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Google Brain Residency Program
- compactmani 11y agoI stopped here: The residency program is similar to a top Master’s or PhD program in deep learning. If you accept that a Master's program is contained within a PhD program, and this residency is similar to a PhD program in deep learning from a top school, then this would be the fastest PhD-like (revised from equivalent which is too strong of a claim) program ever. Only 12 months and a google badge!
- sjg007 11y agoWhich makes it a great deal!
- compactmani 11y agoI know right. Google: Now offering PhD-like programs in only 12 short months!
- sleet 11y agoThe very next sentence is: > The residents are expected to read papers, work on research projects, and publish their work in top-tier venues. My reading of that they're saying that the program has similar activities not that it provides a comparable outcome.
- niels_olson 11y agoI submit the connections at Google are unbelievable. It seems reasonable that you could in fact learn substantially faster in that environment. I don't know if you can cram 6-7 years into one, but maybe in 2-3.
- grayclhn 11y agoThe connections at a top PhD program are unbelievable too.
- ska 11y agoI think what they really meant was that this program would be similar to (one year of) a top masters or Ph.D program, which would be plausible. Your inference of 2x doesn't meet the giggle test. It's going to vary person to person of course, but I'd expect the learning rate to be at best about the same as a top program.
- jofer 11y agoA PhD isn't so much about learning the material as it is about learning to manage and complete projects. Your job is to identify unsolved problems, come up with ideas to solve them, and carry it through to a few completed research projects. Depending on your field, a lot of this can become more managing logistics and people than "pure" research. In my experience (which, admittedly, has only involved much less flexible corporations than Google), you don't get to the level of responsibility you have as a PhD student or postdoc until you've been with a large corporation for >20 years. I admit I have a slightly skewed view, but I've very skeptical that this is anywhere close to a complete PhD program. It looks a lot more like a 1-year internship on an R&D team. Still a very good and useful thing, but you're not the one responsible for completion of projects.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- compactmani 11y agofixed!
- choppaface 11y agoPerhaps the idea is they want an APM-like program but for deep learning researchers. The APM program has been pretty successful, and a lot of deep learning progress boils down to tuning architectures and dealing with overfitting and other domain problems. This sounds like a good opportunity for a practitioner, and all the recruiting spin is in place to attract adventurous candidates who might be open to deviating from the traditional grad program grind.
- kylebgorman 11y agoThere's no such thing as a PhD in deep learning. Your best bet is going to be doing machine learning at a top-tier CS school that has someone who is interested in it. But you're still going to have to take architecture, algorithms, OSes, TA, etc.
- epberry 11y agoAnyone know if this will this be a recurring program? As in beyond 2016?
- Harimwakairi 11y agoProbably depends on the performance of the initial resident. :)
- personjerry 11y agoDid you write "resident", as in implying there's only one position?
- wpietri 11y agoFrom the title, I thought the Google Brain Residency Program was the wetware version of Google Glass. Disappointing to find it's only a 12-month software development job.
- pookeh 11y agoGiven questionable academia politics, low to non-existent pay for PhD candidates as TAs, grants being mostly consumed by the school, profs acting as middle managers rather than true mentors, race to the bottom for quantity over quality of papers because of desperate PhD qualifications in order to then jump start careers (not to mention wasteful research for the sake of a PhD badge)...I think this is a great initiative.
- balladeer 11y agoSuch examples and on one of those grad forums and other places like Reddit about how horrible and how political grad programs are (I mean PhD mostly) I must say it added a lot to my decision of not trying for a PhD (maybe ever). Is it an accepted environment in academia by now and very widely known and people still go for the same environment? Or people, students, don't know how it is actually there, or the severity of it, and then kind of get trapped because of that mild ignorance, so to speak? Or, is it just the hope that - oh that place cannot be that bad? Or is it really not this widespread as people make it out to be, or as it seems to be (to me at least)? Just curious (I'm not a grad school guy; just an MS aspirant who also wanted to do a PhD but now not).
