I Regret Quitting Astrophysics • Hacker News Board

Re: I Regret Quitting Astrophysics

#131

Post by yowlingcat » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 12:53 PM UTC

ramraj07 wrote: post #97

unemphysbro wrote: post #16

I'm a new-isly minted biophysics PhD. The reason I got into physics was because it felt fulfilling and my opinion of industry was shaped by a high-school internship at a defense contractor which was a total slog. During my PhD, I got the full experience, drumming up new ideas, grant/proposal writing, managing and setting project goals, maintaining collaborations and doing the actual work. It was fulfilling and fun es…

There will always be regrets, but at least you'll sleep better and rub your tears with Benjamins if you leave academia and regret that :) Academia will always look like the grass is greener "I can do whatever I want" type. But we shouldn't forget actually you can't, you can only do what others think you're good at, and what the grant review panels think you can feasibly do. My plan is to just use the extra money from…

> You really can do whatever you want, you'll just be limited by money than by other people :)

I think that your idea is the practical one and you'll get a lot of mileage out of it, but may I add one more limiting constraint, one I've had to learn to respect from experience? That constraint is mental energy.

Your job in tech has constraints that mean if you're doing it right and are working in a role that's pushing you to your full potential, you won't have enough mental energy at the end of the day to work on your side projects. While that might be disappointing, it's often a lot better than the alternative: if you select for a cushy job which has great WLB, you may experience a level of disillusionment from stasis that can also make it hard to want to work on things outside of work.

I wish I had an easy answer to this stuff but I don't. Long-term, if you have a stable career in tech, it makes it a lot easier to take time off for sabbaticals or periods of startup work (yours or others) because you can return to a well-compensated career that's pleasant and will give you enormous surplus lifetime earnings -- a perfect match for scientific work on the side, as you put it! But it's still a career.

To get growth you'll be happy with, it will take the lion's share of your mental energy and strategic planning, over a long period of time. Good fortune aside, there's often no way around that.

Re: I Regret Quitting Astrophysics

#132

Post by monoideism » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 2:07 PM UTC

ramraj07 wrote: post #120

owenversteeg wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just out of curiosity, how much is a fancy deltavision microscope? I very briefly Googled to check and didn't see anything on eBay or other sites. And why not rent time on one? Apparently the University of Arizona (and a number of other universities) rent time on theirs for $25/hr ( https://microscopy.arizona.edu/equipment/deltavision-rt-deco... )

I have researched it and it used to be 100-200k range. It's also possible they don't sell them anymore. Depends on the stage, camera and enclosure. Might have changed though. However you can build your own decent non confocal microscope for that price range with individual parts. You can rent time if you just need it for a bit here and there, or if the economics make sense that way for sure. But then, I'm saying I ca…

> 100-200k range

Yeah, that's a lot more than a cheap boat. You can get a lot of boat for 50k - like a Boston Whaler 190 Montauk. Not yacht, but boat.

And not sure what you're making, but that's a pretty damn expensive hobby for most of us.

Re: I Regret Quitting Astrophysics

#133

Post by SiempreViernes » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 2:15 PM UTC

japanuspus wrote: post #128

ramraj07 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There will always be regrets, but at least you'll sleep better and rub your tears with Benjamins if you leave academia and regret that :) Academia will always look like the grass is greener "I can do whatever I want" type. But we shouldn't forget actually you can't, you can only do what others think you're good at, and what the grant review panels think you can feasibly do. My plan is to just use the extra money from…

Good point. The admin and teaching parts of a tenure-track position would likely take way more than your normal working time, so you might end up with more time for doing research.

You need a real cushy job to get enough time and energy for the second job that would be the research.

And a tenure-track position usually comes with some workforce or at the very least a good network of experts to refer to. There are of course really shit academic positions, but you'll anyway not have time for research if you have a really shit job, so that objections seems to cancel.

