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

Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

jeffhuang.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 147 posts

Re: Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

#121

Post by blahedo »

latj wrote: post #86
tjr wrote: post #2

An offer letter from Google or YCombinator (where you are the tech co-founder) which serves as evidence that you passed a challenging programming interview at Google, or that YCombinator believed you would be successful at developing your company product. Interesting. Because I have no intention of moving to a Google or YCombinator location, I never applied to either, but this makes me wonder if merely having been of…

The other question is- if you have an offer letter from Google or YCombinator in hand, would you really want to go to Brown? At Google it will be like going to grad school except you will be better funded, working with more consistently smarter people, and you will be getting paid instead of racking up debt. As a YCombinator founder you'd basically already be in the position that a Brown computer science graduate hop…

> ...racking up debt

This is FUD. While there is arguably opportunity cost involved, it is not at all difficult to avoid "racking up debt" in grad school, at least if you're at the PhD level and in a STEM field. It is standard in such programs to get tuition waived (so, no cost) and to receive stipends for assistantship or fellowship (so, you get paid).

To get into specifics: I got my PhD in CS from Brown ten years ago, and my stipend was around $20K (I think about $22 or $23K my final year). During my time there the students clamoured for, and received, a healthcare benefit (free for the student, and they could pay extra if they had spouse and/or dependents). Because I was lucky enough to be debt-free going in, I actually finished grad school with about $15K in savings, but even my friends who had debt from ugrad were not accruing additional debt (and at the time were able to defer payment interest-free, although I gather that's no longer true). I was not exactly living the high life but was able to afford a decent apartment, ate out fairly regularly, and kept myself supplied with geeky tools and toys (laptop, wifi, etc).

So no, "racking up debt" is not a worry here.

Re: Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

#122

Post by blahedo »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #59
mcguire wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not surprised that it is competitive (PhD's in general are kind of oversupplied), but the form the competition takes: "Maybe you didn't publish as an undergraduate.... Maybe you can't even write a very compelling research statement yet." When I was applying, no undergraduates had published research. And the "research statement" could hardly be described as "compelling"; that was one of the points of the breadth…

It's a positive development that admission into a decent PhD program requires research experience. Some people somehow cannot make the jump from classroom exercises to production work, and you would rather that they don't get accepted, instead of having to throw them out a year later. Besides, a research lab is a workplace after all, and some kids are completely missing the social skills that are needed in a working…

> It's a positive development that admission into a decent PhD program requires research experience.

No, it really really isn't. The vast majority of undergraduates have no effective access to research experience, even many that are fairly inquisitive and are receiving a pretty good education. This is especially true of undergraduates who are unable to afford tuition at top institutions (and increasingly even in-state public university tuition is unaffordable for the flagship universities that would be considered "top institutions).

Requiring research experience in advance of grad school turns grad schools into an elitist echo chamber.

Re: Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

#123

Post by blahedo »

zerr wrote: post #8
brucehart wrote: post #4

I'm surprised that admission into Computer Science PhD programs is so competitive. I would think that with the strong job market for computer scientists, there would not be as many students who would want to make the commitment to a PhD program over other job and entrepreneurial opportunities.

I believe someone who is not a good software engineer or even can't code at all, can still be admitted into some CS PhD program.

I'm not sure how these students are filtered out at other places, but in Brown's CS department, PhD students are required to pass a "programming comp" that involves a fairly intense week-long programming project. You don't need to be a superstar coder, but you do need to be able to program effectively in order to pass.

Re: Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

#124

Post by ryuu »

pinhead wrote: post #103
flyrain wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get paid a pretty decent stipend + health insurance? Most Ph.D student got less than $2000/month before tax, even less than $1500/month and should pay for health insurance by themselves. OK, decent, how to define decent.

The NSF GRFP provides ~3k/month plus tuition and health insurance are covered. If you do a 3-month internship each summer on top of that you can get an extra $20k-30k easy. I am not saying you'll have the same lifestyle as a Google employee but I think it's hard to argue that you will go into debt. Maybe I live a more modest lifestyle than others. Also all the schools I got into when I applied to grad school would pa…

If I may, I found the NSF GRFP process unsatisfactory. For example, I was rejected for two reasons: 1) because I did not publish prior to applying, and 2) because the reviewers thought that my research, although it had intellectual merit, did not have broader impacts (i.e., "the potential to benefit society and contribute to the achievement of specific, desired societal outcomes").

I proposed research on how to improve upon string searching, which according to the reviewers, did not benefit society (??).

The reviewers all have PhDs, I believe. But somehow, I do not feel they are qualified to review the applications. They are looking for specific things cross the check-boxes.

The second point is that stipends are taxed. So, $3k looks like a lot, but post-taxes, it's trimmed. Also, if you look at the OP's posting, $300k for ~5 years for a student. That does not mean the student receives $60k/year for living.

