PhD is slavery. You would rather go straight to industry getting paid in full.
NSF pilots 4-year PhDs with industry research placements
51–60 of 85 posts
Re: NSF pilots 4-year PhDs with industry research placements
#52China actually started piloting the "industry Phd" in 2025, and took inspiration from Japan, Germany, and UK where some programs do industry experience as part of Phd training. A lot of the Chinese programs are in agriculture, engineering, and biotech. China's Ministry of Education actually published the "suggestion for experimentation" (loose translation) in 2023, and it trickled out from there as each province leve…
Wouldn’t be the first time the US took inspiration regarding the PhD from the leading advanced manufacturing power of the day, nor from Germany for that matter.
Re: NSF pilots 4-year PhDs with industry research placements
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I understand the upside, the reality of why it’s being pursued in the United States is that this is intended to drive academia into an advanced version of a trade school.
Do the math: The number of professorial positions is not growing (or not very quickly). Under steady-state, each professor only needs to train one single tenure-track PhD in their entire career . (Or maybe 10 professors need to train 11-12 students, to account for various forms of attrition.) If you want more PhD's than that, you have to figure out a place for them to work; industry is a good "pressure relief valve".
This is true but it doesn't necessarily mean that academia ought to shift its focus to professional training. Also keep in mind that this has ~always been the case. Sometimes you train with a specific task in mind. Other times you do something open ended and unrelated "for the experience" with the idea that it will benefit you in various ways in the future. Neither of those approaches is always wrong or always right. Sometimes you need to focus but there are other times narrowing your view would materially diminish the benefits of the experience.
I do think it would be good for all levels of academia to be more explicit about the goals of any given program. I think these things are often blurred together to the detriment of both student and staff.
Re: NSF pilots 4-year PhDs with industry research placements
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I understand the upside, the reality of why it’s being pursued in the United States is that this is intended to drive academia into an advanced version of a trade school.
That sounds like an excellent thing based on that last sentence. Anecdotally, I hear people talk about trade school as being much more practical compared to the majority of traditional 4 year degrees. So I am interpreting a "move towards trade school" as an increase in practicality and therefore utility to the student.
Practicality and utility to the student must be the reason I started getting junior software engineers that are computer illiterates out of whatever Java IDE they were taught in.
Re: NSF pilots 4-year PhDs with industry research placements
#55My wife did her mathematics PhD under an analogous structure in Germany where it’s fairly common. She was supervised by a professor at the University of Munich and a lab at Bosch, wrote and defended a thesis as usual. Employed in industry immediately after graduating. A great experience.
While I understand the upside, the reality of why it’s being pursued in the United States is that this is intended to drive academia into an advanced version of a trade school.
There is a non-insignificant segment of the population that would have been better suited and employed as painters or HVAC technicians than for their chosen careers. Some software developers (and 80% of the city of Portland) would also fall into this category. The world has a surplus of PhDs opening cupcake shops.
Re: NSF pilots 4-year PhDs with industry research placements
#56I find it interesting that semiconductor companies like Applied Materials, IBM, TI, Analog Devices, Intel, Lam, Micron have not signed up to join this program since they typically hire a significant number of PhDs. Perhaps there are concerns about IP protection.
Re: NSF pilots 4-year PhDs with industry research placements
#57I find it interesting that semiconductor companies like Applied Materials, IBM, TI, Analog Devices, Intel, Lam, Micron have not signed up to join this program since they typically hire a significant number of PhDs. Perhaps there are concerns about IP protection.
In contrast Infineon has hosted PhD students and STMicro has an Italian government research institute on their Catania campus. https://www.imm.cnr.it/institute
Re: NSF pilots 4-year PhDs with industry research placements
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I understand the upside, the reality of why it’s being pursued in the United States is that this is intended to drive academia into an advanced version of a trade school.
Do the math: The number of professorial positions is not growing (or not very quickly). Under steady-state, each professor only needs to train one single tenure-track PhD in their entire career . (Or maybe 10 professors need to train 11-12 students, to account for various forms of attrition.) If you want more PhD's than that, you have to figure out a place for them to work; industry is a good "pressure relief valve".
i think major federal funding agencies should track department-level stats on "how many phd students did you admit?" versus "how many tenure track positions did you hire?" and use that to implement mechanisms that encourage a healthier balance (e.g., changing funding lines on grants, adjusting their overhead cuts, boosting trainee grants at certain places).
this would hopefully stop departments from over-admitting and encourage less adjunctification.
Re: NSF pilots 4-year PhDs with industry research placements
#59My wife did her mathematics PhD under an analogous structure in Germany where it’s fairly common. She was supervised by a professor at the University of Munich and a lab at Bosch, wrote and defended a thesis as usual. Employed in industry immediately after graduating. A great experience.
While I understand the upside, the reality of why it’s being pursued in the United States is that this is intended to drive academia into an advanced version of a trade school.
"Learn what we believe to be the textbook-correct, fundamental, foundational theories for a topic; learn about the frontiers of new research in the topic; find a niche on that frontier where there's something new to try; try something new; write down the results (no matter how boring); share with your friends; rinse, lather, and repeat" is a perfectly respectable trade.
No reason why the good plumbers, electricians, or truck drivers of the world ought to look down on academics-- no matter how stuffy or highfalutin or soft-handed they might seem.
Every once in a while, academics come up with something useful. (And in fact, I think that that might just be the whole point).
Re: NSF pilots 4-year PhDs with industry research placements
#60I don't love the increasing move towards industry research instead of traditional academia. It is just going to mean more closely-held, proprietary advancements.
well, you're allowed to patent and have proprietary rights to the contents of your graduate school research if they meet the criteria lol, in fact, that is a good idea for a student working on a novel technology.
If you work for a private firm, then they presumably own the rights to patents you develop while under their employment, depending on your contract. But also, you have access to patents and technologies through the corporate patent sharing agreements and licenses that you'd never have access to in the university system, so it can work both ways, where you may be able to develop things not possible in traditional academia, but whether you actually retain those rights is not as clear as in academia.