Re: I Regret Quitting Astrophysics

#134

Post by SiempreViernes » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 2:29 PM UTC

mym1990 wrote: post #124

teachrdan wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are not wrong because you took a leap in life and it didn't work out perfectly, its a valuable learning experience. The author obviously understands this is a learning experience--that's why they wrote the essay in the first place. The challenge is that, on a practical level, starting over will likely take too many years, with too great a risk of not getting a job in academia. This is hardly "pouting and trying…

Starting over? He literally says "I think I have gained skills and experience that can be very valuable to the astronomical community". And that is on top of the foundation that he has already built in his earlier years. Unless there is some glitch where you lose all previous experience in life if you decide to backtrack a bit. I guess ultimately I don't really know what the author's goals would be in academia, and I…

He's also obviously missed out of a lot of new knowledge that's been produced while he wasn't there, as well as loosing some skills that haven't been used.

As for his goals, well most of the article is about the things he's missing so the straightforward guess is to have that back?

Re: I Regret Quitting Astrophysics

#135

Post by SiempreViernes » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 2:38 PM UTC

Ma8ee wrote: post #130

Kalium wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect it may also be hard to swallow the idea that a professional engineer's skills are needed when such a person costs more than the researcher's salary.

I actually don’t think that is the problem. In addition to the shortage of funds, there’s often a culture of doing most things yourself. When I was a PhD student, I did everything from vacuum systems, electronics, high current equipment, plumbing for cooling water, setting up a real time control system for all the equipment, data collection and analysis, and programmed quantum Monte Carlo simulation that was run on a…

Doing it yourself is certainly very important to be sure you get at least some understanding of what's going on, and often you are doing things nobody else knows how to do anyway.

But it sure would have been nice to have some professional support programmer around for advice on design and help out with the gnarlier bits.

Re: I Regret Quitting Astrophysics

#136

Post by SiempreViernes » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 2:46 PM UTC

onecommentman wrote: post #88

If people are reading this article and perhaps considering a serious reassessment of their life, I strongly recommend doing an outreach to those many folks who have made such a move in both directions In particular, to a sample of those who made the move 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago and even longer. Time brings perspective...a 5 year view is different than a 10 year view than is different from a 20 year vi…

This post isn't about eating the food, it's about cooking it! And sure, you get to spend time in the kitchen as the server or even the owner, but ultimately only the cook does the work.

Re: I Regret Quitting Astrophysics

#137

Post by SiempreViernes » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 2:48 PM UTC

hpoe wrote: post #2

Interesting that the pay difference didn't come up at all. I would've thought that would be a big change from Academia to Business.

It's not that surprising: this is a person that went far into astronomy to start with, that's not something you do chasing riches.

Re: I Regret Quitting Astrophysics

#138

Post by SiempreViernes » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 2:55 PM UTC

bartread wrote: post #38

> On top of that, being geographically bound doesn’t help. I can absolutely believe that this is still an issue, but it's also highly disappointing that's still the case. All your data analysis is done on a computer, and I'd bet that every telescope or instrument you have to interact with is computer controlled and can be worked with remotely with little modification. Yes, astrophysical datasets can be absolutely eno…

Uh, the point is that currently all the people, and students, and facilities of a university is physically located at a certain spot, not about where the telescopes or data centres lie (telescopes that lie on campus aren't very useful anyway due to all the light pollution and bad weather).

Re: I Regret Quitting Astrophysics

#139

Post by astrophysician » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

selimthegrim wrote: post #102

astrophysician wrote: post #43

As another former astrophysicist-turned-datascientist (though with only 2 years after the transition instead of Marcel's 7), this hits close to home, but my experience in both worlds I think is a bit different. If you are an astrophysicist curious about moving into the datascience profession, I would just like to point out that satisfaction with a move like that depends on a large number of factors, and that you shou…

What's your blog address?

Unfortunately right now its `localhost` but once I finish a couple of posts (tomorrow? a year from now?) I'll put it online. Thanks for asking though :)

Re: I Regret Quitting Astrophysics

#140

Post by SiempreViernes » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 3:03 PM UTC

qntmfred wrote: post #81

I started out as a physics major, but switched to computer science junior year, mostly out of consideration for career prospects. Of my 3 roommates who were also physics majors, all of them finished the degree and all now work in tech. I've said for a long time when I turn 60 I'm going back to physics.

Yeah, there were a few old dudes taking courses with me during my masters, hope they had fun.