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

jeffhuang.com

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

#21

Post by agilebyte »

btown wrote: post #18
agilebyte wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In which case you move to #2 which (to me) seems much easier to get: A Github or other online repository of your source code demonstrating contributions to open source projects or impressive projects of your own.

True - if the open source project you've contributed significantly to is, say, a well-acclaimed machine learning library, and you're applying to a machine learning Ph.D., then the sum of your accepted pull requests might be a reasonable proxy for a recommendation letter from the (presumably well-acclaimed) maintainers of said library.

It does not seems so to me. To show that your interests align, you do one of the challenges that Jeff lists in part 2. Part 1 is only to show you are a strong programmer/ambitious so your projects can be in anything it seems.

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

#22

Post by elemeno »

tanzam75 wrote: post #15
DrSpock wrote: post #6

Hmmm. This is an interesting spin the Brown Professor has taken on the PhD application process. For those interested in a career in research and development, a PhD is almost a must. Getting on to a prestigious PhD programme is incredibly competitive, and as someone who has gone through the whole process and seen it from both sides, I can say that I've seen individuals who'd make great computer science researchers not…

For those interested in a career in development, a PhD is rarely helpful. For the PhD candidate, it can even be counterproductive, as any gains in initial salary will be more than offset by the lost salary during the 5-6 years of the PhD. Only for a career in research is a PhD important.

The parent comment should probably be read as 'research and development' - working for IBM's research arm, Microsoft Research etc.

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

#23

Post by elemeno »

chrisseaton wrote: post #13
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…

In the UK in some areas such as finance and business there are many people who apply to be an Army officer, and go all the way through selection, but never intend to join up. They do it just so that they can put on their CV (resume) that they've passed Army officer selection.

Not to say that it's not true, but in a decade in finance I've never heard of anyone having gone through Officer Selection to help their career prospects.

If you want to have a good start in finance, having a degree (preferably a 1st) in Maths, Physics or Economics from Oxford, Cambridge or LSE is probably the most useful thing you can do!

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

#24

Post by bolu »

This reminds me of YC's "Apply without an idea" experiment. Both experiments seem to arise from a innovator's insight that a whole class of otherwise highly qualified candidates self select out because of a self perception that they don't "fit the mold". This is especially true of YC, where there are so many articles every day that tell the story of a founder who "saw a problem, and set off on this quest to solve it" that people who don't have an idea on hand when YC applications come up can immediately self exclude. Never mind that many great founders pivoted more than once on their way to success.

I'm excited to see this experiment "meet the marketplace", and see what pans out. Given the small number of PhD students these top programs take each year, just yielding one or two great people into the PhD program that otherwise wouldn't have applied seems like it'd really move the needle.

[Disclosure: I went to undergrad with Jeff and we're good friends. He really is a great "mold-breaker" himself and I'm excited to see how a great "hacker of systems" in the best sense of the word changes academia during his career]

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

#25

Post by stephencanon »

clarebear wrote: post #19

Why would you be filling out a PhD application if you already had an offer letter from Google or YCombinator?

Because you always wanted to do academic research? Because you someday want to teach at the college level? Because you have no idea what you want to do and you want to keep your options open a while longer?

I left grad school to work in industry, but I’m not so naive as to think that everyone shares my preferences. I have friends who turned down Google offers c. 2001 to go to grad school, and they’ve never regretted that decision. (And I don’t regret the time I spent in grad school before leaving, either).

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

#26

Post by pnathan »

jrs99 wrote: post #9
agilebyte wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In which case you move to #2 which (to me) seems much easier to get: A Github or other online repository of your source code demonstrating contributions to open source projects or impressive projects of your own.

if you do that you might as well forget the PhD. Schools don't want to teach you, they want to accept the best applicants. Applicants who work on open source projects and can get a job anywhere. Applicants that became great learning from somewhere that is not the school that he is applying to. Whereas as a post doc you'll be someone's bitch working for 40K per year. Screw the PhD and whatever it is supposed to mean--…

Sarcasm detector might be failing, but PhD work has very little to do with homework....

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

#29

Post by nilkn »

frozenport wrote: post #11

Application looks too involved for Brown. When applying to 10 schools I wouldn't do this one because it has no overlap with my other application. I can reuse my letters of recommendation, I can't reuse this application.

I think this would be useful for three groups of people:

(1) People who were planning to go into industry and already have, say, an offer letter from Google, or just a strong open source profile, but now aren't sure if they want to go into industry or academia. Being able to apply to Brown with their offer letter could reduce a lot of friction in their consideration of the academic route.

(2) People who've already tried to get into a top Ph.D. program the traditional route and failed. If this is your dream, and you don't have the grades or publications to get in otherwise, but you do have top programming chops, this could be a way for you to still get what you want.

(3) People who are already in industry and want to go into academia. They may have lost their academic connections at this point in time. Even if they had great grades, they may struggle to reconnect with old teachers to write the requisite stellar recommendation letters.

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

#30

Post by arethuza »

chrisseaton wrote: post #13
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…

In the UK in some areas such as finance and business there are many people who apply to be an Army officer, and go all the way through selection, but never intend to join up. They do it just so that they can put on their CV (resume) that they've passed Army officer selection.

Isn't Officer Selection where candidate for officer training are selected, not after the full training? According to this link it looks like a ~5 day process:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8359547.stm

[NB Not sure I approve of people using up forces resources just to pad their CVs]

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