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

Goodbye Academia

anothersb.blogspot.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 217 posts

Re: Goodbye Academia

#51

Post by rjzzleep »

naterator wrote: post #4

These kinds of things are daily discussions in laboratories all over the world. Everyone knows there's no future in academia, and so everyone is looking for an exit plan. I actively discourage people from doing a PhD. Academia is a horrible feudalistic system that doesn't pay well enough to keep the bright minds it attracts. There is no sense in being a post-doc for life. Much better to take that hedge fund job. The…

i wish it was just the money. when i went into the university i was hoping to find people like me. it attracts bright minds, but it doesn't encourage them in any sort of way. a bright mind in that system is worth "almost" the same as the average joe who studied enough to pass through the system. so we're there, scattered, with no means to find each other. some of them do so anyway, it's what keeps them put up with the rest of the bs. some of them end up like me, pretty much alone, and then eventually lose interest.

i'm not saying the average joe shouldn't get into the university, i'm not even saying the others should get preferential treatment, but what benefit is it to be packed in basics classes that you don't need to anyway? you don't get to skip classes you already know, you have to sit through them, and waste your time. you take away time that could be used to teach the less gifted. you fill a spot which is valuable in the beginning, at the end not so much, because most will have dropped out by then.

i believe that we need to get away from the notion that everyone should study exactly the same. i don't see how it makes sense at all. and the same goes for phd's. which is essentially a pretty static period of underpaid work.

but that would take effort wouldn't it?

Re: Goodbye Academia

#52

Post by DanAndersen »

I'm curious about what areas of academia are more or less affected by these trends. I'm planning on starting a PhD program this year in computer science (emphasis on graphics research), and I had been under the impression that the state of funding was not so dire in CS as it is in the other sciences (the sciences that are more science than engineering), but I'd certainly be interested in any perspectives about academia in my field in particular.

Re: Goodbye Academia

#53

Post by jseliger »

shas3 wrote: post #42
naterator wrote: post #4

These kinds of things are daily discussions in laboratories all over the world. Everyone knows there's no future in academia, and so everyone is looking for an exit plan. I actively discourage people from doing a PhD. Academia is a horrible feudalistic system that doesn't pay well enough to keep the bright minds it attracts. There is no sense in being a post-doc for life. Much better to take that hedge fund job. The…

> I actively discourage people from doing a PhD. Academia is a horrible feudalistic system that doesn't pay well enough to keep the bright minds it attracts. There is no sense in being a post-doc for life. Much better to take that hedge fund job. Underlying your comment is the assumption that every one wants the hedge fund (or other) job. One of the allures of academia is the prospect of doing fundamental research. Y…

One of the allures of academia is the prospect of doing fundamental research

It's also a false allure: the problem is that fundamental research requires funding, and the OP is pointing out that he can't get it. He'll be in essence locked out of research and not make a lot of money at it.

This is like saying, "One of the allures of acting is the prospect of being famous and sleeping with lots of fans." On the one hand it's true; on the other, it's very unlikely.

Re: Goodbye Academia

#54

Post by gnoway »

skybrian wrote: post #26
6cxs2hd6 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fastest. Downvote. Ever. \o/

Why? What would be the problem with taxing large acquisitions? It seems relatively painless and with little dead-weight loss compared to other taxes.

I don't know what the parent's reasoning is, but the problem I have with "let's just tax it!" is that there's probably already taxes being taken from that money somewhere along the line. The next response is usually "well that's fine" - no, it isn't always - or "well we'll stop some or all of those others," which doesn't necessarily happen. Finally, while a tax may ostensibly exist to pay for x, there's usually nothing stopping existing funding y from being reappropriated for z once the new tax is in place. So there can be a new tax to increase funding but there's no net gain. I don't have any sources but I firmly believe that this happens.

So, short answer: because politics.

Re: Goodbye Academia

#55

Post by dnautics »

I quit my second postdoc to launch a nonprofit research institute (we did not get funding, and are retrying later this year). I currently drive for lyft - and make more money than I did as a postdoc, with far fewer hours and better working conditions. This makes economic sense; it's not clear to me that what I was doing as a scientist was really doing society any good, at least as a late night driver I'm 1) giving people what they want and 2) keeping drunk people off the streets (a social good).