The third point is that someone immediately out of undergrad at 20 might find PhD / below poverty level stipends enticing, but once you make 150k+, you really don't want to hand control of your life over to your advisor's whims.

The fourth point (which is a corollary to the third) is that I know quite a few miserable PhD students, whose advisors control large aspects of their life. For example, a few of them were house-sitting their advisor's newly purchased mansion overnight in sleeping bags. These were foreign students.

Re: Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

#125

Post by solarix »

While I agree the application process needs improvement, I think this entry greatly exaggerates how hard it is to get into a PhD program. Since when do you need to be published to even get into a PhD program? When I went through the application process, I got accepted by 6/6 schools that I applied to, with no publications and no real ideas for what I wanted to research on. In fact, most PhD students actually don't even have a research topic until the second or third year of grad school. I think more than anything, your personal statement is the deciding factor in a lot of cases. What had worked for me was to have a list of research topics and faculty from each school that you're interested in working with, and directly address them in your statement. Other than that, of course whatever supporting evidence to differentiate yourself is helpful. I thought proposing to use offer letters from Google or YC (both have much lower acceptance rates than a PhD program) just to prove you can code is pretty hilarious.

Re: Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

#126

Post by ryuu »

brucehart wrote: post #4

I'm surprised that admission into Computer Science PhD programs is so competitive. I would think that with the strong job market for computer scientists, there would not be as many students who would want to make the commitment to a PhD program over other job and entrepreneurial opportunities.

Many US students do not go into PhD, because, as you mentioned, due to the strong job market (and also a 20k/year stipend). Most of the PhD students are foreign.

Re: Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

#127

Post by GuiA »

solarix wrote: post #125

While I agree the application process needs improvement, I think this entry greatly exaggerates how hard it is to get into a PhD program. Since when do you need to be published to even get into a PhD program? When I went through the application process, I got accepted by 6/6 schools that I applied to, with no publications and no real ideas for what I wanted to research on. In fact, most PhD students actually don't ev…

When did you apply, and to what schools?

These days, good luck getting in a top tier institution for CS without a solid track record (I.e. a publication or two at an ACM/IEEE conference, and letters of rec from reputable professors/researchers in your field). The letters of rec are what make or break your application.

I agree that it's a bit over the top, but that's how it is.

Re: Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

#128

Post by zura »

Fomite wrote: post #75
zura wrote: post #27

I'm still waiting for a REMOTE PhD position :)

I essentially did a remote PhD for the last three years of my doctorate. While it was possible, and I'd defend my decision to do it, it's a tough road, and not one I'd start out on if I could avoid it.

First two years in the US PhD is like a master's degree studies - regular lectures/courses. That is way US PhD program is usually 5 years long and you apply with Bachelor's degree.

In Europe, mostly, you're required to have a master's degree to apply for a PhD.

Re: Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

#129

Post by solarix »

GuiA wrote: post #127
solarix wrote: post #125

While I agree the application process needs improvement, I think this entry greatly exaggerates how hard it is to get into a PhD program. Since when do you need to be published to even get into a PhD program? When I went through the application process, I got accepted by 6/6 schools that I applied to, with no publications and no real ideas for what I wanted to research on. In fact, most PhD students actually don't ev…

When did you apply, and to what schools? These days, good luck getting in a top tier institution for CS without a solid track record (I.e. a publication or two at an ACM/IEEE conference, and letters of rec from reputable professors/researchers in your field). The letters of rec are what make or break your application. I agree that it's a bit over the top, but that's how it is.

2005, Berkeley, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, UIUC, and my alma mater UT Austin. Ended up at Cal. Granted, I was EE and admitted as EECS, so maybe a bit different.

Re: Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

#130

Post by 001sky »

blahedo wrote: post #122
HarryHirsch wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a positive development that admission into a decent PhD program requires research experience. Some people somehow cannot make the jump from classroom exercises to production work, and you would rather that they don't get accepted, instead of having to throw them out a year later. Besides, a research lab is a workplace after all, and some kids are completely missing the social skills that are needed in a working…

> It's a positive development that admission into a decent PhD program requires research experience. No, it really really isn't. The vast majority of undergraduates have no effective access to research experience, even many that are fairly inquisitive and are receiving a pretty good education. This is especially true of undergraduates who are unable to afford tuition at top institutions (and increasingly even in-stat…

I have to say, I agree with this. You risk optimizing to early around a local max, not a global one. Primarily due to lack of priors. However, I will be the first to admit true research is seriously a different aptitude than acing a lecture course. Advanced degree candidates should certainly be screened somehow for the latter. But my gut is that this is just optimizing for grant extraction. Truly powerful work is always second fiddle to the "more money" hampster-wheel that is peer-reviewed academic research.
Post reply on HN