Doctoral degrees: The disposable academic (2010) • Hacker News Board

Re: Doctoral degrees: The disposable academic (2010)

#21

Post by denzil_correa » Wed, May 22, 2013, 8:40 PM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #18

sgt101 wrote: post #8

It takes a certain poverty of mind to quantify the value of an education in terms of earnings. I don't earn a huge amount, but I have a fantastic job, I live in a wonderful place about 5 minutes from my office and doing my Ph.D. was the best thing that I ever did. I agree that you don't need one, and many people with one that I have met and employed are fairly hopeless (in comparison to razor sharp and super talented…

>>It takes a certain poverty of mind to quantify the value of an education in terms of earnings. I don't know... If I spend up to 7 years of my life studying and researching my ass off to become one of the foremost experts in a specialized field, then it better have more benefits than just personal satisfaction. A fantastic job with good living arrangements do not require a Ph.D.

>> If I spend up to 7 years of my life studying and researching my ass off

Where did you get the magic number 7 from?

Re: Doctoral degrees: The disposable academic (2010)

#22

Post by chrisrhoden » Wed, May 22, 2013, 8:41 PM UTC

manaskarekar wrote: post #15

sgt101 wrote: post #8

It takes a certain poverty of mind to quantify the value of an education in terms of earnings. I don't earn a huge amount, but I have a fantastic job, I live in a wonderful place about 5 minutes from my office and doing my Ph.D. was the best thing that I ever did. I agree that you don't need one, and many people with one that I have met and employed are fairly hopeless (in comparison to razor sharp and super talented…

Reminds me of 'The illustrated guide to a Ph.D' - http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/

What a perfectly delightful piece of academic propaganda.

I'm sure that I am overreacting, but the suggestion that a PhD is the first and only time that you will experience original knowledge in your life seems quite smug.

Re: Doctoral degrees: The disposable academic (2010)

#23

Post by drobilla » Wed, May 22, 2013, 8:42 PM UTC

Someone needs to write a "why getting a job in industry is a waste of time" rebuttal to this tired argument to illustrate how ridiculous it is to evaluate everything with a single (and shallow) goal structure. After all, it typically doesn't contribute anything new or meaningful to scientific knowledge, therefore it is a waste of time (...).

I guess I shouldn't expect any better from The Economist, but not everyone in the world just does whatever they can to make the most money possible, ignoring all other considerations.

Assuming I'm making enough money to survive comfortably (which is essentially guaranteed with computer anything, including grad school itself), I don't care. What I get to work on, and what environment I get to work on it in, is far, far, more important. Overridingly important.

This mentality (though usually not so extreme) is pretty common among math and computing people, which is probably why industry is finally starting to notice that workplace perks are very important. There are plenty of extremely talented people who'd gladly take a 50% pay cut to work in a less shitty environment...

Re: Doctoral degrees: The disposable academic (2010)

#24

Post by recursive » Wed, May 22, 2013, 8:42 PM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #18

sgt101 wrote: post #8

It takes a certain poverty of mind to quantify the value of an education in terms of earnings. I don't earn a huge amount, but I have a fantastic job, I live in a wonderful place about 5 minutes from my office and doing my Ph.D. was the best thing that I ever did. I agree that you don't need one, and many people with one that I have met and employed are fairly hopeless (in comparison to razor sharp and super talented…

>>It takes a certain poverty of mind to quantify the value of an education in terms of earnings. I don't know... If I spend up to 7 years of my life studying and researching my ass off to become one of the foremost experts in a specialized field, then it better have more benefits than just personal satisfaction. A fantastic job with good living arrangements do not require a Ph.D.

Personal satisfaction is one of the best outcomes I can imagine. What's more important than personal satisfaction?

Re: Doctoral degrees: The disposable academic (2010)

#25

Post by gcheong » Wed, May 22, 2013, 8:44 PM UTC

This title hardly seems to reflect the main point of the article which is the problem of enticing more PhD candidates in order to acquire cheap research and teaching labor. The fact that they may not earn more than with a Masters was a fairly minor point.

