On Leaving Academia • Hacker News Board

Re: On Leaving Academia

#31

Post by _delirium » Tue, Jul 24, 2012, 11:45 PM UTC

Homunculiheaded wrote: post #10

jackpirate wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

research of my own that'd be too risky for academia I don't get this. The whole point of university research is that it is too risky (or benefits will be too far in the future) to make it profitable for companies to pursue. I don't see how anything could be too risky for the university, but not too risky for a business. Edit: I'm not saying universities are perfect. I'm just saying that they still manage to do resear…

That should be the case but it is not primarily for 2 rather related reasons: tenure & funding. Everything you do as university research is towards the aim of getting publications to progress either you or your adviser towards tenure. The problem is that things that don't work are not usually publishable. This leads to 'fluffing' up results (read enough academic papers and you'll find some hilarity there) and avoidin…

If your particular research interest involves eventually killing someone, you'll do fantastic. There are of course other sources of funding but they typically have much smaller wallets, especially the further you go on the 'for the good of humanity' scale.

Unfortunately, being in the EU, I don't think changing this part fixes that many of the problems. EU grants are not about killing people, but typically about cooperation, building understanding between nations, reducing violence, integration of immigrants, that kind of thing. Goals I like more, in principle, than DARPA's. But the actual administration is if anything worse: 100-page proposals via hugely bureaucratic processes (NSF's are at least only 15 pages), unwieldy multi-country consortia, periodic mandatory status update meetings in Brussels, the works. If you can sell what you're doing within that framework and work with it, it's good, but it's still very much about being on the right track to impress the purse-string holders.

Re: On Leaving Academia

#32

Post by zeroonetwothree » Tue, Jul 24, 2012, 11:46 PM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #19

pnathan wrote: post #13

Okay, so there are issues with academia. How do those get solved? The obvious answer is "more funding", but there's also cultural shifts, wherein academia is excorcised for not doing "Real World Work". Is part of the solution to drive upward from K to PhD, focusing on critical thinking and humanities, educating more than training ? I don't know.

I'm not sure it's more funding, as much as the way it's doled out. The idea with the way funding has shifted was indeed (in part) to make academia more "real-world" and competitive. Instead of a university getting a big block grant from the NSF, or researchers getting unrestricted funding directly from their university's budget, as used to be common, individual researchers apply for competitive 3-year grants to fund…

I wouldn't say it's unforseeable: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking

Re: On Leaving Academia

#33

Post by mturmon » Tue, Jul 24, 2012, 11:47 PM UTC

jackpirate wrote: post #3

carterschonwald wrote: post #2

This article articulates a whole slew of issues that I'm sure many hners with experience wrt graduate school or beyond have observed and / or experienced first hand. All I can say is this, jumping into industry, and spending my time on engineering and research of my own that'd be too risky for academia, and that would not have a clear payoff value for a big co R&D lab, its the sexiest, best, most exciting and amazing…

research of my own that'd be too risky for academia I don't get this. The whole point of university research is that it is too risky (or benefits will be too far in the future) to make it profitable for companies to pursue. I don't see how anything could be too risky for the university, but not too risky for a business. Edit: I'm not saying universities are perfect. I'm just saying that they still manage to do resear…

The hunt for the Higgs boson is going on at CERN, which is not a university. It's more along the lines of a national lab.

Re: On Leaving Academia

#34

Post by carterschonwald » Tue, Jul 24, 2012, 11:50 PM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #23

Lewisham wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, so there are issues with academia. How do those get solved? They don't. As far as I can tell, all the problems, bar those that stem directly from funding, have always been there. That's the nature of the institution. What changed, for CS at least, is that Google provides much of what is attractive to academia, but has all the funding that is required to make the other roadblocks go away. Google is not like Xero…

I dunno about the "never did" part. Google is doing some interesting stuff, but I don't think they're yet up to the peak of academia, like the amount of individual researcher freedom combined with innovation going on in the heyday of the MIT AI Lab. Even grad students were doing totally independent never-been-done research projects! Mere staff members like Richard Stallman had influential active side projects, too. G…

Hehe, this is where is gets interesting. There's a huge number of small to mid sized companies which give you huge creative latitude for projects. Perhaps the most famous one is Valve (read their handbook, it's amazing!)

I'm actually hoping to replicate some of those ideas of both the good bits of academe plus the modalities in aforementioned handbook as I start to pull people into my org, Wellposed. (because what's more exciting than working with fun nice interesting intelligent folks who do amazing work plus being paid insanely well? )

Re: On Leaving Academia

#35

Post by SuitAndThai » Tue, Jul 24, 2012, 11:52 PM UTC

The claims under "Mass Production of Education" are a little misguided:

1. Online education is not mass produced as he claims; the costs for every video that is downloaded to watch video lecture is incredibly small. Popping up tutorials on YouTube with ads is profitable and sustainable, and that's really all you need for someone who can dedicate themselves to learning more about a topic.

2. I have no idea where he pulls his "winners win" suspicion.

   > why wouldn’t every student choose a Stanford or MIT education over, say, UNM?

If we have an open model of education, people would have the freedom of spending a minimal amount of time to look through a plethora of lectures and figure out what they like the best. In the end, you'll hear the best lecturers echoed from students who watched them. I'm making many assumptions here, and I don't want you to forgive me for making them. But we can't overlook the assumptions that the author is making either, and there are a lot of them.

