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Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

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Re: Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

#81

Post by PeterisP »

Mgccl wrote: post #80
PeterisP wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can "code" so poorly that you're unable to get paid, I can't imagine how you'd get even close to getting into a PhD program, even if your specialization is math of finite state automata or human interface guidelines. Coding (or being DBA or analyst, depending on your area) to the level of getting an okay salary is quite trivial compared to that - from the PhD students I've seen the 'most unemployable' ones wou…

Theory cs could care less about coding abilities. It's never a bad thing to know how to code, but I can go though the entire PhD program without coding a single line of code. (Well not really, one of the professors in my PhD program committee recommended me to do one systems course. other than that, I just prove theorems. )

Yes, we've got a bunch of people like that in our PhD program as well - but 100% of them, despite not writing a single line of code for years, could still easily get a paying job in industry and be mostly okay (though less happy) there.

If you can prove theorems, then you can also code CRUD websites by following a tutorial, and get paid for that.

If you can't write code if your life depended on it but can write papers on human interface or methodology issues, then you can get a job as a system analyst in any large software development company and keep not writing code there.

Re: Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

#82

Post by mathattack »

tjr wrote: post #2

An offer letter from Google or YCombinator (where you are the tech co-founder) which serves as evidence that you passed a challenging programming interview at Google, or that YCombinator believed you would be successful at developing your company product. Interesting. Because I have no intention of moving to a Google or YCombinator location, I never applied to either, but this makes me wonder if merely having been of…

I'd be curious if the folks at Google and YC would be flattered by this, put off, or both.

Re: Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

#83

Post by smoyer »

tanzam75 wrote: post #78
smoyer wrote: post #54

That sounds right up my alley! I'm currently tracking the geolocation of computer science professors by tracking the gaze of the NSA's agents who are watching them through the myriad of security cameras in our country. My academic resume isn't going to get me noticed for a PhD program but it sounds like someone is finally looking at ability (I had great scores on the Computer Science GRE in 1990, but they apparently…

The GRE Computer Science exam was pretty heavy on theory and systems. This made sense for 1990, when CS departments were heavier on theory and systems. It has grown less relevant as the field of CS grew to encompass additional areas. Thus, CS programs stopped requiring it, so fewer people took the exam, so the ETS decided to drop it.

I understand the rationale for dropping the exam, but it's the last academic endeavor on my resume. I've got a ton of work experience since then and many of my projects would be worthy of today's buzzwords. My lament is that only forward-thinking advising professors would see the value in what I have done.

Note that no professors have actually been tracked or harmed.

Re: Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

#84

Post by HarryHirsch »

jrs99 wrote: post #65
HarryHirsch wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But to make it a meaningful experience (and get out of it with a PhD) you need a wholly different skillset. It's clear that you have never seen a kid who destroyed the productivity of a whole office because he treated his colleagues Just Wrong, and that you have never seen a fellow who just couldn't transfer what he learned in class to real-life application.

i've seen people who didn't know what a lac operon was get a PhD in biochemistry.

That's harmless. But if you have someone who continuously messes up shared equipment, leaving it for the next person to fix, and who won't improve their attitude, no matter how often you tell them, that's deadly for morale.

Re: Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

#85

Post by robrenaud »

mathattack wrote: post #82
tjr wrote: post #2

An offer letter from Google or YCombinator (where you are the tech co-founder) which serves as evidence that you passed a challenging programming interview at Google, or that YCombinator believed you would be successful at developing your company product. Interesting. Because I have no intention of moving to a Google or YCombinator location, I never applied to either, but this makes me wonder if merely having been of…

I'd be curious if the folks at Google and YC would be flattered by this, put off, or both.

If it works, it's clever. But I am definitely not flattered and wouldn't be personally happy about knowing someone did it. The 45 minutes I spent interviewing you and the more than an hour I spend carefully writing up my interview feedback is totally wasted. Well, that sucks for me.

Re: Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

#86

Post by latj »

tjr wrote: post #2

An offer letter from Google or YCombinator (where you are the tech co-founder) which serves as evidence that you passed a challenging programming interview at Google, or that YCombinator believed you would be successful at developing your company product. Interesting. Because I have no intention of moving to a Google or YCombinator location, I never applied to either, but this makes me wonder if merely having been of…

The other question is- if you have an offer letter from Google or YCombinator in hand, would you really want to go to Brown? At Google it will be like going to grad school except you will be better funded, working with more consistently smarter people, and you will be getting paid instead of racking up debt. As a YCombinator founder you'd basically already be in the position that a Brown computer science graduate hopes to one day get to. I like universities. I hope they figure out how to stay relevant.

Re: Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

#87

Post by mkramlich »

even better: don't apply at all. simply work/study/design/research/build whatever you wanted to do anyway. then share/publish/collaborate as you desire. or not. rinse, repeat. be a genius. or a crank. or an entrepreneur. or some mix. just do things and get it out there. see what sticks. not all smart people are in academia and not all people in academia are very smart. and you can publish, collaborate, ship and show accomplishments without/outside a university paradigm.

Re: Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

#88

Post by chrismonsanto »

mkramlich wrote: post #87

even better: don't apply at all. simply work/study/design/research/build whatever you wanted to do anyway. then share/publish/collaborate as you desire. or not. rinse, repeat. be a genius. or a crank. or an entrepreneur. or some mix. just do things and get it out there. see what sticks. not all smart people are in academia and not all people in academia are very smart. and you can publish, collaborate, ship and show…

Please don't underestimate how much it helps to have an adviser who has been through the ropes, or how awesome it is to have peers that are brilliant and working on similar stuff. I'm a self-taught programmer, so I know exactly what it's like to wing it, and I loved the PhD experience. The anti-PhD attitude on here is so weird, considering YC seems to be largely the same thing on a smaller timescale (weed out everyone but the very best, have them make things, give them connections, ...)

Re: Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

#89

Post by mathattack »

robrenaud wrote: post #85
mathattack wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be curious if the folks at Google and YC would be flattered by this, put off, or both.

If it works, it's clever. But I am definitely not flattered and wouldn't be personally happy about knowing someone did it. The 45 minutes I spent interviewing you and the more than an hour I spend carefully writing up my interview feedback is totally wasted. Well, that sucks for me.

Thanks for sharing. I think you hit the main point - it winds up wasting a lot of people's time, and also gives short shrift to others in the process. In a sense I put this up with the moral equivalent of practice interviewing with real companies. It's not illegal, but it isn't behavior one would advertise, and it's hard to call it ethical.

It would be different if the answer were, "You've worked 2 years for Google or started a company that went through YC" because that's no different than a company asking for Big 4 Accounting experience when hiring a controller. (Having a Big 4 offer letter wouldn't suffice)

Re: Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

#90

Post by [deleted] »

mkramlich wrote: post #87

even better: don't apply at all. simply work/study/design/research/build whatever you wanted to do anyway. then share/publish/collaborate as you desire. or not. rinse, repeat. be a genius. or a crank. or an entrepreneur. or some mix. just do things and get it out there. see what sticks. not all smart people are in academia and not all people in academia are very smart. and you can publish, collaborate, ship and show…

[deleted]
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