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A PhD should be about improving society, not chasing academic kudos

theguardian.com

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Re: A PhD should be about improving society, not chasing academic kudos

#61

Post by knappa »

A lot of this seems ridiculous:

> Mental health issues are rife: approximately one-third of PhD students are at risk of having or developing a psychiatric disorder like depression.

The baseline percentage of the population which experience depression (and other mental illness) each year is known to be pretty high -- and highest in for people in their 20's. One third sounds fairly normal; at any rate, there is a burden here to show that this is an exceptional proportion.

> For instance, a PhD in Germany is supposed to take three years, according to university regulations, but most students need five years to complete one.

If you are starting from an undergraduate degree, you probably need at least two years to take the PhD intro classes. One year to start a research program might work in a subject like the author's where your papers are chats about social implications, but there are plenty of subjects where even the data collection is going to take longer than that.

> In the US, meanwhile, the average completion time for a PhD in education sciences surpasses 13 years.

These programs are dominated by people who are working teachers, working on PhDs part-time.

> One study found that for every 200 people who complete a PhD, only seven will get a permanent academic post and only one will become a professor.

Being a professor is only one possible goal and for some fields, it isn't even the primary one.

Re: A PhD should be about improving society, not chasing academic kudos

#62

Post by pishpash »

apo wrote: post #14

When you look at the stats, it’s hard not to conclude that the current PhD system is fundamentally broken. Mental health issues are rife: approximately one-third of PhD students are at risk of having or developing a psychiatric disorder like depression. The high level of dropouts is similarly worrying – and possibly another symptom of the same problem. Research suggests that on average 50% of PhD students leave gradu…

This is ridiculous. It is literally part of the job description of PhD advisors to train students and provide research experience. It is not the job of the PhD advisor to totally absolve himself/herself of hiring risk, for god's sake. If you already have 2-3 years of genuine (i.e. truly independent) research experience, you are half way to being a postdoc and the advisor is simply a funding source who should in turn have to pay market rate for employees and have greatly reduced powers over them.

Re: A PhD should be about improving society, not chasing academic kudos

#63

Post by delib »

mnl wrote: post #26

I don't understand how it's possible that a "social scientist" thinks that he has identified the great problem and its solution in every other academic discipline. Well, actually I do understand that, I've been around sociologists. I wonder if there's any chance that people that simply feel something about a tiny corner of the whole picture start speaking just for themselves. Maybe he's realized that his field is org…

> people that simply feel something about a tiny corner of the whole picture

Why is this about the author's feelings? There are plenty of links in the piece to underlying data sources, and these show that the problems mentioned don't vary a lot by discipline. For instance: http://phdcompletion.org

Re: A PhD should be about improving society, not chasing academic kudos

#64

Post by eli_gottlieb »

knappa wrote: post #61

A lot of this seems ridiculous: > Mental health issues are rife: approximately one-third of PhD students are at risk of having or developing a psychiatric disorder like depression. The baseline percentage of the population which experience depression (and other mental illness) each year is known to be pretty high -- and highest in for people in their 20's. One third sounds fairly normal; at any rate, there is a burde…

>If you are starting from an undergraduate degree, you probably need at least two years to take the PhD intro classes. One year to start a research program might work in a subject like the author's where your papers are chats about social implications, but there are plenty of subjects where even the data collection is going to take longer than that.

In Germany, you need a Master's with the coursework done before starting a PhD.

Re: A PhD should be about improving society, not chasing academic kudos

#65

Post by extralego »

btrettel wrote: post #50
extralego wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These phenomenons are interesting to witness for someone like myself who loves doing research but followed a very different academic path because I felt demonized by formal school systems in high school and at a state uni. Speaking purely from observation of many peers, there were definitely some who navigated the social and academic realms well, and garnered respect from socially-encourageable and conformist mentors…

I agree that academia selects for conformists, which is bad for curiousity driven research. Jeff Schmidt's book "Disciplined Minds" makes a similar argument. I have not read it all, though, so perhaps I should pick it up again. The book has a good description of the problem, but in my view the author views the process as more political than it necessarily is. I also think the book's solutions are unlikely to help. Bu…

Oof. Funny you mention that. I just bought it, but haven’t read it yet; only flipped through a little. It’s clearly a dangerous topic for me and if I can find the discipline in myself, I’ll return it before it’s too late.