Re: Doctoral degrees: The disposable academic (2010)

#26

Post by md224 » Wed, May 22, 2013, 8:46 PM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #18

sgt101 wrote: post #8

It takes a certain poverty of mind to quantify the value of an education in terms of earnings. I don't earn a huge amount, but I have a fantastic job, I live in a wonderful place about 5 minutes from my office and doing my Ph.D. was the best thing that I ever did. I agree that you don't need one, and many people with one that I have met and employed are fairly hopeless (in comparison to razor sharp and super talented…

>>It takes a certain poverty of mind to quantify the value of an education in terms of earnings. I don't know... If I spend up to 7 years of my life studying and researching my ass off to become one of the foremost experts in a specialized field, then it better have more benefits than just personal satisfaction. A fantastic job with good living arrangements do not require a Ph.D.

> If I spend up to 7 years of my life studying and researching my ass off to become one of the foremost experts in a specialized field, then it better have more benefits than just personal satisfaction.

I respect your desire for more money in exchange for more commitment, but we should also recognize that money is but one of many motivators, all of which are ultimately in the service of increasing personal satisfaction.

Re: Doctoral degrees: The disposable academic (2010)

#27

Post by wmf » Wed, May 22, 2013, 8:48 PM UTC

dumitrue wrote: post #12

jacoblyles wrote: post #3

We need to open up the knowledge guild so that people don't have to get a PHD to participate in new research. Open Access to scientific journals is a good first step.

There's absolutely no requirement to have a PhD to participate in research (grad students would never get to publish, though I understand this is not what you meant). When you submit an article to a journal or a conference (at least in my field), you don't get to (or have to) expose your credentials. In fact, a lot of times the submissions are double-blind so the reviewers don't even get to see your name or your inst…

If you can't read the literature because it's behind a paywall that you can't afford, it's very likely that any papers you write will be rejected for poor form, lack of proper citations, and possibly being entirely redundant. I think there are much bigger problems trying to perform research outside "the system", but access to the literature is an issue.

Re: Doctoral degrees: The disposable academic (2010)

#28

Post by drobilla » Wed, May 22, 2013, 8:50 PM UTC

fein wrote: post #4

Well of course! PhD's are in the unfortunate position to be overqualified for 90% of the positions they would apply to, and too much of an education to leverage for a higher salary. Industry experience is what makes the R&D rooms at BigCo's tick, and academia doesn't pay that well. Even a masters in CS is overkill these days. Most employers are looking for entry level code monkeys in order to underpay, or industry ha…

> I could either have another expensive piece of paper, or add more code to my github account for future employment...

You could always do both. Academics who can actually write good code are a pretty rare commodity.

Re: Doctoral degrees: The disposable academic (2010)

#29

Post by anologwintermut » Wed, May 22, 2013, 8:51 PM UTC

wmf wrote: post #27

dumitrue wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's absolutely no requirement to have a PhD to participate in research (grad students would never get to publish, though I understand this is not what you meant). When you submit an article to a journal or a conference (at least in my field), you don't get to (or have to) expose your credentials. In fact, a lot of times the submissions are double-blind so the reviewers don't even get to see your name or your inst…

If you can't read the literature because it's behind a paywall that you can't afford, it's very likely that any papers you write will be rejected for poor form, lack of proper citations, and possibly being entirely redundant. I think there are much bigger problems trying to perform research outside "the system", but access to the literature is an issue.

Most research papers are findable via Google. Authors post them online. The better argument for open access is merely that universities shouldn't be paying for or private parties profiting from providing access to publicly funded research

Often times, the knowledge guild is actually never put down on paper. You, sadly, need to be at a university where people are working on what you want to be able to do anything. Papers are just waypoints.

Re: Doctoral degrees: The disposable academic (2010)

#30

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, May 22, 2013, 8:52 PM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #18

sgt101 wrote: post #8

It takes a certain poverty of mind to quantify the value of an education in terms of earnings. I don't earn a huge amount, but I have a fantastic job, I live in a wonderful place about 5 minutes from my office and doing my Ph.D. was the best thing that I ever did. I agree that you don't need one, and many people with one that I have met and employed are fairly hopeless (in comparison to razor sharp and super talented…

>>It takes a certain poverty of mind to quantify the value of an education in terms of earnings. I don't know... If I spend up to 7 years of my life studying and researching my ass off to become one of the foremost experts in a specialized field, then it better have more benefits than just personal satisfaction. A fantastic job with good living arrangements do not require a Ph.D.

> I don't know... If I spend up to 7 years of my life studying and researching my ass off to become one of the foremost experts in a specialized field, then it better have more benefits than just personal satisfaction.

The only kind of benefits any job can have is subjective "personal satisfaction". The degree to which any particular objective result of employment (e.g., material gain) is an important factor in producing personal satisfaction, of course, varies from person to person.