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A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

president.mit.edu

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Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#361

Post by genxy »

jasonhong wrote: post #335
tasty_freeze wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work with a brilliant and humble guy. He got accepted to MIT at 14, but his parents made him go to community college for a year to give him a little more time to mature. He then went to MIT and graduated after three years, then went to Berkeley and got a masters in one year, then went to Stanford and it took six years to get his PhD? Why? Because his advisor milked him for his work. She had a pile of papers…

Speaking as someone who has graduated over a dozen PhD students in computer science... Yes, it is possible to complete a PhD in 3-4 years, but it's not really good for your career. The bar our department sets for a PhD is that at the end of it, you should be a world expert in your specific topic. A PhD is more like an apprenticeship, where you develop and refine your skills, your background knowledge in your area of…

I agree with all those things, but we should be starting that training in middle school. Deconstructing arguments, making reports, giving presentations, solving open ended questions. Many of these things involve a modest amount of critical thinking, prediction and self-reflection.

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#362

Post by busterarm »

coryrc wrote: post #343
busterarm wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You raced over the key word in that sentence. Anything. Your patches will be the sources of your next exploits.

No. A language with checked arrays can never have a buffer overrun like C arrays can. Some things are better. Game theory demonstrates this.

Some things are better but in the case of political systems, you typically can't prove that ahead of time.

Especially when the suggestion is to talk about changing a bunch of variables at once.

That's akin to a revolution, which historically work out badly for the people clamoring for it.

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#363

Post by dhosek »

etempleton wrote: post #345
tasty_freeze wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work with a brilliant and humble guy. He got accepted to MIT at 14, but his parents made him go to community college for a year to give him a little more time to mature. He then went to MIT and graduated after three years, then went to Berkeley and got a masters in one year, then went to Stanford and it took six years to get his PhD? Why? Because his advisor milked him for his work. She had a pile of papers…

This seems to be how many PhD programs go. Almost all want to quit in the last couple years despite the time invested already. Few want to stay in academia, because they have been abused and used and realize that the same would happened if they try to earn tenure.

R. F. Kuang’s Katabasis was a fun look at the hell that is graduate school told through a fantasy lens. That paired with the McSweeney’s snake fight article should be essential reading for all would-be grad students.

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#364

Post by intrasight »

divbzero wrote: post #243
rfergie wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Probably 80% of the recent PhD grads I know are looking to leave academia, despite the fact that they went into it to pursue a career in academia Has this changed recently?

Not that I’m aware of? Most PhD grads not staying academia seems to be a long-running phenomenon. The number of permanent academic positions simply does not match up against the number of PhD grads.

Some disciplines are much better at managing the PhD admissions to match the job opportunities. Philosophy for example.

But I don't think that's done with most science PhDs. Is that because of a culture of exploiting cheap labor?

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#365

Post by drapado »

jasonhong wrote: post #335
tasty_freeze wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work with a brilliant and humble guy. He got accepted to MIT at 14, but his parents made him go to community college for a year to give him a little more time to mature. He then went to MIT and graduated after three years, then went to Berkeley and got a masters in one year, then went to Stanford and it took six years to get his PhD? Why? Because his advisor milked him for his work. She had a pile of papers…

Speaking as someone who has graduated over a dozen PhD students in computer science... Yes, it is possible to complete a PhD in 3-4 years, but it's not really good for your career. The bar our department sets for a PhD is that at the end of it, you should be a world expert in your specific topic. A PhD is more like an apprenticeship, where you develop and refine your skills, your background knowledge in your area of…

Are those PhDs being paid with a decent salary? If not, I can’t agree with your statement. PS. I did my PhD in an EU country where it’s treated as another researcher job with salary and benefits

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#366

Post by nomadygnt »

jasonhong wrote: post #335
tasty_freeze wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work with a brilliant and humble guy. He got accepted to MIT at 14, but his parents made him go to community college for a year to give him a little more time to mature. He then went to MIT and graduated after three years, then went to Berkeley and got a masters in one year, then went to Stanford and it took six years to get his PhD? Why? Because his advisor milked him for his work. She had a pile of papers…

Speaking as someone who has graduated over a dozen PhD students in computer science... Yes, it is possible to complete a PhD in 3-4 years, but it's not really good for your career. The bar our department sets for a PhD is that at the end of it, you should be a world expert in your specific topic. A PhD is more like an apprenticeship, where you develop and refine your skills, your background knowledge in your area of…

Taking a longer time to graduate to become the “world expert” in their field is fine if grad students weren’t paid next to nothing for the 60+ hours a week that they are expected to work. As it is now it’s better to finish as quickly as possible so they can have a real life.