Thanks for the thoughts, and the other comments here are all very lucid. These points aren’t lost on me, and I expect plenty of truth to them.

Re: A PhD should be about improving society, not chasing academic kudos

#66

Post by chrisseaton »

knappa wrote: post #61

A lot of this seems ridiculous: > Mental health issues are rife: approximately one-third of PhD students are at risk of having or developing a psychiatric disorder like depression. The baseline percentage of the population which experience depression (and other mental illness) each year is known to be pretty high -- and highest in for people in their 20's. One third sounds fairly normal; at any rate, there is a burde…

> If you are starting from an undergraduate degree, you probably need at least two years to take the PhD intro classes.

Outside of the US, I don't think most PhD students take 'classes'. In Europe a PhD is purely a research degree.

Re: A PhD should be about improving society, not chasing academic kudos

#67

Post by moh_maya »

What are the politicians there for then?

I'm not being facetious here. Politics is one of the primary avenues of bringing about social change. Ditto civil service.

A PhD should be about novel contributions that increase the sum total of human knowledge.

Re: A PhD should be about improving society, not chasing academic kudos

#68

Post by chess19 »

apo wrote: post #14

When you look at the stats, it’s hard not to conclude that the current PhD system is fundamentally broken. Mental health issues are rife: approximately one-third of PhD students are at risk of having or developing a psychiatric disorder like depression. The high level of dropouts is similarly worrying – and possibly another symptom of the same problem. Research suggests that on average 50% of PhD students leave gradu…

Of course this quote also suggests that maybe people who go in to PhD programs have higher rates of mental health issues. I would definitely argue that PhD programs are both bad for mental health and also attract people with poor mental health in the first place.

I have known plenty of people who didn't feel like they had the skills (both technical and/or social) to go in to industry so they applied to grad school.

Re: A PhD should be about improving society, not chasing academic kudos

#69

Post by dagw »

tachyonbeam wrote: post #57
extralego wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These phenomenons are interesting to witness for someone like myself who loves doing research but followed a very different academic path because I felt demonized by formal school systems in high school and at a state uni. Speaking purely from observation of many peers, there were definitely some who navigated the social and academic realms well, and garnered respect from socially-encourageable and conformist mentors…

I work in a large academic research lab and I'm with you on the lack of creativity and conformism. Most people here don't have ambitious ideas. They always think in terms of basic improvements to ideas that were recently published about. They seem to automatically think that progress can only be made in the direction of the latest cool papers from well-established authors in the field. Me, I'm with Peter Thiel... Don…

I'm surprised that STEM research doesn't attract more "freaks" and free-thinking people.

At least when I was at university, those people generally didn't have the focus to graduate with good grades (or graduate at all for that matter). It's one thing to sit around and talk about all the 'out there' implications of quantum physics. It's an entirely different thing to get your quantum physics course work in on time and study enough to pass the exam.

Re: A PhD should be about improving society, not chasing academic kudos

#70

Post by chess19 »

ginnungagap wrote: post #28
apo wrote: post #14

When you look at the stats, it’s hard not to conclude that the current PhD system is fundamentally broken. Mental health issues are rife: approximately one-third of PhD students are at risk of having or developing a psychiatric disorder like depression. The high level of dropouts is similarly worrying – and possibly another symptom of the same problem. Research suggests that on average 50% of PhD students leave gradu…

In Europe the norm is to do a Master after a Bachelor, some Master programmes are heavily research oriented and can give you a taste of what's to come if you choose to keep following that path. (I definitely agree with the point you're making, just pointing out that there are different possibilities)

Its pretty standard in the US (at least in the fields I am familiar with) that if you quit a PhD program you can still leave with a Master's if you've been in the program for long enough.
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