Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Doctoral degrees: The disposable academic (2010)

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 90 posts

Re: Doctoral degrees: The disposable academic (2010)

#51

Post by crntaylor »

doktrin wrote: post #32
chrisrhoden wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a perfectly delightful piece of academic propaganda. I'm sure that I am overreacting, but the suggestion that a PhD is the first and only time that you will experience original knowledge in your life seems quite smug.

I'm pretty far from an academic, but I do believe you are overreacting a bit. It would be absurd to even imply that a PhD was the only route to original knowledge (insert patent clerk anecdote here). However, original knowledge is one of the core tenets of an academic doctorate after all, and it's certainly one legitimate avenue towards original research and knowledge.

I don't know where the "Einstein had little formal education in physics" meme originated, but I'd like to kill it. Einstein was awarded a PhD before the publication of any of his seminal 1905 papers.

Re: Doctoral degrees: The disposable academic (2010)

#52

Post by lucisferre »

drobilla wrote: post #23

Someone needs to write a "why getting a job in industry is a waste of time" rebuttal to this tired argument to illustrate how ridiculous it is to evaluate everything with a single (and shallow) goal structure. After all, it typically doesn't contribute anything new or meaningful to scientific knowledge, therefore it is a waste of time (...). I guess I shouldn't expect any better from The Economist, but not everyone i…

Did you really just shit on the Economist on the whole?

Re: Doctoral degrees: The disposable academic (2010)

#53

Post by tsotha »

suyash wrote: post #39

I know some programmers with no college degree at all are making same salary if not more than programmers that have phd's and the same number of years of experience.

As someone who has been involved in hiring (and sometimes firing) developers for a few decades now, I have come to the conclusion whatever value advanced degrees in CS have for the recipient doesn't translate into making him a more productive coder. In fact, these individuals tend to get tangled up in trying to zero in on the best solution for problems instead of the "good enough" solution that would have taken a fraction of the time.

We don't pay extra for advanced CS degrees. In fact, we prefer to hire people with EE, physics, and math degrees over CS in general.

Re: Doctoral degrees: The disposable academic (2010)

#54

Post by michaelochurch »

Sorry, but I see bad advice here. "Waste of time"? No, it's not.

Academia as a career, unless you're unambiguously one of the top minds of your generation, is a bad idea. That boat has sailed and sunk.

However, a PhD in math or CS will make you eligible for higher-quality jobs more quickly than a Master's degree. There's a certain prestige that PhDs have that someone like me probably won't, and by the time you're 35+, it's almost impossible to go back, due to a combination of financial problems and admissions (you're now what is called "non-traditional").

I left a math PhD program for an internship on Wall Street. It was the right decision for me, especially because it got me on the job market before the Crash of 2008. Would I recommend that for everyone? No, I wouldn't.

By the time you are 40, whether you have a working brain or not will be a function of the quality of work you did in your 20s and 30s. If you do a decade or more of stupid work-- and the work most people get assigned is that-- you'll have lost your edge. On the other hand, if you keep doing exciting stuff, you'll be one of the sharpest people out there (and running circles around young people falling flat on mistakes you've already made). For your future, interesting work matters, and a PhD is a powerful asset (though it doesn't guarantee anything) in the battle for the scarce interesting projects.

Re: Doctoral degrees: The disposable academic (2010)

#55

Post by VLM »

srean wrote: post #43
VLM wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Health and safety of your kids and spouse? I could have gone academic, in fact I could toss it all away and go academic right now. However ... I would never voluntarily make my wife and kids suffer like that. Maybe after I retire it would be safe to go academic. It boils down to you might be able to fire me up enough to eat ramen and live in a cardboard box because of topic X, but I'd have a hard time looking my kids…

I think the parent's point was all of this is subsumed by "personal satisfaction".

Well, no point in word games but obviously I read "personal satisfaction" and hear "me" as in personal, and you don't. That's OK, but without a common definition there's going to be confusion.

Re: Doctoral degrees: The disposable academic (2010)

#58

Post by mathattack »

drobilla wrote: post #23

Someone needs to write a "why getting a job in industry is a waste of time" rebuttal to this tired argument to illustrate how ridiculous it is to evaluate everything with a single (and shallow) goal structure. After all, it typically doesn't contribute anything new or meaningful to scientific knowledge, therefore it is a waste of time (...). I guess I shouldn't expect any better from The Economist, but not everyone i…

Very true.

Most programmers in NYC could get a raise going to Wall Street. They don't do it because they don't like the abuse.

Most Physics professors could get a raise going to Wall Street. They don't do it for a variety of reasons.

It's about more than money.

But... The core of the story is true. There's a systemic problem with the Phd market. Every school and professor has an incentive to churn out more than the market needs. Like any career choice, people need to go into this with open eyes.

Re: Doctoral degrees: The disposable academic (2010)

#59

Post by zallarak »

sgt101 wrote: post #8

It takes a certain poverty of mind to quantify the value of an education in terms of earnings. I don't earn a huge amount, but I have a fantastic job, I live in a wonderful place about 5 minutes from my office and doing my Ph.D. was the best thing that I ever did. I agree that you don't need one, and many people with one that I have met and employed are fairly hopeless (in comparison to razor sharp and super talented…

Well said. Why is it even a relevant question as to whether PhDs in math/computing earn more/less than their counterparts with masters' degrees? Equating a degree with a level of economic productivity is illogical.

Re: Doctoral degrees: The disposable academic (2010)

#60

Post by Someone »

anologwintermut wrote: post #29
wmf wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't read the literature because it's behind a paywall that you can't afford, it's very likely that any papers you write will be rejected for poor form, lack of proper citations, and possibly being entirely redundant. I think there are much bigger problems trying to perform research outside "the system", but access to the literature is an issue.

Most research papers are findable via Google. Authors post them online. The better argument for open access is merely that universities shouldn't be paying for or private parties profiting from providing access to publicly funded research Often times, the knowledge guild is actually never put down on paper. You, sadly, need to be at a university where people are working on what you want to be able to do anything. Pap…

Devils's advocate: if no "private parties profiting from providing access to publicly funded research" should exist, shouldn't you be opposed to "Most research papers are findable via Google.", too? Google is making profits from publicly fundable research, too.

IMO, there is nothing wrong with companies making a profit from providing access to publicly funded research; the only problems are lack of competition and (IMO consequently) profit margins that society finds unjust.

The former, I think, is being settled. More and more new research is effectively open access. The latter, then, will follow.

And to your second point: there used to be companies that had university-like environments where short-time profits do not rule the day (AT&T, Xerox, Philips Natlab, Apple's ATG). Nowadays, Google and Microsoft Research still have similar groups.

Post reply on HN