81–87 of 87 posts
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…
The irony burns like flames from hell.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 .
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.
Yeah, the success rate for startups is low, but at least there are different routes to success (side project, bootstrapping, angel, VC, etc). If you want to be a professor the only option is to get a job at a university.
[angry bold]Stop whining and start working. [/]
This article is one of the many articles, blogs, etc I’ve read from academics complaining that there are no jobs and how it's so hard, and OMG the hours are long, and why is this happening to me, and waaaaaaaaaa, I'm a victim. I literally have 2 of them talking about this right now across from me as I’m typing this. You know what they aren’t doing? Working (says the guy who is typing on hacker news:) ). Stop complaining and start being the best. Every academic that I have a lot of respect for was able to get a job. They are also the ones that work their asses off, networked, give talks, and play the game correctly. Being “smart” doesn’t get you a job, regurgitating papers isn’t what makes a good faculty member and thinking that you deserve a job because you have PhD does NOT quality for a job. Simple as that.
Yes, there are very few jobs and way to many PhDs. But, I’d bet that statistic would look much different if you looked at people who actually work smart ,play the game and have some business sense. When you have no business experience at all, and only have been through school with your parents paying your way , well..yeah, it’s an eye opening experience that working is hard. Deal with it, stop complaining and go work harder/better than anyone in your field or work at starbucks.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Germany there are plenty research-jobs, but most of them in civil service, so no CS-PhD want it. The industry just pays much better. Last year there was something in the news about the payment of professors, which was about $5000 a month. This is an entry level pay of a software developer (without Master or PhD) in Germany.
"...which was about $5000 a month. This is an entry level pay of a software developer (without Master or PhD) in Germany." Where? I'm near what, as I understand it, is considered a good area for high-tech workers (Ruhr area), but I don't see many jobs paying this much (maybe I'm looking in the wrong places?)
Sensational and over generalizing title. This should be downvoted for being misleading. Of course a PhD in literature is going to have almost zero prospective jobs. There's no demand. I'm a EE and in the engineering world this is certainly not the case.
Read the title and subheading on the original article, not the HN parent. It was too long and exceeded the HN character limit, and had to be edited. This is about Ph.Ds in the humanities, not the Ph.D in general.