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A Survival Guide to a PhD

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Re: A Survival Guide to a PhD

#41

Post by sidlls »

tostitos1979 wrote: post #29
eanzenberg wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same! I was super-interested in research and that's why I pursued a PhD. I never thought of running a lab or teaching classes.

A friend and I (both PhDs) were just discussing how difficult having a PhD has made getting engineering positions.In the course of interviewing at top-5 companies, we both have experienced a$$hats/interviewers with complexes who seem bent on showing off how they are smarter than the PhD interviewee .. curious if you have run into this as well, and any strategies to guard against this? I've also seen people who think…

Seek jobs for which a PhD is a minimum requirement, or else leave the fact that you have a PhD out of your application materials if you're dead set on jobs without that requirement (and it's possible to do). I've seen some success in both cases. Also consider that you may have some confidence/arrogance issues of your own. Not to be accusatory, and certainly I'm projecting a bit here, but having left my academic life behind some years ago, when I look back on it I see a certain arrogance in the pride of having a PhD that I'm embarrassed by now.

If you're running into these problems for jobs that do list PhD as the minimum requirement, you should consider it a strong signal that avoiding working there is a net positive for you.

And if you think you have it rough, try getting jobs after having dropped out of a PhD program a few years into it. For some reason, at least in the sphere of my friends and associates, this signals "quitter" and "not as smart as a PhD person". I've interviewed such candidates and I'd say it's a mixed bag with respect to whether I've preferred them over PhD candidates I've interviewed for jobs, but almost uniformly I've had one or more colleagues raise the question of said candidates' ability and determination.

People (employers and PhD holders alike, really) need to understand that having a PhD is a strong signal for exactly three things, in this order: a person's willingness and ability to tolerate a certain kind of experience in the very narrow context of academia, some minimum level of expertise in the field above the typical undergraduate degree holder, and some further expertise in a very narrow slice of the field above a typical Master's degree holder.

Re: A Survival Guide to a PhD

#42

Post by nickpsecurity »

michaelvoz wrote: post #2

"I’ll assume that the second option you are considering is joining a medium-large company (which is likely most common). Ask yourself if you find the following properties appealing: ..." Why is every conversation about PHDs always cast in the light of as-opposed-to-working-for-the-man? I don't see discussions ever bring up the plethora of other life courses one can take. It is though the author sees a very clear bina…

"Where is the discussion of starting a business? Of making your own company? Breaking free of the political shackles of academia and blazing your own path to glory?"

Good point. Several, nice examples from my field of study are AbsInt, Kesterel, Galois, and AdaCore.

https://www.absint.com/products.htm

http://www.kestrel.edu/home/about.html

https://galois.com/blog/

http://www.adacore.com/academia/projects

AbsInt turns elite work of Ph.D.'s into commercial products and enhances them. Doubt it's boring. Kesterel has people doing academic-style research on hard problems and applying it to real-world. Galois does that too. AdaCore does a combo of tooling for grunt work, advanced tooling (esp compiler), and cutting-edge work (eg SPARK provers) involving academics remote or in-sourced. A good PhD in relevant subjects might get a job at any of these companies with similarly interesting work. Or, if tool is good enough, make a company out of it by partnering with people good at the business/sales side.

So, definitely opportunities here beyond black and white of academic-only or grunt work.

Re: A Survival Guide to a PhD

#43

Post by slashblake »

I just finished my PhD in CS. Took me about 7 years, damn it feels good to be done.

Mine experience was completely driven by my choice of advisor. He did not push me and therefore I had complete freedom. I was glad to have the funding through him, but did not get much direction. I did almost everything.

And while it took me 7 years to complete, I don't look back on the experience as only "getting my Phd". I learned so much about myself; I traveled around the world; I received my private pilots license; I learned about cars; I played a lot of golf; I had a great time. There were some shitty times where I had to push through, but I have no regrets. Most of my friends are buying houses and having kids, so I'm a little behind on my career/savings. But hey, I have three degrees in a pretty good field and my career is full steam ahead.

Re: A Survival Guide to a PhD

#44

Post by stared »

pgbovine wrote: post #13
eanzenberg wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my super-limited experience in academia, I found politics is more important at top schools and much less important when you get to ~40-80 ranked US schools for PhD programs.

Having spent time at schools of various "ranks" (whatever that means), "politics" (whatever that means ... that's super vague) is everywhere. It's what you make of it. Whenever you have people, money, and status mixing, there is politics. That's not exclusive to academia. Every company I've worked at also had those dynamics. Want to eliminate politics? Be independently wealthy and work alone :) Otherwise everyone nee…

Well, with freelancing (in data science) I managed to avoid politics (and bureaucracy) completely (no, I am not independently wealthy).

Re: A Survival Guide to a PhD

#45

Post by eli_gottlieb »

throwawaymsft wrote: post #3
michaelvoz wrote: post #2

"I’ll assume that the second option you are considering is joining a medium-large company (which is likely most common). Ask yourself if you find the following properties appealing: ..." Why is every conversation about PHDs always cast in the light of as-opposed-to-working-for-the-man? I don't see discussions ever bring up the plethora of other life courses one can take. It is though the author sees a very clear bina…

"Properties you find appealing..." * Freedom * Ownership * Personal freedom ... * Getting into a PhD program: references, references, references * Student adviser relationship * Pre-vs-post tenure * Impressing an adviser * (Topic) Plays to your adviser’s interests and strengths Much of your freedom goes to learning to play politics and manage up to a level employees never have to. Reading this, I'm so thankful I didn…

> Much of your freedom goes to learning to play politics and manage up to a level employees never have to.

