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In Defense Of The PhD

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Re: In Defense Of The PhD

#11

Post by psawaya »

jvdh wrote: post #10
psawaya wrote: post #4

Normal people don’t study philosophy, and if they’re into computer science, they don’t care whether P!=NP — they just learn Java, Objective-C, Python or whatever else they find useful for becoming a successful software engineer. I resent that. Most programmers I've met find theoretical CS interesting, and learn things simply for the intellectual value of it. They just want to build things people use.

That's exactly the difference the author means. Programmers like to know about this as a means to better achieve things or purely as a hobby, exercise for the mind. People who pursue a PhD go beyond that, and are simply interested in the absolute truths (in the Platonic sense).

But he said "they don't care", as if pursuing a career writing software usually means you aren't interested in those absolute truths. And I'm saying maybe you are, but you want your job to be about something else.

Purely scientific questions like P!=NP are interesting to more than just academics. A Brief History of Time has sold over a million copies, and I bet mostly not to physicists.

Re: In Defense Of The PhD

#12

Post by Create »

rick_2047 wrote: post #2

After weeks of PhD bashing here is one article which successfully defends it against a lot of arguments against a PhD. I especially like the comparison of an academic career with the startup track.

While it is true, that BENELUX and Norway have more budget for research as it stands, opposed to say the cutbacks in the UK, but I would still be interested in the blog entry after he has finished (the last small piece is more than 90% effort). It is just like mountain climbing: you can only state that you made it if you make it home. Everest is littered with - I guess happy - bodies.

btw .no, .be, .nl are among the richest in Europe (petrol, gas, trade, EU admin. overhead etc).

Re: In Defense Of The PhD

#13

Post by feral »

I'll defend the PhD for different reasons.

It educates you further. You acquire knowledge you don't get elsewhere. You get a range of skills and learning opportunities you don't get elsewhere - some of which are very useful when trying to discover new human knowledge. Research labs in universities do - and have traditionally - discovered much new human knowledge; they are good at it.

Using earnings as the sole measure of the worth of a PhD - while maybe what you'd expect The Economist to do - is a little simplistic.

If getting an undergrad CS degree didn't lead to higher lifetime earnings than, say, doing data entry, would you do data entry?

I wouldn't. I put a premium on acquiring knowledge, and doing work I consider interesting.

Research is very interesting work. Having a research degree can lead to more interesting jobs. Like maybe working on the algorithm design team, as opposed to the web development team. A lot of corporations do have labs doing research activities, where people with PhDs work. This should be factored in to any analysis.

Of course, if you view a PhD purely as training for academic positions, then clearly something is broken, because there are very few academic positions.

But if you see the PhD as an educational experience which broadens knowledge, and teaches the skills necessary to break new ground in hard technical problems, that's a different story.

Re: In Defense Of The PhD

#15

Post by alanpca »

I believe that most of the articles that been posted to HN that are negative in regards to doing a PhD are referring more to the liberal arts types of degrees, and the author here points out some reasons that these people are going on to do PhDs in the first place.

Sure, getting a tenure track professorship in English or the Humanities would be great for a lot of these people, but isn't doing a PhD better than the alternates that most of them have available? I would rather pursue a PhD than go do phone marketing, myself.

Re: In Defense Of The PhD

#17

Post by rlmw »

davi wrote: post #5

As it happens, I'm defending my dissertation tomorrow (neuroscience, U.S.) and this post pretty well sums up my sentiment. I particularly agree with the ending: Oh you’re saying I’m a dreamer, and that simply never happens? Well what about those thousands of internet start-up companies? They waste their time as well, trying to become another Facebook or another Google. Yet they still do it, because it’s their dream t…

Good luck!

Re: In Defense Of The PhD

#18

Post by jvdh »

Create wrote: post #12
rick_2047 wrote: post #2

After weeks of PhD bashing here is one article which successfully defends it against a lot of arguments against a PhD. I especially like the comparison of an academic career with the startup track.

While it is true, that BENELUX and Norway have more budget for research as it stands, opposed to say the cutbacks in the UK, but I would still be interested in the blog entry after he has finished (the last small piece is more than 90% effort). It is just like mountain climbing: you can only state that you made it if you make it home. Everest is littered with - I guess happy - bodies. btw .no, .be, .nl are among the…

Universities in the Netherlands are getting hit by budget cuts pretty severely as well. This means that permanent contracts are getting harder and harder to come by in academia.

Three main reasons for this in the Netherlands: * A permanent employee of a university is considered a civil servant, which means that it is impossible to fire him. * A temporary employee is "protected" by law; after three consecutive temporary contracts, the next contract is by law a permanent one. * Most funds at the university come from limited time projects.

This means that universities are very hesitant to hire people on a permanent contract and labour protection laws sort of turn against you.

Re: In Defense Of The PhD

#19

Post by anghyflawn »

jvdh wrote: post #18
Create wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it is true, that BENELUX and Norway have more budget for research as it stands, opposed to say the cutbacks in the UK, but I would still be interested in the blog entry after he has finished (the last small piece is more than 90% effort). It is just like mountain climbing: you can only state that you made it if you make it home. Everest is littered with - I guess happy - bodies. btw .no, .be, .nl are among the…

Universities in the Netherlands are getting hit by budget cuts pretty severely as well. This means that permanent contracts are getting harder and harder to come by in academia. Three main reasons for this in the Netherlands: * A permanent employee of a university is considered a civil servant, which means that it is impossible to fire him. * A temporary employee is "protected" by law; after three consecutive tempora…

Wow. In Norway, there is a similar problem with the "four-year" rule, which means it becomes very hard to fire someone who has worked for an employer for over four years. Now the PhD of course also takes four years, and PhD students are employees. In practice, almost no-one claims the four-year rule following, say, the PhD and a short-term research-assistant engagement (there was a recent case where two people in Oslo did something similar, and the university settled out of court, hiring them permanently, but it was quite unprecedented), but this means that universities much prefer the fixed-term contracts to be shorter than that, again reinforcing the glut of temporary positions; but if we had the three-contract rule, quite a few people I know would have been permanently hired already.

Re: In Defense Of The PhD

#20

Post by ThomPete »

rick_2047 wrote: post #2

After weeks of PhD bashing here is one article which successfully defends it against a lot of arguments against a PhD. I especially like the comparison of an academic career with the startup track.

As pointed out elsewhere the comparison don't hold up.

Startups are high risk high return.

That can't be said about PHDs

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