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“How is your thesis going?” Students’ perspectives on mental health and stress

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Re: “How is your thesis going?” Students’ perspectives on mental health and stress

#111

Post by lumiukko »

leaveitalone wrote: post #69
vector_spaces wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry that you were denied access, gatekeeping is real, especially in STEM fields. I just want to offer that not everyone doing a PhD is doing so for reasons of money or prestige, and not all of them are coming from money or prestige. And the gatekeeping doesn't end once you get in, either. If anything it intensifies the further along you get, and by orders of magnitude the more your circumstances don't parse to…

I'm not sure it was gate keeping, I think there just weren't enough spots and my grades weren't as good as my competitors. Just wish the ones who didn't want to do it didn't bother so that more spots for us lesser graded people could have got in.

But even the grades are highly contextual. I am unfamiliar with how much they vary across the US, but usually grades depend a lot on the university itself and the professors teaching or grading the courses. The prestige of the university may be taken into account as well. Perhaps it wasn't possible to go to a "better" university, due to financial or simply personal reasons.

Diversity is a really important aspect in building PhD cohorts and research teams - only choosing the best candidates based on grades introduces a bad bias that may even exacerbate the situation.

Re: “How is your thesis going?” Students’ perspectives on mental health and stress

#112

Post by mlacademe »

I wish people would stop discussing academia as a single experience. The variability between labs and programs is enormous and depends almost entirely on the PI.

There are lots of toxic, stressful companies with poor leadership in competitive fields, but I wouldn't say that "industry is terrible choice" or some other sweeping generalization. People can leave a bad company and still find a great fit somewhere else, just as people can leave bad academic labs and join a better one en route to a successful career.

IME, most of the toxic traits ascribed to academics may be sufficient for success, but they are not necessary. There are highly successful academics who go against all the stereotypes of publish or perish, overwork, or poor management skills.

Re: “How is your thesis going?” Students’ perspectives on mental health and stress

#113

Post by wink »

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #44
twelve40 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several startups back, I worked for a pompous boss, ex-Goldman-VP, who told me that people who get masters are worse programmers, especially if it's from a better school than their bachelor's. You'll be surprised how many nutty biases people have out there.

As strange as it is, I think there's validity to it. Master's degrees filter more on having the money to cover tuition than test scores, and it's easier to just buy your way into a good school than with undergraduate. I remember taking courses alongside Master's students who were anecdotally less impressive than my fellow undergraduates. This experience (along with my dwindling pocketbook) helped dissuade me from sta…

Sounds pretty weird to me. I'm just too old to have gotten the BSc+MSc combo here in Germany (some unis had it, mine didn't) but from my experience most people here would just stay at the same university and tack on the MSc just after the BSc (this is in CS).

Oh, but for comparison my degree was officially 9 semesters (most people used 10-12), so getting "just the BSc" was a) much shorter and b) not as ingrained as the default and then going the extra mile, the combo package was more like the full replacement for the old Diploma.

Re: “How is your thesis going?” Students’ perspectives on mental health and stress

#114

Post by tkiolp4 »

totoglazer wrote: post #89
sgillen wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven’t seen this bias personally, what is the thought process behind it? If they were any good they would just have gotten a job or something?

Exactly. The cynical view: If you were any good you wouldn’t need the master’s degree. If you were good and wanted to learn more you’d do a PhD. But you didn’t learn what you were supposed to in undergrad, or could not get/do a job, or need a visa. So you paid a bunch of money to some school that wouldn’t let you into undergrad or a PhD, but will take your cash for a full fare professional masters degree mill. I’ve s…

I guess this applies to places like the US. In Europe, a master’s degree costs the same as a BS (close to nothing).

Re: “How is your thesis going?” Students’ perspectives on mental health and stress

#115

Post by wink »

totoglazer wrote: post #89
sgillen wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven’t seen this bias personally, what is the thought process behind it? If they were any good they would just have gotten a job or something?

Exactly. The cynical view: If you were any good you wouldn’t need the master’s degree. If you were good and wanted to learn more you’d do a PhD. But you didn’t learn what you were supposed to in undergrad, or could not get/do a job, or need a visa. So you paid a bunch of money to some school that wouldn’t let you into undergrad or a PhD, but will take your cash for a full fare professional masters degree mill. I’ve s…

See my other comment, would be fascinating to know if the general perception has changed in countries where the Bachelor's + Master's system has not be the norm forever, i.e. 10-15y ago I knew no one who only did a Bachelor's, then a few started doing that in Computer Science, but still kinda rare. Maybe it's different now. (Of course the degrees still being basically free compared to the US makes a huge difference if you're willing to stay another year or two..)

Re: “How is your thesis going?” Students’ perspectives on mental health and stress

#116

Post by ajkjk »

wink wrote: post #115
totoglazer wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. The cynical view: If you were any good you wouldn’t need the master’s degree. If you were good and wanted to learn more you’d do a PhD. But you didn’t learn what you were supposed to in undergrad, or could not get/do a job, or need a visa. So you paid a bunch of money to some school that wouldn’t let you into undergrad or a PhD, but will take your cash for a full fare professional masters degree mill. I’ve s…

See my other comment, would be fascinating to know if the general perception has changed in countries where the Bachelor's + Master's system has not be the norm forever, i.e. 10-15y ago I knew no one who only did a Bachelor's, then a few started doing that in Computer Science, but still kinda rare. Maybe it's different now. (Of course the degrees still being basically free compared to the US makes a huge difference i…

I think it's very much a US-centric thing.

Re: “How is your thesis going?” Students’ perspectives on mental health and stress

#118

Post by alienicecream »

lumiukko wrote: post #110
alienicecream wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just be happy for them? Does bringing them down bring everyone else up or is that maybe just a second best you're willing to settle for out of spite?

I am truly happy for them, but I would like to see that this is placed in the appropriate context for this public forum. From an international viewpoint, this is the exception, not the norm. "Ranting" about a rather exceptional life path seems misplaced, without providing additional context.

Why would that need to be placed "in the appropriate context"? How does that help anyone who is worse off?

Re: “How is your thesis going?” Students’ perspectives on mental health and stress

#119

Post by Hydraulix989 »

dsgsdgsdsda wrote: post #78
Hydraulix989 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As strange as it is, I think there's validity to it. Master's degrees filter more on having the money to cover tuition than test scores, and it's easier to just buy your way into a good school than with undergraduate. I remember taking courses alongside Master's students who were anecdotally less impressive than my fellow undergraduates. This experience (along with my dwindling pocketbook) helped dissuade me from sta…

Strongly disagree. You can get a full masters from UT Austin with specialization in AI/ML for about $10k. Fully remote. https://cdso.utexas.edu/msai . Compared to a typical bachelors which is what, about $50k?

Bachelors degrees from selective private schools now cost $50k/year.

Rather than spending an extra year getting a state school masters, you can also gain a year of ML work experience for a net positive six figures first year out of school. Which is more valuable?

Re: “How is your thesis going?” Students’ perspectives on mental health and stress

#120

Post by lumost »

calf wrote: post #107
lumost wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm I wouldn’t associate this with a conservative argument. The argument provides a claim that we are building an unsustainable system which is not producing the outcomes that we want. Encouraging competition and unrestrained capitalism is typically considered a defacto conservative argument in the US. However the lines are blurry in different decades and in different countries.

It's conservative because it excuses agency. It's given in the middle of my paragraph.

Perhaps this is a locale specific definition of conservative? I’m unfamiliar with a general or even common definition which aligns to this.
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