Academia as an ‘anxiety machine’ • Hacker News Board

Re: Academia as an ‘anxiety machine’

#41

Post by NotOscarWilde » Sat, Dec 06, 2014, 1:58 AM UTC

tjradcliffe wrote: post #31

alevskaya wrote: post #17

The worst consequence of this insecure, anxious, hypercompetitive culture is the near-impossibility of sincere collaboration. I speak from my experience as a very successful grad-student and postdoc in synthetic biology and neuroscience. Unlike equity in a startup, the kudos credit for publishing a high-impact paper is really only split between the first author and the lab PI, removing any incentive for trainees and…

This is one of the things that struck me most about moving out of academia and into various other things: how collegial in the best sense of the word most of the engineering teams I've worked on have been. In academia, if you're any good, you're a threat to other good people. You try to be nice to each other, but when it's you and a few dozen of your closest colleagues in pursuit of the one or two tenure-track openin…

> In academia, if you're any good, you're a threat to other good people. You try to be nice to each other, but when it's you and a few dozen of your closest colleagues in pursuit of the one or two tenure-track openings in your field this decade... there are limits on how collaborative you can be.

There are many "academias", but this is not my personal experience of it. Yes, I think most of us PhDs realize the bleak situation we are in, but still, we usually work together at the university as well as across universities.

Whenever I see a PhD student that has a better track record or just more talent, I am very happy for him -- after all, he's got a bigger chance than me for making it in academia.

There might be some politics and bickering among researchers/employees within a university, but that's something that happens in every community.

Re: Academia as an ‘anxiety machine’

#42

Post by skybrian » Sat, Dec 06, 2014, 2:28 AM UTC

tensor wrote: post #36

tjradcliffe wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Academics in many fields are very strongly socialized into the belief that nothing outside of academia is worthwhile. It isn't about creativity, it's about culture. They simply can't believe that there is a life worth living outside of the charmed circle.

Having moved from academia to industry, industry is everything academics think it is. A lot of arrogant people, a lot of incompetent people, equal or more politics, very few "hard" problems where hard is defined as "I'm not sure if there is a solution to this, or if there is I have no idea when we will be able to find it, if ever." It's not about culture, it's about priorities. Academics are interested in solving har…

There are many problems that are known to be solvable in principle (because there's a paper) but in practice are not solved because production-worthy code isn't widely available.

For example, the existence of the Paxos paper didn't mean that most organizations could actually use distributed state machines in real life.

So how about "write the definitive library for X so that nobody needs to write this code again?" That ought to count for something. If you want to see problems solved for real (not just in principle), maybe you're better off in industry.

Re: Academia as an ‘anxiety machine’

#43

Post by saraid216 » Sat, Dec 06, 2014, 2:42 AM UTC

mathattack wrote: post #23

"One of the reasons academic infighting is so vicious is that the stakes are so small" - Kissinger

He's not wrong, but he's not right either. The stakes aren't so much small as they're impossible to wrap your head around. They tend to be something like, "understanding something we don't even know exists yet". Compared to something like global politics, where a stake is often at least quantifiable ("1 country", "500 million children", etc.), it does help explain the viciousness: it's not clear what's lost when there's a casualty.

Re: Academia as an ‘anxiety machine’

#44

Post by kghose » Sat, Dec 06, 2014, 2:43 AM UTC

Chinjut wrote: post #9

mdcpepper wrote: post #6

I didn't stay in formal education beyond high school so I can't really comment, but from that article: "Unfortunately, some of his colleagues felt that he did not secure sufficiently large research grants. So he was to be fired." However, Imperial College' statement on his passing claims otherwise: "Contrary to claims appearing on the internet, Professor Grimm’s work was not under formal review nor had he been given…

More fully: "Contrary to claims appearing on the internet, Professor Grimm’s work was not under formal review nor had he been given any notice of dismissal. It is standard practice at Imperial to conduct both informal and formal performance management. Professor Grimm’s line manager met with him on a number of occasions to see how the College could help him to develop more competitive grant applications, for example…

A line manager for academics. We're not in Kansas anymore.

Re: Academia as an ‘anxiety machine’

#45

Post by svedlin » Sat, Dec 06, 2014, 6:00 AM UTC

Professor Grimm's death is a horrible tragedy and a major blow to the community. He will be greatly missed by those who were fortunate enough to know him.

Perhaps institutions that issue grants should require that the receiving organization ban "quotas" from their internal policies.

Condolences to Prof. Grimm's family and friends.