My Academic path has been tortured; graduated from a really good undergrad, went to an even better grad school (my cohort is basically placed as faculty at places like Berkeley, Stanford, UCSD, TSRI, etc). But in grad school I lost time cleaning up after an irresponsible grad student (who, btw, is faculty at UW) and only published two papers that aren't flashy but are solid, and in second-tier journals. Did an amazing first postdoc actually possibly helping the world (pushing forward a drug candidate), at a third-tier school - since due to the economic collapse, was hard to get a job/good position in 2009. One publication, second-tier journal. Did a more amazing second "postdoc" (actually hired as a BS biologist, via craigslist) under a nobel laureate, at an institution where publishing isn't a priority, and the resources available are somewhat orthogonal to doing the comprehensive set of experiments necessary to get a cell/nature/science paper. My efforts resulted in improving an enzyme - three times (there are very few people who can claim to have done that even once), again, second-tier journals (two are papers-in-work, even though I've quit, i'm still going over there to get them written up). I'm not really ever going to get a faculty position (tried, two years running). I see crappier postdocs and grad students get their run, but you know what? I don't care anymore.

Re: Goodbye Academia

#56

Post by shas3 »

jseliger wrote: post #53
shas3 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I actively discourage people from doing a PhD. Academia is a horrible feudalistic system that doesn't pay well enough to keep the bright minds it attracts. There is no sense in being a post-doc for life. Much better to take that hedge fund job. Underlying your comment is the assumption that every one wants the hedge fund (or other) job. One of the allures of academia is the prospect of doing fundamental research. Y…

One of the allures of academia is the prospect of doing fundamental research It's also a false allure: the problem is that fundamental research requires funding, and the OP is pointing out that he can't get it. He'll be in essence locked out of research and not make a lot of money at it. This is like saying, "One of the allures of acting is the prospect of being famous and sleeping with lots of fans." On the one hand…

The analogy does not make sense. I know many colleagues who got into academia and were able to find plenty of funding. It wasn't a lucky break that helped them, but hard work and talent. The system is far from perfect, but it is not 'feudal', etc. as the parent comment claims. Systematic hard work can get you results in academia. From what I understand about show-biz, it requires a lot more than just talent and hard work.

Also, your comment ignores the fact that OP is in just one nook of academia. Further, OP is one data point in that one nook of academia. That he is the top institutes doesn't 'weight' his opinion either way, in the grand scheme of things.

Re: Goodbye Academia

#57

Post by bduerst »

ry0ohki wrote: post #27
6cxs2hd6 wrote: post #15

Not to sound like some crazy person with the word SOCIALIST written on the inside of my forehead in neon colors, but: It should be possible for WhatsApp to get "only" $18 billion and scientific research gets the remaining $1 billion. About a 5% tax. That way, venture capitalists could claim to fund innovation and would actually be truth-tellers.

There's already a tax on that $18 billion, it's at least a capital gains tax of 20% (not to mention the income taxes on all the attorney's, accountants, etc... involved in the deal). You just need to fix the allocation of the tax dollars.

That's only on cash dividends, selling equity, income on shorting, etc, right?

The actual transfer of equity isn't taxed, at least until they try to pull cash out.

Re: Goodbye Academia

#58

Post by silverlake »

pyrrhotech wrote: post #37
silverlake wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can write a superficial clone of any web app. But can you handle 8000 tweets/sec in real-time? The innovation is in the back-end.

It's been done notoriously badly at Twitter, no offense if you are an employee. Sure it's gotten better since they switched to the JVM, but still scaling to that size has been done by hundreds of companies now. Once there are textbooks out describing the techniques, you are simply implementing known methodologies with perhaps a few customizations and tweaks. I don't really see much innovation there TBH.

I'm neither an employee nor a twitter user. But I've built phone networks and appreciate the absurd complexity of very large systems. If you believe you can build twitter, you're either a brilliant programmer or ignorant of the real challenges. Look at Twitter's code on github and tell me that's just a simple tweak on a known methodology.

Re: Goodbye Academia

#59

Post by dnautics »

6cxs2hd6 wrote: post #15

Not to sound like some crazy person with the word SOCIALIST written on the inside of my forehead in neon colors, but: It should be possible for WhatsApp to get "only" $18 billion and scientific research gets the remaining $1 billion. About a 5% tax. That way, venture capitalists could claim to fund innovation and would actually be truth-tellers.

How do you suppose that $1b would be allocated? Of course it will go to the top 1% of researchers, so the established top will stay at the top. Your proposal will make matter worse in exactly the way that "SOCIALISM" (OP's scare words) doesn't work.

Re: Goodbye Academia

#60

Post by Create »

plg wrote: post #47

Yet another worrying sign is that at my university (and I've heard similar stories from colleagues at others) is now deciding that instead of hiring 2 or 3 junior faculty positions (new academics straight out of a postdoc into their first faculty job), instead the priority is to spend the same money on one mid-career "poach" from a competing institution. Double the salary, and bigger startup package. Their rationale…

Add a Scandinavian example to the collection.
Post reply on HN