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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

#81

Post by rhino369 »

Miltnoid wrote: post #72
warcher wrote: post #53

The only real rot I see in the PhD track is the dangerous imbalance of degrees to jobs in certain areas (not STEM usually, although STEM is pretty uncompromising for tenure track). IMHO in the humanities the PhD is some kind of sick ponzi scheme, where advanced degrees serve to subsidize tenured faculty's careers with little to no hope of going on to anything of their own. (I know STEM isn't much better, but it's a l…

I don't know a single reputable program that makes you pay for a PhD. Typically the salaries are subsidized through the school, that gets it's money from taking a cut of stem grants, donations, masters tuition, and undergraduate tuition. Saying that most humanities professors get their salaries by doing some sort of ponzi scheme of charging their advisees is just spreading misinformation.

That is mostly true for reputable programs. But there are a lot of unreputable Ph.D. programs. They may even graduate the bulk of PhDs.

And even some reputable programs will let some people "buy their way" if they don't qualify as for a fellowship/funding.

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

#82

Post by gnicholas »

> Although 80% of science students start their PhD with the intention to pursue a career in science, their enthusiasm typically wanes to the point that just 55% plan to continue in academia when nearing graduation

These seem like different questions to me. There are plenty of ways to "pursue a career in science" that don't involve academia.

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

#83

Post by roel_v »

pytyper2 wrote: post #77
chess19 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hoping that the degree will mask a lack of actual skills. I encounter this often, 'guy has phd but struggles with the decisions to make actual progress in practical terms'. Is it possible to attain a phd and rely mostly on rote memorization? Are all phd candidates required to make an original contribution to their respective field?

"Is it possible to attain a phd and rely mostly on rote memorization?"

No, but it's possible to just be a research serf to the professor, and the professor will carry you more or less to completion - very little indepenent thought needed. You do need to be able to do lots of (well defined, but tedious) work.

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

#84

Post by bradhoffman »

You all are kind of scaring me a bit...

I just finished my Bachelor's and am starting my Master's this month. I have no formal research experience, but I planned to dive in during my Master's. For anyone who has done/is doing there PhD, if there is any advice you all could give me in order to get the most out of this next year before I apply for PhD programs, that would be great.

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

#85

Post by godelski »

bradhoffman wrote: post #84

You all are kind of scaring me a bit... I just finished my Bachelor's and am starting my Master's this month. I have no formal research experience, but I planned to dive in during my Master's. For anyone who has done/is doing there PhD, if there is any advice you all could give me in order to get the most out of this next year before I apply for PhD programs, that would be great.

Apply straight to a PhD program. Don't pay for a graduate degree.

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

#86

Post by pmyteh »

pytyper2 wrote: post #77
chess19 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hoping that the degree will mask a lack of actual skills. I encounter this often, 'guy has phd but struggles with the decisions to make actual progress in practical terms'. Is it possible to attain a phd and rely mostly on rote memorization? Are all phd candidates required to make an original contribution to their respective field?

It is not possible to rely solely on rote memorization, and to get a PhD is supposed to require making a substantive original contribution to a field.

Having said that, the skills required to get a PhD are pretty specialised - it's absolutely not a given that people with PhDs are highly-functioning human beings, or even necessarily capable of holding down a conventional job. They will at a minimum have demonstrated the ability to self-organise, a high level of bloody-mindedness, and some very deep knowledge in a probably very obscure field. But unless you move straight into solo academic research in the same field, that's not the same thing as being trained in any strong sense.

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

#87

Post by shusson »

fhood wrote: post #58

Man, this view of getting a PhD, which seems fairly common, is so alien to me. Both my parents are research professors, both regularly have students, and I have never seen any of the misery or stress that people keep bringing up. Sure, if you are unprepared to do research then you shouldn't do a PhD, but my parents' students are hand picked, and it is very rare that they end up with a student that doesn't want to, or…

> I guess it is totally possible that the corner of academia that I grew up around (ocean sciences at a lab removed from the main campus) is an outlier

If only there was some way to investigate your statement. Like some sort of study that went for a few years and produced a report...

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

#88

Post by WalterSear »

dagw wrote: post #69
tachyonbeam wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think I'm one of the freaks in question. I'm not one to sit around pipe dreaming, but I've found a vastly better fit writing code at startups than I ever did in grad school.

I get to invent, experiment, learn, and at a vastly faster pace. I'm even working in the same field, solving similar problems to the ones I worked on in school.

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

#90

Post by pytyper2 »

extralego wrote: post #40
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…

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…

Intelligent in their ability to memorize or are they making original contributions to their fields and advancing the state of the art?
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