3. Supposedly, online education kills a personal connection: an argument that has been made many times. Maybe I should point to a popular counter-example: Khan Academy. A very small group of people who manage to supplement the education of an incredible amount of people who want the extra help. They do it for free. They are happy with the results. And the people they do it for are very happy with the results. The argument he's making sounds like there's something to be yearned, but I don't buy it.

Were it not for this section and his rant on the "Funding Climate" (I really don't want to argue about politics here), I would not have thought this to be the rambling of an angry, old man. He may have some valid points, but it's hard not to see this as a giant middle finger to his previous employer as well as venting now that he's at his new job.

Re: On Leaving Academia

#36

Post by thronemonkey » Tue, Jul 24, 2012, 11:56 PM UTC

Lewisham wrote: post #15

pnathan wrote: post #13

Okay, so there are issues with academia. How do those get solved? The obvious answer is "more funding", but there's also cultural shifts, wherein academia is excorcised for not doing "Real World Work". Is part of the solution to drive upward from K to PhD, focusing on critical thinking and humanities, educating more than training ? I don't know.

Okay, so there are issues with academia. How do those get solved? They don't. As far as I can tell, all the problems, bar those that stem directly from funding, have always been there. That's the nature of the institution. What changed, for CS at least, is that Google provides much of what is attractive to academia, but has all the funding that is required to make the other roadblocks go away. Google is not like Xero…

Keep in mind that academic science includes fields other than CS ;)

Re: On Leaving Academia

#37

Post by amirmc » Wed, Jul 25, 2012, 12:05 AM UTC

aswanson wrote: post #18

jackpirate wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

research of my own that'd be too risky for academia I don't get this. The whole point of university research is that it is too risky (or benefits will be too far in the future) to make it profitable for companies to pursue. I don't see how anything could be too risky for the university, but not too risky for a business. Edit: I'm not saying universities are perfect. I'm just saying that they still manage to do resear…

I don't get this. The whole point of university research is that it is too risky (or benefits will be too far in the future) to make it profitable for companies to pursue. I don't see how anything could be too risky for the university, but not too risky for a business. I get it. I recall specifically posing a promising, if not clear-cut, research topic to my grad school advisor and his response "that's high risk". Ac…

"There are tremendous disincentives in the system for innovation"

I feel that's overstating it but even if not, is it worse than industry? I've found academia to be very accepting of different viewpoints and depending on the field, experimentation is encouraged.

In my viewpoint, if an advisor in academia calls something 'high-risk' it's within the context of the overall work. For example, in grad school, the aim is to make a contribution to the field and get a PhD. Several students I've known have followed 'promising' lines of work (after disregarding advice to contrary) and ended up with nothing.

Re: On Leaving Academia

#38

Post by tikhonj » Wed, Jul 25, 2012, 12:26 AM UTC

Homunculiheaded wrote: post #10

jackpirate wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

research of my own that'd be too risky for academia I don't get this. The whole point of university research is that it is too risky (or benefits will be too far in the future) to make it profitable for companies to pursue. I don't see how anything could be too risky for the university, but not too risky for a business. Edit: I'm not saying universities are perfect. I'm just saying that they still manage to do resear…

That should be the case but it is not primarily for 2 rather related reasons: tenure & funding. Everything you do as university research is towards the aim of getting publications to progress either you or your adviser towards tenure. The problem is that things that don't work are not usually publishable. This leads to 'fluffing' up results (read enough academic papers and you'll find some hilarity there) and avoidin…

Don't some of the large software and hardware companies also support research at universities? I think that some of the research labs at my university get supported heavily by companies like Google, Microsoft, Intel and Qualcomm. However, I don't really know the specifics.

Re: On Leaving Academia

#39

Post by arturadib » Wed, Jul 25, 2012, 12:32 AM UTC

I've tried to rationalize my own jump out of academia a while ago, which I did after passing my mid-term tenure review (I'm currently with Mozilla, happily pushing the boundaries of the web).

In doing so I came up with a (super-scientific!) "professional satisfaction formula":

http://blog.arturadib.com/the-formula-for-professional-satis...

Re: On Leaving Academia

#40

Post by jlarocco » Wed, Jul 25, 2012, 12:42 AM UTC

jackpirate wrote: post #3

carterschonwald wrote: post #2

This article articulates a whole slew of issues that I'm sure many hners with experience wrt graduate school or beyond have observed and / or experienced first hand. All I can say is this, jumping into industry, and spending my time on engineering and research of my own that'd be too risky for academia, and that would not have a clear payoff value for a big co R&D lab, its the sexiest, best, most exciting and amazing…

research of my own that'd be too risky for academia I don't get this. The whole point of university research is that it is too risky (or benefits will be too far in the future) to make it profitable for companies to pursue. I don't see how anything could be too risky for the university, but not too risky for a business. Edit: I'm not saying universities are perfect. I'm just saying that they still manage to do resear…

I think that's covered in the essay, actually.

He claims universities are increasingly judging professors by their ability to get funding. And, due to budget cuts, funding is only going to areas likely to pay off. "Too risky for academia" would be too far off the beaten path to get funding.

That said, I don't know if it's true or not.