A Survival Guide to a PhD
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A Survival Guide to a PhD
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Re: A Survival Guide to a PhD
#2"I’ll assume that the second option you are considering is joining a medium-large company (which is likely most common). Ask yourself if you find the following properties appealing: ..."
Why is every conversation about PHDs always cast in the light of as-opposed-to-working-for-the-man? I don't see discussions ever bring up the plethora of other life courses one can take. It is though the author sees a very clear binary: PHD or go work on fixing bugs in Gmail (or some other such cog-in-a-machine project).
Where is the discussion of starting a business? Of making your own company? Breaking free of the political shackles of academia and blazing your own path to glory?
I am all for PHDs, and all for people pursuing, and pushing, the boundaries of human knowledge. I would just like to see that discussion live on its own, without comparison, if that is possible.
Re: A Survival Guide to a PhD
#3"I’ll assume that the second option you are considering is joining a medium-large company (which is likely most common). Ask yourself if you find the following properties appealing: ..." Why is every conversation about PHDs always cast in the light of as-opposed-to-working-for-the-man? I don't see discussions ever bring up the plethora of other life courses one can take. It is though the author sees a very clear bina…
"Properties you find appealing..."
* Freedom
* Ownership
* Personal freedom
...
* Getting into a PhD program: references, references, references
* Student adviser relationship
* Pre-vs-post tenure
* Impressing an adviser
* (Topic) Plays to your adviser’s interests and strengths
Edit: A few people insist on casting a float into a bool. Every job has politics, ranging from 0.01% (anonymous author of 1-man SaaS) to 99% (politician). It's not very informative to note that both are non-zero.
Re: A Survival Guide to a PhD
#4"I’ll assume that the second option you are considering is joining a medium-large company (which is likely most common). Ask yourself if you find the following properties appealing: ..." Why is every conversation about PHDs always cast in the light of as-opposed-to-working-for-the-man? I don't see discussions ever bring up the plethora of other life courses one can take. It is though the author sees a very clear bina…
Agreed completely. I did a PhD knowing that I had zero interest in going into academia, and it provided a major boost to my professional career. I find it surprising when people talk about doing a PhD as exclusively useful for academics.
Re: A Survival Guide to a PhD
#5"I’ll assume that the second option you are considering is joining a medium-large company (which is likely most common). Ask yourself if you find the following properties appealing: ..." Why is every conversation about PHDs always cast in the light of as-opposed-to-working-for-the-man? I don't see discussions ever bring up the plethora of other life courses one can take. It is though the author sees a very clear bina…
"Properties you find appealing..." * Freedom * Ownership * Personal freedom ... * Getting into a PhD program: references, references, references * Student adviser relationship * Pre-vs-post tenure * Impressing an adviser * (Topic) Plays to your adviser’s interests and strengths Much of your freedom goes to learning to play politics and manage up to a level employees never have to. Reading this, I'm so thankful I didn…
From my super-limited experience in academia, I found politics is more important at top schools and much less important when you get to ~40-80 ranked US schools for PhD programs.
Re: A Survival Guide to a PhD
#6"I’ll assume that the second option you are considering is joining a medium-large company (which is likely most common). Ask yourself if you find the following properties appealing: ..." Why is every conversation about PHDs always cast in the light of as-opposed-to-working-for-the-man? I don't see discussions ever bring up the plethora of other life courses one can take. It is though the author sees a very clear bina…
Your comment reminded me of a 5 years old blogpost of mine: https://shebang.ws/startup-or-research.html.
Eventually I decided that I wanted to do research and I couldn't be more happy about it. My experience as a PhD student was awesome, I did a postdoc on a topic that interested me very much but quite different than what I did during my PhD, and I've just landed a permanent position in academia as an associate professor!
Re: A Survival Guide to a PhD
#7"I’ll assume that the second option you are considering is joining a medium-large company (which is likely most common). Ask yourself if you find the following properties appealing: ..." Why is every conversation about PHDs always cast in the light of as-opposed-to-working-for-the-man? I don't see discussions ever bring up the plethora of other life courses one can take. It is though the author sees a very clear bina…
Agreed completely. I did a PhD knowing that I had zero interest in going into academia, and it provided a major boost to my professional career. I find it surprising when people talk about doing a PhD as exclusively useful for academics.
Same! I was super-interested in research and that's why I pursued a PhD. I never thought of running a lab or teaching classes.
Re: A Survival Guide to a PhD
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Properties you find appealing..." * Freedom * Ownership * Personal freedom ... * Getting into a PhD program: references, references, references * Student adviser relationship * Pre-vs-post tenure * Impressing an adviser * (Topic) Plays to your adviser’s interests and strengths Much of your freedom goes to learning to play politics and manage up to a level employees never have to. Reading this, I'm so thankful I didn…
From my super-limited experience in academia, I found politics is more important at top schools and much less important when you get to ~40-80 ranked US schools for PhD programs.
That's good to hear. I have the hankering to return to school at some point, and I really just want to learn and contribute.
Re: A Survival Guide to a PhD
#9With my own disclaimer [0], a few comments:
> Personal freedom. As a PhD student you’re your own boss. Want to sleep in today? Sure.
This is largely true, but only if you're on good terms with your advisor and they're happy with your progress. God, I miss being able to sleep in until 2pm.
> Personal growth. ... you’ll become a master of managing your own psychology
Yes, it's definitely a roller coaster. I know what happens to your body after a month when your only calorie source is peanut butter and white bread. Depression, random trips to Canada, and more.
> Picking the school. ... your dream school should 1) be a top school
No, at least, in mine and other's experience, you should go to the best school where you're still capable of being in the top ~1% of your graduating class. You'll feel like you're the best and that's almost all that matters (Malcolm Gladwell's talk [1]).
> So you’ve entered a PhD program and found an adviser. Now what do you work on?
You will not be interested in the same exact topic for ~5 years straight, so keep that mind. Try to keep it broad.
> Giving talks
Do this / practice this as often as possible. It's how you'll get hired (or not). I've had to sit through some embarrassingly bad ones, where the candidate then has to survive the next 7-hours of interviewing where everyone knows they're not getting hired. (In my experience the talk is first thing in the morning.)
[0] He gave the fields of "Computer Science / Machine Learning / Computer Vision research" as a disclaimer, my disclaimer is that I only know about experiences in molecular biology / chemistry / materials science / synthetic biology / microbiology. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UEwbRWFZVc
Re: A Survival Guide to a PhD
#10A PhD is super fun and super hard. But it is key to be realistic about the outcomes. It is a life changing experience, but definitely have a plan for the end of it. There are so few academic tenure jobs and so it pays to do a bit of research on what you want at the end off it beyond just academic life. If you can do that the experiences are amazing, learning to think and work at the higher level and learning to compromise and work through others work is utterly refreshing. It is definitely a space to let yourself really explore thinking and researching.