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Why I'm Getting a PhD

johnbender.us

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Re: Why I'm Getting a PhD

#31

Post by evincarofautumn »

Your interests align with mine. I have considered academia, but for now it suffices to work on language research projects in spare time. I did get a job in compilers and build tools last year because of my language interests, so it’s certainly not impossible. Compilers experts are not in high demand, but when they are needed they can go for a pretty penny due to short supply.

> I’m not as interested in the implementation as I am in conceiving a solution and understanding its value. I'm sure that will sound like laziness to some…

Not at all. People like you are the reason that people like me have so many great papers to work from. The world needs people on both sides of that divide.

Re: Why I'm Getting a PhD

#32

Post by Balgair »

selfpost wrote: post #2

I was planning to apply for a phd, and not so sure. Thanks for such a nice post. Really helpful.

I'm biting the bullet this fall too. Having worked in a lab for the past year, I can see what the good ways to do it are, and the bad ways too. I hope to do it in the good ways.

Re: Why I'm Getting a PhD

#33

Post by jlees »

burntsushi wrote: post #18

Is anyone else doing their PhD (or did their PhD) just because they thought it was a lot of fun and a great way to learn a lot in a short time period? Not that it's the only way to do any of those things, but I've found the lifestyle of a graduate student in CS to be extremely appealing. My mentor once suggested that a PhD is only worthwhile if you plan on doing research after you graduate. But as he got to know me b…

That's pretty much why I started mine, I didn't intend to be a tenure-track researcher but was really interested in a couple of areas of NLP and a PhD seemed the logical way to dig in more deeply.

Re: Why I'm Getting a PhD

#34

Post by geebee »

I truly wish you the best of luck, and for an excellent outcome.

One thing - you just can't say "why I'm getting a PhD", even from an elite school, the way you'd say "why I'm getting a law, medical, or business degree". Even if you've been admitted to an elite program, you can really only say "why I'm rolling the dice on the possibility of getting a PhD".

At elite programs, there is essentially no involuntary attrition in JD, MD, or MBA degrees. Yale law school has no 1L attrition. Columbia's JD 1L attrition is 0.3%. Attrition rates at elite med school is typically well below 1%.

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2008/04/law-school-r...

(I'll stop with the googling of links here...)

Attrition rates for engineering PhD students appear to be about 33%. This (to me, atrocious number) is way better than science or humanities.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/12/07/doctoral

Unlike JD, MD, MBA programs, I don't believe that the numbers are better at elite schools.

http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~wicse/index.php/papers/li...

I dunno, maybe Berkeley is a risky program, it is a notoriously harsh school.

In spite of all I've said, I'm always hesitant to give anyone advice. There are still remarkable careers to be had in academics. Good luck.

Re: Why I'm Getting a PhD

#35

Post by glesica »

burntsushi wrote: post #18

Is anyone else doing their PhD (or did their PhD) just because they thought it was a lot of fun and a great way to learn a lot in a short time period? Not that it's the only way to do any of those things, but I've found the lifestyle of a graduate student in CS to be extremely appealing. My mentor once suggested that a PhD is only worthwhile if you plan on doing research after you graduate. But as he got to know me b…

MS student here (maybe PhD in the future). This is exactly why I go to school. I enjoy the learning process. It's not about acquiring skills to make money, it's about learning interesting things in an interesting and creative environment where I'm free to explore to a certain extent. I think a reasonable way to describe it is that Google has 20% time, in school I have roughly 80% time to explore my interests.

Sure, I'm not making much money (people always bring this up). But who cares? HN is full of posts about how to live minimally, it's kind of a classic hacker challenge, right? I may need money someday, but right now I don't, so I might as well take advantage of the situation.

