71–80 of 170 posts
It's kind of hard to get through this, not because the points ring untrue (I agree with many), but because they seem a bit naive. I think there's a certain type of person that is particularly attracted to advanced work in science and technology -- the systems purist, who believes strongly that the world "should" work in mostly objective ways. This is a strength in that the world doesn't change very much without these…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not claiming you're wrong, but why isn't it possible for the student to simply no longer place any value in getting a PhD? That is what they claim, and intelligent people often make decisions on principle that make little practical sense.
It's the same reason that people don't drop everything in their life to pursue their ideals: the odd of succeeding following the established path may be awful, but the alternatives' odds are even worse. Even without regard to the practicality of the choices (ie economic aspect of it) , you basically have two choices: go to grad school and have ~25-50% of getting somethings out of it (and I'm talking about knowledge/…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not claiming you're wrong, but why isn't it possible for the student to simply no longer place any value in getting a PhD? That is what they claim, and intelligent people often make decisions on principle that make little practical sense.
It's the same reason that people don't drop everything in their life to pursue their ideals: the odd of succeeding following the established path may be awful, but the alternatives' odds are even worse. Even without regard to the practicality of the choices (ie economic aspect of it) , you basically have two choices: go to grad school and have ~25-50% of getting somethings out of it (and I'm talking about knowledge/…
In theory, the PhD is this fantastic credential that opens all kinds of doors. In practice it might make a small difference in your starting salary in industry. The only place where having a PhD is truly important is in a research position, which basically means academia. Even then it is not the last word -- tenure track positions might be out, but there are a number of schools who are willing to hire a good researcher whose highest degree is an MS.
Even with a PhD your prospects may not be all that much better than they are with an MS. I have seen people get a PhD with only one or two published papers, in a field where you need at least ten to even have a serious shot at a tenure track position. If you are the kind of person whose attitude is, "Screw it, I am in school to learn as much as I can and not just to publish a bunch of incremental improvements," you might not even get a shot at an academic job. Sure, someone can pad their CV as a postdoc -- but that is not all that much better than being a grad student, just moderately better pay.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It may just be an artifact of the expanding population. It wasn't too long ago that many young people also harbored an idealism about working for big companies: go to college, get a nearly guaranteed job at a corporation, work there for 25-30 years, retire with a pension. But we all know that each of these steps is less guaranteed today than it was for the previous generation, sometimes significantly so. It's the sam…
Given that GDP/capita has expanded plenty, I don't think that's a very good explanation. An economy in which actual growth can't keep up with population should see a falling GDP/capita. Can we explain why we seem to see an increasingly competitive society despite there being more actual stuff to go around?
I don't think this is a complete explanation, though, and your point is a good one.
I also believe that the transition from one-income to dual-income households has had a pretty deleterious effect on the buying power of the average household. Rather than providing financial security, the second income led to a bidding war on homes, cars, and schools. It's a shocking fact that today's dual-income family has less disposable income after necessary bills than yesterday's single-income family.
Can someone please change `wity' to `with' in the title? This critique is well written and was interesting for me to read, having just finished my PhD a few months ago. I can relate to a number of the issues he raised. However, I must take issue with his point (8). While I think it certainly is important to make sure that academics contribute back to larger society in some capacity, I think it is a bit premature to c…
the difficulty with 'basic research with seemingly no value' (a good example is the fourier transform, which at the time was seen as a mathematical curiosity) - is that it lacks accountability. How do you make sure that the academe that is selling their project as 'basic research' isn't just pulling a fast one on you and sucking your funds to tickle their intellectual jollies? This problem is even worse when you take…
Spoken like a true engineer
It's kind of hard to get through this, not because the points ring untrue (I agree with many), but because they seem a bit naive. I think there's a certain type of person that is particularly attracted to advanced work in science and technology -- the systems purist, who believes strongly that the world "should" work in mostly objective ways. This is a strength in that the world doesn't change very much without these…
I wonder why we impart onto young people such an idealism about science only to have to crush it when they get older and must be informed that science, like everything else, is a business.
I sympathize a lot with the frustration here and can agree on some of the points (especially the rankings/h-index/etc mania), however... Much of what is bemoaned here is simply a consequence of the fact that science is done by humans and generally costs money, so there is a necessary component of business-type activities (networking, fundraising, marketing, management). Scientists also have human qualities such as eg…
Survey papers are useful to other researchers. Minimum publishable units are a waste of research time, and the pressure to pad one's CV and get "results" (which actually means more papers) worsens the situation. It is even worse when a grad student is told that they were "scooped" because their half-finished MPU was published by someone else.
This student makes some excellent points, and it's a bit scary how some things reinforce each other. Some journals, Nature being the most notable, chase impact factor above all else. The only thing they truly care about is that the papers they publish get cited. This means highly original work, which frequently doesn't get cited much for a long time, is less desirable than a turn-the-crank paper from a respected name…
There are other points that are addressed in the opposite direction. Anyway it's good to have a wide variety of opinions floating around, makes it easier for us outsiders to get closer to 42...