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#367

Post by greenie_beans »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #302
greenie_beans wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no, they are saying that by discarding mississippi, you are ignoring like 45%+ of the state that didn't vote for whatever politician you hate. and also you are ignoring the centuries of disenfranchisement that prevents more people from voting against whatever politician you hate. it's not a monolith. mississsippi is the blackest state in the union yet coastal liberals who are supposedly anti-racist are quick to throw…

Having actually lived in Mississippi, I’ve seen the disenfranchisement first hand. But what can we do? We can’t fix Mississippi, they will have to want to fix themselves, so why not let them explore more fully the consequences of their own actions? Mississippi thinks California is keeping them down, then without California they would have to start blaming themselves more.

i'm from there and there are so many people trying to fix it. somehow you lived there so long and didn't realize this fact, bless your heart. (this is helping prove my point btw)

who in mississippi is blaming california for their problems, other than state politicians who think that is effective political rhetoric? all of the voters i know can read past that BS even if we have different political ideology.

idk this is just my experience growing up there and then later studying the south as an academic. we are used to being condescended to.

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#368

Post by waterheater »

gedy wrote: post #219
arenaninja wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was disillusioned with academia before I started. We had a candid talk during undergrad with a grad student who was a TA in our class and he laid it out for us: there wouldn't be enough jobs in the US for our small graduating class each year so if you needed a job to support yourself it would not make financial sense. I stopped then and there, maybe one or two classmates continued. That was almost 20 years ago. I'm…

Yes similar, some time back I was in a grad program that I was really interested in and decent at, but by then married and child on the way. My Master's adviser was honest that it's better to just work somewhere vs go down PhD path as I was doing this for the job prospects. The folks who stayed with this were "family-funded" and well to do in their home countries. They basically were doing it for various reasons asid…

I knew a foreign student like that. He was a great guy and a friend, and we worked in the same building. One day, I told him that I purchased a condo to save money during the doctoral program (in my unique situation, my mortgage was less than basically all other grad student's rent, at least those I knew). A little while later, he told me that he also purchased a condo. I asked him about his mortgage rate, and he gave me a puzzled look. His well-off family paid >$250k, cash, for his condo.

In general, pursing a doctoral degree requires a certain degree of financial stability. The successful doctoral students usually came from wealthy families, whereas the ones who struggled the most also struggled with finances. I believe it's essentially impossible to perform truly novel academic research when your personal finances are volatile. I also firmly believe that graduate student unionization is an elitist mentality that must be unilaterally opposed, as it is guaranteed to destroy any constructive academic culture.

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#369

Post by dhosek »

j2kun wrote: post #264
jrflo wrote: post #147

Besides the people in this thread bemoaning the state of research funding, international students, etc. (all of which are valid), a lot of people are becoming disillusioned with academia. Probably 80% of the recent PhD grads I know are looking to leave academia, despite the fact that they went into it to pursue a career in academia. The median science PhD takes 6 years now, and is grueling work for terrible pay, all…

> MIT recently became one of the first universities to get a grad student union University of Illinois at Chicago (my alma mater) had a graduate student union in 2011, and I don't think a grad student union was so uncommon at the time...

The card check election was in 2004. I was part of the drive at the time (although I graduated before the union began—that was one of the challenges in the drive: a lot of us were essentially working for the benefit of those who came after us and wouldn’t be able to enjoy the fruits of our labors). It wasn’t the first, but it was still a relatively new thing at the time.

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#370

Post by 999900000999 »

codybontecou wrote: post #342
999900000999 wrote: post #223

It's ok. The top colleges are arguably now in China. China is providing free education in many poor African countries. Chinese is one of many subjects offered. Of course, a smart African college student will have no issue learning English, Chinese, as well her home countries language. The future belongs to China. We're elevating fine institutions such as Liberty University and celebrating comedians and edge lords. Ch…

What are some of the Chinese colleges worth paying attention to? Is most of the AI research coming from these colleges or are they primarily from private labs?

Zhejiang University appears to be doing a lot of work in AI.

I'm far from an expert here though.

However, Liberty University offers Creationism. Do you really need all that book learning when Jesus provides all the answers?

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