization that I learned material better doing independent study than in actual lectures/classes. Reading/studying on my own allowed me to learn in a more focused atmosphere. Lectures seemed like a waste, time spent scribing what was being 'taught' (for review later) versus actually absorbing material. Also, I felt that a lot of my time was wasted on topics that I really didn't care for and was quite painful (American & European History come to mind).

I brought this up to my guidance counselor and asked why I was wasting my time in high school when I could just as easily buy a book. Half-considered dropping out of high school and focusing my studies on topics that were interesting (physics, chemistry, cs, math, and possibly finance).

Our dialogue went something like:

GC: Uhh...don't drop out. You should stay in school it's good for you

Me: But I learn better straight from the book, it's what I'm doing for my courses now anyway...

GC: You need to have teachers

Me: Why?

GC: It's hard to get into [a reputable?] college without graduating from high school.

Me: ...

Kind of wish I did drop out back then. I would have probably spent a lot of my time honing a particular craft, although CS and Finance/Accounting seem to be the easiest choices (lower cost of entry compared to chemistry/physics/biology - requiring labs).

tl/dr: I wanted to drop out of high school and study independently. Guidance counselor encouraged me to stay in school. Wish I left so that I could focus on interesting subject areas.

Re: Thesis Hatement

#63

Post by fyi80 »

pmb wrote: post #44
pc86 wrote: post #2

To be fair, this post is about a literature Ph.D., not one in a field like Mathematics or Computer Science. Not that the job outlook is a lot rosier on that side, but it's an important distinction to be made.

It's actually a lot rosier on the CS side in my experience. I got my PhD from a middle-of-the-pack school (i.e. not CMU, MIT, etc) and received a tenure-track job offer (at a 4-year liberal-arts college) before I had defended. After working as a professor for a few years, I have decided to go back to industry, and have been besieged with job offers. My understanding is that hiring my replacement is turning out to be…

When has their ever been a research-only professor job? The name of the job is professor, not researcher.

Re: Thesis Hatement

#64

Post by fyi80 »

tellarin wrote: post #26
Spooky23 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lifestyle considerations too. Academic work year, no crazy work hours, etc.

Academic work year and no crazy hours? Sorry, but you clearly don't work with research. Working all days of the week is incredibly common. And, unfortunately, crunch time specially near major conference deadlines is almost becoming the norm. Of course, the focus on publication is another problem related to that.

People can work as much or as little as they want, once they make tenure. It's not that different from the startup model: hard work for a few years up front, then cash in your chips, with 2-3 decades of guaranteed income until government retirement age.

Re: Thesis Hatement

#65

Post by fyi80 »

georgecmu wrote: post #30

She goes on about her hopeless job search, but she never mentioned where she got her degree (Department of German at the University of California-Irvine). I wonder if her perspective were different had she graduated from an Ivy.

To everyone:

Take a look at the faculty roster of UCI, and look at where they got there PhDs I don't know about German, but in math and science, most of the top-50 or top-100 university faculties got their PhDs at top-15 universities.

If you run the numbers and look at the ratio of PhDs to professors, it's obvious why.

Re: Thesis Hatement

#66

Post by tellarin »

fyi80 wrote: post #64
tellarin wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Academic work year and no crazy hours? Sorry, but you clearly don't work with research. Working all days of the week is incredibly common. And, unfortunately, crunch time specially near major conference deadlines is almost becoming the norm. Of course, the focus on publication is another problem related to that.

People can work as much or as little as they want, once they make tenure. It's not that different from the startup model: hard work for a few years up front, then cash in your chips, with 2-3 decades of guaranteed income until government retirement age.

This would only be the case if every research job was in a university and in tenure track, which is definitely not the case.

Many research positions are in industry, or are postdocs or non-tenure track. Besides the fact that many countries don't have anything similar to tenure.

Also, not everybody on tenure track reaches it.

Re: Thesis Hatement

#67

Post by arethuza »

tellarin wrote: post #26
Spooky23 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lifestyle considerations too. Academic work year, no crazy work hours, etc.

Academic work year and no crazy hours? Sorry, but you clearly don't work with research. Working all days of the week is incredibly common. And, unfortunately, crunch time specially near major conference deadlines is almost becoming the norm. Of course, the focus on publication is another problem related to that.

Having worked in academic research and co-founded a startup I would admit that the working hours weren't that different. However, in a startup you have a much wider set of pressures - making payroll at the end of the month, keeping customers happy, investing your own money to keep the business going, hiring/firing/managing people etc. (it's a very long list).

Re: Thesis Hatement

#68

Post by eavc »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #33
crusso wrote: post #23

Don't most of us think, "Duh?" to an article proclaiming that getting/being a PhD in Literature is hard and mostly pointless? Upper level education costs a lot of money and involves years of time, don't these people think about what they want to do with their lives? Don't they do at least cursory research into what that degree will mean to their careers? Every high school has some sort of career counselor. Colleges h…

No. Up until very recently (the most recent recession, perhaps), simply having a college degree was thought of as being a road to a comfortable middle class life. To this day career counselling focuses almost completely on interests and lifestyle and ignores salary. Unless a student has a mentor to guide them, it is very easy to go through college blistfully unaware of the realities that exist once you are in the job…

>To this day career counselling focuses almost completely on interests and lifestyle and ignores salary.

What's your experience with this? I've found earnings and job market to be regular features of career counseling sessions.

Re: Thesis Hatement

#69

Post by ethomson »

rmk2 wrote: post #49

This is the perfect article to be submitted to HN. Because it brings out the worst in HN. The saturated, self-congratulatory, better-than-thou crowd that is smug about their income, prospects and worth . Many here already believe that everything that isn't programming or engineering is virtually worthless and should be killed. This reinforces them. But credit where credit is due: Academia, especially in the humanitie…

I think that you and your peers have very realistic expectations of the post-PhD landscape. And I think that these expectations are exactly what this article (and the similar article by Benton that was linked therein) is trying to cultivate.

Because I don't think that this expectation really exists in the US. I have close friends who are pursuing PhDs in mathematics and literature and have consequently met a great many PhD candidates in both of those fields. Almost all of them, with few exceptions, expect that they will get a good post-doc position and, following that, will get a good tenure track position. They have no backup plans, they have no skills that could provide them a job in anything but academia, and it's not hiring.

But I think this criticism is the same that HN readers have, just better expressed. When I read these criticisms here, I don't take away a pervasive thought that people believe a literature PhD (for example) to be worthless on its own. Instead, I see a lot of criticism of the expectation that one would get a PhD and everything would simply work out.

I'm sure that there are some HN criticism that a literature PhD is inherently worthless. But I think (and hope) that this is the distinct minority. But I do see a lot of messages critical of the fact that one spent x years working on a PhD and has developed no skills beyond the ability to critically analyze Beowulf and has no backup plan if the job market for fine arts PhDs was poor (and it is). And while the tone may be exceptionally callous, this expectation and this behavior should be criticized.

Re: Thesis Hatement

#70

Post by ryguytilidie »

freyr wrote: post #43
georgecmu wrote: post #30

She goes on about her hopeless job search, but she never mentioned where she got her degree (Department of German at the University of California-Irvine). I wonder if her perspective were different had she graduated from an Ivy.

"After four years of trying, I’ve finally gotten it through my thick head that I will not get a job—and if you go to graduate school, neither will you." Clearly, her personal experience can be extrapolated to everyone everywhere looking for a tenure track literature professorship. If she can't do it, nobody else should bother trying. I wouldn't have hired her either.

Reading this the same morning as that high school girl ranting about how no white kids will get into college because of affirmative action has really kind of soured my feelings on humans for the morning.
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