Re: Academia as an ‘anxiety machine’

#46

Post by cfallin » Sat, Dec 06, 2014, 7:42 AM UTC

tjradcliffe wrote: post #31

alevskaya wrote: post #17

The worst consequence of this insecure, anxious, hypercompetitive culture is the near-impossibility of sincere collaboration. I speak from my experience as a very successful grad-student and postdoc in synthetic biology and neuroscience. Unlike equity in a startup, the kudos credit for publishing a high-impact paper is really only split between the first author and the lab PI, removing any incentive for trainees and…

This is one of the things that struck me most about moving out of academia and into various other things: how collegial in the best sense of the word most of the engineering teams I've worked on have been. In academia, if you're any good, you're a threat to other good people. You try to be nice to each other, but when it's you and a few dozen of your closest colleagues in pursuit of the one or two tenure-track openin…

> In academia, if you're any good, you're a threat to other good people

This may be the case for career academics (professors), but in my experience, as a PhD student, at least in a day-to-day setting my fellow students were remarkably friendly and collaborative. The camaraderie within my advisor's group and within the dept as a whole was great; we were always happy to bounce ideas off of each other, always friendly and encouraging, mostly constructive in criticism, and it was generally pretty productive.

I think this type of rivalry comes out much more between different research groups at different schools. I can recall a number of times we thought some other group's paper was full of crap, and asked questions as such (usually politely) after the conference talk. But that mostly comes from a tradition of academic debate, not a 'shoot down everyone else so I can win' attitude.

I didn't stay for the "go on the job talk circuit and fight for a tenure-track slot" stage (actually I left before the "defend and graduate" stage, oh well), so maybe I'm just pleasantly lacking the visceral experience of that part...

Re: Academia as an ‘anxiety machine’

#47

Post by eli_gottlieb » Sat, Dec 06, 2014, 9:16 AM UTC

skybrian wrote: post #42

tensor wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having moved from academia to industry, industry is everything academics think it is. A lot of arrogant people, a lot of incompetent people, equal or more politics, very few "hard" problems where hard is defined as "I'm not sure if there is a solution to this, or if there is I have no idea when we will be able to find it, if ever." It's not about culture, it's about priorities. Academics are interested in solving har…

There are many problems that are known to be solvable in principle (because there's a paper) but in practice are not solved because production-worthy code isn't widely available. For example, the existence of the Paxos paper didn't mean that most organizations could actually use distributed state machines in real life. So how about "write the definitive library for X so that nobody needs to write this code again?" Th…

>So how about "write the definitive library for X so that nobody needs to write this code again?" That ought to count for something.

That sounds like a job for the open-source world.

Re: Academia as an ‘anxiety machine’

#48

Post by eli_gottlieb » Sat, Dec 06, 2014, 9:31 AM UTC

noobermin wrote: post #40

kleer001 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Best" is a pretty hairy topic. Does it mean "Most fulfilling existance", does it mean "Most benefit to humanity", does it mean "Most benefit to this country/children/etc..." There's no right answer. I submit that "Letting people expressing their freedom in a way that maximally lets others express the same." is more useful/enlightening/profitable than "Getting the best". But that's pedantic and hair splittery, like t…

Continuing this pedantry, one could argue s/he isn't claiming that what people _do_ be worth all the stars in the heaven, etc. This guy "getting a house in Montana" is him specifically rejecting that his worth is only his salary or position or career...even his pride. His sanity at least was worth it somewhat for him to take a sabbath to regain it. I guess the next question then is what is it we value in ourselves an…

The question is wrongly phrased: it's not that we value things in people. People are terminally valuable.

Re: Academia as an ‘anxiety machine’

#49

Post by Balgair » Sat, Dec 06, 2014, 4:18 PM UTC

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #25

Balgair wrote: post #2

How to get the best out of people is a millennial long question. Egyptians used whips and slaves, we have been using money and propaganda lately, but everyone uses something that may or may not be the most optimal method. The issue is that people are individual and respond differently each time you ask them. My condolences on the loss of life (I too have felt like the world was asking far too much of me and I had no…

>If there was 2 things I wish the whole world could know, truly know deep down, they would be that you personally are worth all the stars in the heavens, all the grain in the fields, all the water in the oceans, and that everyone else is worth exactly the same amount; that we are all priceless. Which, unfortunately, only tells us that we perhaps ought to trade off human lives against nonhuman lives or nonlives, since…

thanks (?)

Re: Academia as an ‘anxiety machine’

#50

Post by angersock » Sat, Dec 06, 2014, 8:48 PM UTC

munin wrote: post #37

angersock wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll second this--again, it's not like every second of your 9-5 is micromanaged: in fact, any shop like that is probably run by people that are easy to game with just a little application of intellect. I wholeheartedly support the concept of slackademia...using idle cycles at work to learn about new, exciting things.

there's a big difference between "if I clock out an hour early, I can read some wikipedia pages before I commute home" and "take the next three weeks and read these 20 papers"

Stop strawmanning.

It's entirely possible to leave a paper up in a tab, read it over lunch or just when taking a break from your work, and continue.

This isn't rocket science--nobody is >80% all day erry day in their time usage, regardless of what they claim.