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I'm quitting my PhD

blog.derhagen.eu

131–140 of 382 posts

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#131

I'm someone who finished a PhD, here's my perspective. You don't believe your supervisor or your research group and so you quit, great. It's great that you have the critical thinking abilities and confidence in yourself to make such a decision. However, I think it's extremely unprofessional to write a blog post saying that your supervisor is superficial or your research group is performative art. I don't say this bec…

It's a difficult row to hoe.

Some light sometimes needs to be shed (look at Susan Fowler's post on Uber. I think it triggered a fairly necessary reevaluation, or Edward Snowden's revelations), but it is seldom without cost to the person that's holding the flashlight (Snowden is unlikely to receive a warm welcome, if he comes back to the US, and I suspect that Russia won't be a particularly joyful place, in the near future. I have no idea how Susan Fowler has done).

In my own case, my history (quite checkered) has given me some fairly unique views into a lot of terrible behaviors, rotten attitudes, and outright hypocrisy by many folks that like to project a wholesome, professional, image. Now that I'm out of the rat race, I could probably be more specific.

But I won't.

In some, rare, cases, perpetrators went on to cause harm (Not much. I never worked with John Wayne Gacy), but most ended up in rather unenviable places.

In a number of other cases, however, people ended up changing their behavior/attitude, and going on to be happier, healthier people.

For reasons that I won't go into here, I believe in second chances. I was given first-, second-, and third chances.

It has less to do with "professionalism," and more to do with being human. It's not my job to clean up the world (just the bits around me), and I need to pick my battles carefully, so I can do the most good.

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are way more PhD's then there are research positions Nonsense. Look at how many job openings there are for PhDs - people can't hire them fast enough. I was in a call the other day saying how hard it is to even find PhDs to interview, let alone get them to accept your offer.

Link to a graph of open tenure-track phd positions over time? I can't find one but from what I've been reading it would indicate there are not enough positions open to fill demand.

The last 30-40 years has seen massive expansion on the post-WWII model of PhD-as-industry-expert model.

It's not uncommon to see PhDs after five to seven years in industry in the C-suite. That is less common for MBAs, from my view.

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#137
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spent a lot of time in academia, and I quite disagree. He's pointing out something that is very common in academia - common enough to be widely accepted . Saying he is unprofessional in criticizing his supervisors is like saying someone is unprofessional in criticizing his boss for demanding Leetcode style interviews. If his supervisor were an outlier, I could see your point. But a big purpose behind his blog post is…

> Spent a lot of time in academia, and I quite disagree. He's pointing out something that is very common in academia - common enough to be widely accepted. Saying he is unprofessional in criticizing his supervisors is like saying someone is unprofessional in criticizing his boss for demanding Leetcode style interviews. I specifically said the issue isn't criticizing. The issue is criticizing in a way which is so vagu…

Although its exhausting, one of the things I most appreciate about HN is the willingness of people to sort through those misinterpretations; thank you for doing that.

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#138

I'm someone who finished a PhD, here's my perspective. You don't believe your supervisor or your research group and so you quit, great. It's great that you have the critical thinking abilities and confidence in yourself to make such a decision. However, I think it's extremely unprofessional to write a blog post saying that your supervisor is superficial or your research group is performative art. I don't say this bec…

The original text says performative act, and not performative art. Not a big deal perhaps but this subtle difference carries a different connotation for me, I wonder if you might get a different impression if you read it again.

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#139

I'm someone who finished a PhD, here's my perspective. You don't believe your supervisor or your research group and so you quit, great. It's great that you have the critical thinking abilities and confidence in yourself to make such a decision. However, I think it's extremely unprofessional to write a blog post saying that your supervisor is superficial or your research group is performative art. I don't say this bec…

> accusations in general, if they're vague enough, are impossible to defend against

General accusations are easy to defend against, you just ask for specifics.

Re: I'm quitting my PhD

#140

I am sorry but... if PhD are such a scam as the comments under such topics often devolve to... then how does one go about setting up a structure where research can be conducted on a PhD scale, for topics that are either not "profitable" at all, or not profitable on the short term enough for commercial organizations to fund them in house? Really curious to what the alternate should be.

The comment pool on HN is massively over enriched for people who bombed out and have a chip on their shoulder about it. The overwhelming majority of the people I know who did a PhD regard it as one of the happiest and most intellectually stimulating periods of their life. Not everything is about money.
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