Abuse isn’t an “advising style”: Consequences of MIT sheltering abusive mentors • Hacker News Board

Re: Abuse isn’t an “advising style”: Consequences of MIT sheltering abusive mentors

#111

Post by pcstl » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 1:04 AM UTC

xiaolingxiao wrote: post #30

This is very very common. As long as professors publish, they can get away with a lot of things, bonus points of the students are indentured to their H1B. I've seen Ph.D students in their 30s, mother of children, cry in front of me because of the abusive and neglectful actions of their advisors. They essentially run their lab as a personal fiefdom, and HR is powerless in this situation. Sexual harrassment cases are m…

You probably mean an F1 visa. H1Bs are for non-immigrant workers, F1s for non-immigrant students.

Re: Abuse isn’t an “advising style”: Consequences of MIT sheltering abusive mentors

#112

Post by NicolasGorden » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 1:12 AM UTC

ivraatiems wrote: post #12

NicolasGorden wrote: post #7

> Too often I have been told to be proud of the great work I am a part of, as if this should outweigh the negative and harmful things myself and others have experienced. Actually, that's how it works in the real world from my experience. Most geniuses have terrible shadows that are as dark and long as they are brilliant and tall. Most of us feel really lucky to get things done and be a part of something, and when we…

I am deeply sorry that the sentiment you express has been your experience. That is not the way it is or must be everywhere, and I hope you are treated better in the future. Even so, I want to say explicitly that the idea that we should allow geniuses to abuse us and harass us because they are geniuses is dangerous and misguided nonsense. Being smart is not an excuse to behave poorly. With rare exception, producing so…

If there was serious abuse I'd 100% agree with you.

One problem we have is the word abuse, based on the modern definition and usage, encompasses a range of activities from things that are only slightly unkind and rather run of the mill to extreme examples of verbal cruelty.

The particular points highlighted in the article don't strike me as being on the cruel side.

My understanding of the world is that the higher you rise, the thicker your skin needs to be.

Of course we shouldn't tolerate gratuitous cruelty.

But anyone who has ever worked with very high level people will know they can be capricious. And for most of us, getting to those high levels is an honor.

Personally in my career I've provided services to successful hard to deal with entrepreneurs. Was it a PITA? Yes. Did I learn a lot? Yes. The most demanding, harsh people are those that test your meddle and forge you in fire. Not the ones that are most pleasant.

The reason elite universities are elite is because they push people to the brink, they are designed to demand as much from a human being as can be demanded. See, my issue with the article has to do with the author wanting to be an elite researcher holding the highest and most elite title (a PHD) in the most elite university in the world (MIT) and not thinking it's going to be a ton of hours a week. IMO, that's how you determine who is elite and committed; by applying stress and seeing who can handle it at the highest level.

I mean, logically the guy who can work 80 hours a week will do more researcher, which will compound, and far outpace the productivity of someone who works 40 hours a week. This seems like a really logical and reasonable basis for how we've set up society and I've yet to meet anyone who is elite in their field who worked only 40 hours a week to get there.

Now, I'll concede: Maybe there was an accusation in that article you consider so gratuitos and bad that it's worth condemning this institution which for better or worse has figured out how to squeeze out human innovation and potential like nothing before in history. I'll also concede I might be jaded and just accepting of things that are changing and should change.

And last, I believe most things should move away from reputation based systems to more meritocratic systems, so if you want to talk about removing the biggest whip that the article mentions (not being able to leave for fear of a bad reference) - I 100% support such efforts.

Re: Abuse isn’t an “advising style”: Consequences of MIT sheltering abusive mentors

#113

Post by Spooky23 » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 1:20 AM UTC

jandrese wrote: post #28

Spooky23 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to a SUNY school. My advisor kept me waiting 20 minutes after outside of his office for an appointment made a week earlier, only to walk out with coat on, announcing that he was going to happy hour. He suggested that i set up another the following week through the department secretary. I walked over to do that, discovering that he was actually going to happy hour at the airport, and from there India, and would…

Sounds like you dodged a bullet there. Imagine if you were successful in registering.

Lol. In all seriousness it was for the best as I met my new advisor who helped me sort it out, whom I remain in contact with 25 years later!

Re: Abuse isn’t an “advising style”: Consequences of MIT sheltering abusive mentors

#114

Post by NicolasGorden » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 1:28 AM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #88

NicolasGorden wrote: post #7

> Too often I have been told to be proud of the great work I am a part of, as if this should outweigh the negative and harmful things myself and others have experienced. Actually, that's how it works in the real world from my experience. Most geniuses have terrible shadows that are as dark and long as they are brilliant and tall. Most of us feel really lucky to get things done and be a part of something, and when we…

" Most geniuses have terrible shadows that are as dark and long as they are brilliant and tall. " This may be true. But it's not right.

Yes, but the question is what are you going to do about it?

I'll tell you what happens in other countries: Cut all the tall poppies down.

I love my new home, America, because she doesn't do this and it happens in my original home country. I love the results of the American system, it's something I'm grateful to live in everyday. Unfortunately I've personally witness that mentality creep in here.

The perniciousness of the go along to get along system is hard to describe to someone who hasn't lived it.

Re: Abuse isn’t an “advising style”: Consequences of MIT sheltering abusive mentors

#115

Post by waterhouse » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 1:32 AM UTC

dreamcompiler wrote: post #110

waterhouse wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to boast about it What the actual fuck? Why would anyone who loves their wife or husband choose to enter such a program? (Best-case scenario: a few years of data produced this anomalous result, someone noticed it and decided to draw attention to it, and it has since scared away all married students, so that there will never be any future data points to contradict it.) Still, from what I know about medical school an…

I don't think I'd want to drive across a bridge if one of the main criteria for career success for a civil engineer was "ability to pull all-nighters 3 times a week for many months." And yet when we go to the hospital that's exactly who is treating us.

