Your PhD will cost you the life of your firstborn:
http://www.johnskylar.com/post/107416685924/a-career-in-scie...
Postdocs definitely deserve be paid (and treated) better.
What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD
191–195 of 195 posts
Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD
#192Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD
#193I'm in a similar boat thinking about getting a PhD in AI/ML. I have a masters degree and in 2 years of my current job (research based) have already published 2 conference papers one of which I'm a lead author. My work colleagues who aren't research oriented suggested me to get a PhD instead because of the effort I put in reading papers and spending hours on solving a problem. It makes sense to me at times because not…
Is it possible for you to align PhD. and your current job? I am in a similar position as you. My PhD. topic is focused on the same research area as my job in tech company so I can do both together. If it is not possible I would advise not pursuing PhD. and continue self-learning. The opportunity cost of PhD. is not worth it in my opinion.
Hey, thanks for your advice. I'm not sure if I can do that as my company's focus is completely different to an ML research required for a PhD.
Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a current PhD student in CS -- seconded. I'm fortunate to have a great advisor, and my research career so far has been largely fun and productive as a result. I have also seen equally (or more) talented and hard-working students have worse experiences because of worse advisors. It's just hard to become a good researcher without good mentorship. As far as practical advice for finding good advisors, track records of…
recently minted Chemistry PhD here -- Thirded. Grad school was one of my best decisions. I went to a great school that was what I call the Goldilocks size, big enough to have a great faculty, equipment, and decent funding but small enough so that collaboration was the norm and the crazy horror stories of maniacal hours and/or cutthroat competition were normally self induced. My PI was an incredibly good guy and still…
What would interest me much more is if y'all liked studying or university life before that? Because for me.. I originally started to study CS because I wanted to learn stuff (was already working as a programmer) and hadn't ruled out pursuing a PhD afterwards per se. But the longer I was at university (German Diploma, 13 semesters for me, 9 minimum) the more I couldn't wait to leave - so even the thought of staying there went away quite quickly, although I wasn't "in academia" per se. I'm still not sure if I'm just more on the practical and pragmatic side of problem-solving and less in research.
Re: What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
recently minted Chemistry PhD here -- Thirded. Grad school was one of my best decisions. I went to a great school that was what I call the Goldilocks size, big enough to have a great faculty, equipment, and decent funding but small enough so that collaboration was the norm and the crazy horror stories of maniacal hours and/or cutthroat competition were normally self induced. My PI was an incredibly good guy and still…
What would interest me much more is if y'all liked studying or university life before that? Because for me.. I originally started to study CS because I wanted to learn stuff (was already working as a programmer) and hadn't ruled out pursuing a PhD afterwards per se. But the longer I was at university (German Diploma, 13 semesters for me, 9 minimum) the more I couldn't wait to leave - so even the thought of staying th…
I didn’t mind being an undergrad. But that was largely because of my friends and being an adult away from home for the first time. My friends and I built robots in our dorm room with our own money because the university didn’t have a program and wasn’t willing to accommodate us in any way. I enjoyed learning in class but it was always so rushed and stressful - you were always working up to an exam, then making it past and preparing for the next one. There was never any time to breathe.
Grad school was far, far better. Completely different league.