Yeah, internal corporate politics never gets people's entire project canceled with no notice in the corporate world. That would just be mean, so it doesn't happen /s.

(Guess what I found out last Friday?)

Re: A Survival Guide to a PhD

#46

Post by sndean »

laxatives wrote: post #26
sndean wrote: post #9

With my own disclaimer [0], a few comments: > Personal freedom. As a PhD student you’re your own boss. Want to sleep in today? Sure. This is largely true, but only if you're on good terms with your advisor and they're happy with your progress. God, I miss being able to sleep in until 2pm. > Personal growth. ... you’ll become a master of managing your own psychology Yes, it's definitely a roller coaster. I know what h…

> > Picking the school. ... your dream school should 1) be a top school > No, at least, in mine and other's experience, you should go to the best school where you're still capable of being in the top ~1% of your graduating class. You'll feel like you're the best and that's almost all that matters (Malcolm Gladwell's talk [1]). Isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens after you want to progress to the next environ…

> What happens after you want to progress to the next environment?

It does sound odd, or just wrong. But from Gladwell's example [0], and others, top students in their class, regardless of the school, perform better than expected following graduation. From my experience, that's at least partially due to the increased attention (and better training) that top students receive. The lower ranked students are more-or-less ignored and pushed out.

> Is it realistic to be in the top 1% anywhere?

No. But you may have a higher chance of being a top student at a cheap in-school school than at Harvard.

[0] https://ideas.repec.org/p/van/wpaper/vuecon-sub-13-00009.htm...

Re: A Survival Guide to a PhD

#47

Post by Retra »

michaelvoz wrote: post #2

"I’ll assume that the second option you are considering is joining a medium-large company (which is likely most common). Ask yourself if you find the following properties appealing: ..." Why is every conversation about PHDs always cast in the light of as-opposed-to-working-for-the-man? I don't see discussions ever bring up the plethora of other life courses one can take. It is though the author sees a very clear bina…

Break free of the political shackles of academia and go on trying to convince people to invest in your business, become employees, and convince customers to use your services? At least the political shackles of academia are intellectually stimulating and not pure dreary salesmanship like the political shackles of business ownership.

Re: A Survival Guide to a PhD

#48

Post by eanzenberg »

tostitos1979 wrote: post #29
eanzenberg wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same! I was super-interested in research and that's why I pursued a PhD. I never thought of running a lab or teaching classes.

A friend and I (both PhDs) were just discussing how difficult having a PhD has made getting engineering positions.In the course of interviewing at top-5 companies, we both have experienced a$$hats/interviewers with complexes who seem bent on showing off how they are smarter than the PhD interviewee .. curious if you have run into this as well, and any strategies to guard against this? I've also seen people who think…

Yes I've run into this. It's frustrating and there's not much you can do because of the power-imbalance between interviewer and interviewee. I try to be content with the fact that interviewing is mostly arbitrary with high variance. If you're set on a single company you want to work for keep trying and never burn bridges there and eventually you'll get in.

In data science which is the track I'm on, I've run into situations during interviews where

1) I can only scratch the surface of what's being asked

2) I answer the question to the satisfaction of the interviewer's skill level

3) I answer the question beyond the interviewer's skill level.

Only #2 is good. #3 happens rarely but you'd be surprised at how often it happens even at top5 companies. I've been dinged from interviewers in the #3 camp who were looking for the simpler answers. #1 is always a learning experience for me :)

Re: A Survival Guide to a PhD

#49

Post by throwawaymsft »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #45
throwawaymsft wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Properties you find appealing..." * Freedom * Ownership * Personal freedom ... * Getting into a PhD program: references, references, references * Student adviser relationship * Pre-vs-post tenure * Impressing an adviser * (Topic) Plays to your adviser’s interests and strengths Much of your freedom goes to learning to play politics and manage up to a level employees never have to. Reading this, I'm so thankful I didn…

> Much of your freedom goes to learning to play politics and manage up to a level employees never have to. Yeah, internal corporate politics never gets people's entire project canceled with no notice in the corporate world. That would just be mean, so it doesn't happen /s. (Guess what I found out last Friday?)

That sucks, but politics in the workplace can be dialed from mega-corp to startup to consultancy to freelancer to anonymous author of a SaaS. How much politics did patio11 deal with when running Bingo Card Creator?

Re: A Survival Guide to a PhD

#50

Post by sndean »

gajjanag wrote: post #22
johan_larson wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A PhD is super fun Experiences differ. A lot. Personally, I had an awful time during my PhD, and between the penury and the toil and the bleak prospects afterward, I'd say you're definitely in the minority on this one. I wouldn't recommend a PhD to anyone who isn't dead set on a job that requires one.

> Personally, I had an awful time during my PhD, and between the penury and the toil and the bleak prospects afterward, I'd say you're definitely in the minority on this one. Do you have any evidence for the minority claim beyond the personal anecdote? Also, this is field dependent, so a mention of the field could be helpful.

> Do you have any evidence for the minority claim beyond the personal anecdote?

As a second anecdote, I've never met anyone who's said getting their PhD was fun. (My building is ~95% PhDs from a range of different disciplines)

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