- pgbovine 11y agoAs with any profession, you hear only from those with the absolute worst experiences who write on HN, Reddit, etc. (The students who are excelling are not writing rants on Reddit.) I've seen the full gamut of Ph.D.-level experiences, from the terrible to the amazing. I've also seen a large dynamic range of software engineering experiences at various companies, at both startups and large orgs. In the end, I don't have any definitive answers, but I wouldn't rule out academia if you can get yourself to be as well-positioned as possible. The same holds for industry. So yeah, I didn't add any info here! (-random dude in academia defending academia, ducks)
- compactmani 11y agoWhere are the politics? I must have missed that portion of grad school. PhD students typically take a few classes in related topics, meet with a mentor regularly, and conduct independent research until they defend their dissertation. This model is very old and very straightforward.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- msellout 11y agoWhat's the difference between a BA and BS in Computer Science?
- deanmen 11y agoIf a university has both, the BA usually requires a language and the BS requires more computer science courses or requires science courses like physics or chemistry. Otherwise, it depends on what university you go to whether you degree is a BS or a BA. e.g. If CS is in the engineering college, it is a BS.
- m0dc 11y agoAt what point does it make sense for Google-likes to educate their own workforce, skipping the university model entirely? They've already created a B.A. substitute by sponsoring Udacity's nanodegree programs, and now they're working on the other end of the spectrum with a masters / PhD equivalent. Assume these companies have an excellent selection process (obviously a big 'if'). Could they pluck bright students straight out of high school, send them to two years of specialized super-accelerated Google School, and have a molded and productive employee come out the other side? They have the resources and the expertise, and there's only so many Stanford grads each year. A workforce of bootcamp devs sounds unpleasant - but with skyrocketing tuition costs, and ever-increasing demand for 'only the best' talent at these companies, there's probably a point at which it makes economic sense for both employer and employee.
- awch 11y agoWould it be possible for companies to eventually become accredited? Or, alternatively, would the preponderance of nanodegree programs and "Google Schools" diminish the value of a traditional degree to the point that accreditation would be unnecessary?
- neovive 11y agoI agree that the increasing investment and quality of alternative higher education models will diminish the role of traditional accreditation agencies to some degree. However, there will always be some need for some third-party oversight to ensure educational institutions are delivering what they advertise.
- arikrak 11y agoThey also just announced a programming bootcamp the other day. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-22/google-launches-a-developer-boot-camp-promising-jobs-for-graduates http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-22/google-lau...
- ForHackernews 11y ago> At what point does it make sense for Google-likes to educate their own workforce, skipping the university model entirely? Never. You may be too young to remember this, but it used to be very common for companies to hire employees and then train them to do the jobs the company needed done. Eventually, companies realized that it was much more cost-effective to foist off the expense of training onto employees themselves (and, indirectly onto taxpayers through federal financial aid) so it's become rare for companies to have any kind of formal training program. They expect potential employees to go heavily into debt training themselves, and then hope to find somebody who is already trained for their exact job role. Google is no different from other companies in this regard: Training people is expensive, and if they can avoid that expense, they will avoid it.
- MBlume 11y agoThe post doesn't indicate whether residents will be paid like PhD students or like Google employees.
- 5ersi 11y agoThis is going to be a deal breaker for many: Eligible to work in the United States
- udswagz 11y agovery true, but am not very sure what it means. You think one can apply for a visa especially for someone who has never been to the United States before?
- wangdelp 11y agoAre people currently doing their PhD eligible for the program? Thx
- j_juggernaut 11y agoThis is fantastic! Though it's not clear how much product/service engineering is required.
- an0nym1ty 11y agoIt seems to be listed as a software engineering position (and are likely paid through the same construct, since participants are required to be eligible for work in the US). I would think they are paid as entry level software engineers, but that's all conjecture.
- struct 11y agoMinimum qualifications: eligible to work in the United States. Damn.
- krallistic 11y agojust to clarify does that mean you should already have a work permit, or eligible to apply for the common visa's? I would expect the first but i couldn’t find any clear definition in the past since it changed from case to case
- invictusmaneo 11y agoSo, What about after the program?