Re: Why I'm Getting a PhD

#36

Post by asabjorn »

001sky wrote: post #19

Career Path ... Unfortunately, the problems I gravitate towards are not normally assigned to engineers and attempts to marry my interests with my domain of expertise [1,2] have met with understandably tepid responses. ,,, All of that makes perfect sense but it means I can't focus on the problems that I'm interested in. --- What Interests Me The things that keep me up past midnight working and learning are technical.…

This is essential. Research needs funding, and professors are working for grants in a manner deceptively similar to contract work. The grant work might not align well with what the community views as novel research so satisfying grant and research goals can be very challenging.

In the end I believe the most important focus of a PhD is to publish three papers at great venues in something that amount to a thesis topic. And don't distract yourself with something "fun" until this is done, because it is extremely common that the research topic will stop being fun at some point during your 5-7 year journey. People, including your advisor, will ask you to work on problems unrelated to your thesis when it fits their interests so it is up to you to manage your time. Since a PhD labour is cheap skilled labor you can not expect anyone else to take the high-road and manage your time.

Re: Why I'm Getting a PhD

#37

Post by themodelplumber »

ColinWright wrote: post #25
themodelplumber wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and now I know not to trust you. Was that part really necessary?

As soon as I submitted it I went back to remove it. But thanks for calling me on it anyway. But perhaps you can find a more diplomatic way to say the same thing. When someone says something that's clearly an opinion, and wrong in my experience, and follows it with "Trust me," it's a guarantee that I will regard everything they say with suspicion. Should that not be the case? How else should I point out the consequenc…

Ah, so that was a response to the commenter's "trust me" remark. Perhaps "why should I trust you over some thousands of grad students," but it's difficult to gauge the amount of thought or research the commenter puts into "trust me," which is thrown around pretty liberally in modern English. When a friend says, "trust me, don't drink the water," and clearly his experience with water was not representative, if you want to keep the friend you're probably better off addressing it as a water quality issue instead of a trust issue. I'd say let the trust subject pass, and probably also save vocabulary like "utterance" for your enemies, or people wearing sith lord halloween costumes, etc.

Re: Why I'm Getting a PhD

#38

Post by kyro »

You're lucky to have a wife that supportive. I'm about to do something considered equally as risky, and the support of my SO helps in extinguishing a lot of the fear and anxiety. I have friends who are not as lucky with SO's demanding they continue down one career path or another.

Best of luck to you.

Re: Why I'm Getting a PhD

#39

Post by PeterisP »

001sky wrote: post #19

Career Path ... Unfortunately, the problems I gravitate towards are not normally assigned to engineers and attempts to marry my interests with my domain of expertise [1,2] have met with understandably tepid responses. ,,, All of that makes perfect sense but it means I can't focus on the problems that I'm interested in. --- What Interests Me The things that keep me up past midnight working and learning are technical.…

A big point in academia is that you can research whatever direction and niche you want, but you'll get paid only to research directions and niches chosen by others..

If those directions happen to overlap at the right time and place, you can have a great time getting a PhD; if they stop overlapping (possibly suddenly), then the choices aren't that nice.

Re: Why I'm Getting a PhD

#40

Post by hayksaakian »

glesica wrote: post #35
burntsushi wrote: post #18

Is anyone else doing their PhD (or did their PhD) just because they thought it was a lot of fun and a great way to learn a lot in a short time period? Not that it's the only way to do any of those things, but I've found the lifestyle of a graduate student in CS to be extremely appealing. My mentor once suggested that a PhD is only worthwhile if you plan on doing research after you graduate. But as he got to know me b…

MS student here (maybe PhD in the future). This is exactly why I go to school. I enjoy the learning process. It's not about acquiring skills to make money, it's about learning interesting things in an interesting and creative environment where I'm free to explore to a certain extent. I think a reasonable way to describe it is that Google has 20% time, in school I have roughly 80% time to explore my interests. Sure, I…

> I may need money someday, but right now I don't, so I might as well take advantage of the situation.

That's partly why many people see a Phd as a luxury or as something not entirely useful or necessary. Many people NEED to make money RIGHT NOW.

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