251–260 of 285 posts
This is great and exactly captures the PhD experience. Both in the simulator and in real life, I mostly survived until the end by slacking off frequently, and needed around 5 years. Some highlights: > INBOX: Based on the reviewers' comments, we regret to inform you that your manuscript has been REJECTED for publication. One of the reviewers pointed out that there is no comparison with a state-of-art method. > You cam…
One dynamic I experienced that also isn't in the simulation: if you focus too much on classwork early on in order to pass your RPE, it can actually be hard to find an advisor. Classwork is basically dead-end work and the more you focus on it the less you have to show for yourself when trying to convince an advisor to work with you. Your goal should be to optimize for doing just well enough to pass your classwork. Als…
At some places, advisors now also consider a list of students ranked by grades. I have seen advisorship being offered only to the top student in the Professor's class.
If you lack ex-ante information how and where your grade rank matters in a year, this just adds a fun new challenge to the first year PhD!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Math is pointless from start to finish And this attitude, my friends, is the reason why so much software out there is so bad. We need more of a math mindset when developing software. What can we be sure about, what are the invariants, what can we prove? There is so much crap out there that somebody lacking understanding just tried to wing, and I'm constantly ashamed of it. Computer science is applied math.
He said maths not CS. A lot of research mathematics has no application.
Foundational research does often not provide immediate applications. Still, if we don't do it, out understanding of the world is lacking and it hurts us later down the road.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One dynamic I experienced that also isn't in the simulation: if you focus too much on classwork early on in order to pass your RPE, it can actually be hard to find an advisor. Classwork is basically dead-end work and the more you focus on it the less you have to show for yourself when trying to convince an advisor to work with you. Your goal should be to optimize for doing just well enough to pass your classwork. Als…
Or your advisor retiring in year 2...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What was missing: n) Your old college friends have secured their material needs while you barely make rent. n) a PhD student that joined the program after you just surpassed your number of publications. n) your thesis supervisor just bumped you off primary author to contributor in your own paper.
> your thesis supervisor just bumped you off primary author to contributor in your own paper. I mean, woah. Even that's a little too far for phd-land
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was thinking, this sounds very much like a person with a vested interest in getting you to do more research.
Which is literally all advisors. Once you have an advisor, grades don't really matter that much except that you need to pass the class.
If they do not make the grading lenient - it’s for a reason.
This is great and exactly captures the PhD experience. Both in the simulator and in real life, I mostly survived until the end by slacking off frequently, and needed around 5 years. Some highlights: > INBOX: Based on the reviewers' comments, we regret to inform you that your manuscript has been REJECTED for publication. One of the reviewers pointed out that there is no comparison with a state-of-art method. > You cam…
This is also missing the part where your friend in your same class drops out for a startup, and you can choose to join him or stick with PhD. Then give you the option a year later to congratulate him on the startup’s multi-billion exit.
I've never gone for a PhD, so I can't relate to the experience of this simulation, but found this game was actually really easy. I completed my PhD in 4 years and 11 months, which feels quite reasonable. My "hope" never dropped below 45, and by the end, hope was 76. If anything, this simulation just made me think getting a PhD would be a fun opportunity to do a lot of study, and didn't put me off at all. EDIT: Why do…
I finally beat it in 6 years, 2 months, with 71 hope, 3 conference papers, 3 papers, an idea, some cloud storage, and some late year anxiety lol.