To be fair, I think it's more like a 24-hour shift every several weeks, not multiple times a week. And I don't think residents get weeded out if, say, they make errors during 24-hour shifts at >2x the rate of other doctors; I'd guess that, if any weeding occurs, it would be based on the "overall error rate" instead.

I do have opinions about how to select doctors. For example, surgeons in particular should be selected a lot more for manual dexterity, and less for ability to memorize facts that appear on the MCAT.

Re: Abuse isn’t an “advising style”: Consequences of MIT sheltering abusive mentors

#116

Post by GlenTheMachine » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 1:35 AM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #21

GlenTheMachine wrote: post #2

MIT is FAR from the only offender here, so much so that I find it odd to be calling MIT out in particular. And abuse takes a lot of forms. My advisor once went eighteen months without ever laying eyes on one of his doctoral students.

Yes, that's right. An MIT grad student should perform a study across all universities to get a representative sample before writing a blog post about his experiences. This is the only acceptable thing. He is not permitted to share what happened to him.

That’s a fair amount more snarky than I intended my comment to be taken.

When I was a grad student I talked to grad students from a lot of other schools. I went to conferences, made friends, sent emails to folks doing research in my field. In the course of events we compared notes on advisors. As a consequence I knew that the professors in my department weren’t outliers.

You didn’t do this?

Re: Abuse isn’t an “advising style”: Consequences of MIT sheltering abusive mentors

#117

Post by NicolasGorden » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 1:41 AM UTC

pavanky wrote: post #9

NicolasGorden wrote: post #7

> Too often I have been told to be proud of the great work I am a part of, as if this should outweigh the negative and harmful things myself and others have experienced. Actually, that's how it works in the real world from my experience. Most geniuses have terrible shadows that are as dark and long as they are brilliant and tall. Most of us feel really lucky to get things done and be a part of something, and when we…

That is just a terrible terrible thing to say to excuse abuse. You cant expect others to toil away to benefit your "genius".

> You cant expect others to toil away to benefit your "genius"

Brilliant reply. Except... I never said my genius.

The fact that you make up arguments and distort what I said is evidence of the emotive nature of your response. I'll invite you to improve the quality of your discourse. I have respect for people who I disagree with as long as they can show the basic decency of engaging with what I said and not behave dishonestly by making up fake and silly arguments. I really dislike sophism.

Re: Abuse isn’t an “advising style”: Consequences of MIT sheltering abusive mentors

#118

Post by NicolasGorden » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 1:45 AM UTC

the_jeremy wrote: post #14

NicolasGorden wrote: post #7

> Too often I have been told to be proud of the great work I am a part of, as if this should outweigh the negative and harmful things myself and others have experienced. Actually, that's how it works in the real world from my experience. Most geniuses have terrible shadows that are as dark and long as they are brilliant and tall. Most of us feel really lucky to get things done and be a part of something, and when we…

No one "expects" to go through life without hearing insults, but that does not mean they should be tolerated. I fully expect to continue to hear racist, homophobic statements from US politicians. I do not want to, and I want to work to change that. Sure, the real world sucks. I don't see that as a reason to prevent colleges from improving.

> Sure, the real world sucks. I don't see that as a reason to prevent colleges from improving.

Absolutely. The problem I see is the deterioration of educational quality that seems to correlate with this improvement.

Also, at some point, you need to accept that to be elite, you need to do things that others can't and won't do. A high drop out rate to becoming elite is precisely what defines the elite title being sought.

Re: Abuse isn’t an “advising style”: Consequences of MIT sheltering abusive mentors

#119

Post by JimTheMan » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 1:47 AM UTC

jp0d wrote: post #97

This article seems to talk about one particular professor, if I'm not wrong. Does anyone know if the majority of the advisors at MIT behave like this? Has anyone else on this forum had any experience like this? I'm sure if the advisor is an influential person who brings in a lot of research money, the administrators would try to ignore these complaints. I recently read about a case in Melbourne Uni. The professor was…

I know of a case at Melbourne uni where a post-doc was extremely verbally abusive to the phd-students they were supposed to be helping.

The several candidates came forward to HR, but HR apparently wasn't able to do anything about it because "it wasn't physical" and it "wasn't against a member of the staff". Completely disgraceful from the Uni . The only reason any justice was done was that those close to the matter did not renew their contract, so they were essentially let go. HR IS USELESS!

Re: Abuse isn’t an “advising style”: Consequences of MIT sheltering abusive mentors

#120

Post by NicolasGorden » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 1:49 AM UTC

ironman1478 wrote: post #71

NicolasGorden wrote: post #7

> Too often I have been told to be proud of the great work I am a part of, as if this should outweigh the negative and harmful things myself and others have experienced. Actually, that's how it works in the real world from my experience. Most geniuses have terrible shadows that are as dark and long as they are brilliant and tall. Most of us feel really lucky to get things done and be a part of something, and when we…

They already went to college. PhD students are employees doing self guided research that brings in lots of recognition and money to these institutions. They are making little money yet doing work harder than 99.9% of people. They should not be demeaned. There are many work environments that are not like this and we should not pretend like it is the norm. If it is genuinely the norm, the we should work to fix it, not…

> Let's make it less shitty.

100%. For me, Western Capitalism has been doing this my whole life.

When I was growing up, in the little town in Central America that I come from, no one EVER traveled on an aero plane. Now it's normal. It was normal for kids to not have shoes. Now it's unheard of.

I hope we can continue to make the world less shitty.

Also, I hope there's more niceness. I also hope the fight for niceness doesn't make the world truly shitty. There's plenty of historical examples of the fight for what's right leading to what's very wrong.