6 ms·

I think it is great that Jean (and Philip) both wrote these up. But, to be honest it 100% depresses me to read them. Graduate school has not been easy for me an

by timtadh 11y ago

I think it is great that Jean (and Philip) both wrote these up. But, to be honest it 100% depresses me to read them. Graduate school has not been easy for me and I had no first author paper submissions for 5 years and ended up having to being part time for 3 years to support myself and my family. (My research is well in hand now. I finally submitted my first paper and have 2 more going out this calendar year. Sometimes it takes a while to find your passion/research area.) Given my family situation I am not able to do internships and in many ways I don't want to. I am going to go back to coding now because this is too depressing to read.

throwitaway1981 11y ago
Grad school isn't easy for most people. I had quite a few years of rejections and then bam, bam, bam ... three first author acceptances in a row at top conferences. Even Jean mentioned she submitted to several top-tier conferences and didn't get any of those papers accepted. I'm sorry to hear about your family situation. Internships provide much needed $$$ to supplement the crappy stipend if you are in North America. I lectured part-time and being a TA is also an option. The teaching was one of the better parts of my grad experience. One mistake I made was not work as a free-lance dev while in grad school. I know people who did and it pays well and also looks good on the resume (also a distraction so you maintain sanity). Be proactive about getting a job after school. Sad to say .. the primary goal during the PhD is to get out of grad school (ideally with a PhD). The old style industrial labs are in bad shape IMHO. Try your very best to get a prof job ... I went for labs but friends who went the prof route got tenure around years 4-6. I am year 8 and still have to deal with work insecurities. The good news is that non-research jobs are plentiful and the PhD gives you a leg up. My overall suggestion ... lower your expectations and find happiness. A CS PhD doesn't mean success or status these days (not sure if it ever did). Good luck!
a_bonobo 11y ago
I feel that the US PhD system is extremely bad not for students, but for human beings. Other countries like Australia or Germany have a much more stringent timeplan - maybe 4 years, usually 3 years. I often talk to researchers from the US and it's always 7, 8 years spent, with maybe one publication, or even 0 - the time is spent interning, or drifting between departments, taking various university courses that really lead nowhere (like OP), or drifting along without a real project, or you're the cheap work monkey of the supervisor (the last one seems to be extremely common in the US). I think that's the universities' fault - Australian unis force you to have a project proposal after the 6 or 12 months mark, and then you have about a year or two to do that project, then you have to write. There is very little time to do courses, and if you take a course, you lose one out of 3 possible time extensions. If you don't make it in time your student visa will expire (I think maximum is 4 years?) and you have to leave the country. If you're a citizen your scholarship will end at the same time. And these are good scholarships, usually about $500-700 per week. My PhD experience was nothing like OP's or yours, much more focused, much less time wasted, much more publications too! I think our bioinformatics group's record was 12 papers in one PhD (3 first author). I had 2 first author and a few more middle author papers, one of them in Science.
- munin 11y ago
  the strict timeline can be a lie. yeah, on paper, you have a 3 year plan, but it fails most of the time so students wind up taking unpaid years to finish.
  - a_bonobo 11y ago
    In my area, no-one has failed their 3 year plan yet, maybe up to 4 years taken - our area has very little Australian citizens so the incentives are large. (there's an obvious Soviet joke here about 3 year plans)
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - danieldk 11y ago
    I did my PhD in The Netherlands. In my field (computational linguistics), the majority of people finished within the allotted four years. The working conditions are good: PhDs are generally employed as regular employees with vacation money and 13th month. The teaching duties were very light (typically TAing and later teaching one 7-week course), giving you a lot of time to focus on research.
  - programLyrique 11y ago
    Same in France: all the PhD students in computer science I know have finished in 3 years, or 3 years and 6 months (you can request a 6 month extension). You can't carry on after that duration because you have to be funded and be full-time (so no side job).
    - emeryberger 11y ago
      FWIW, these (IMHO absurdly) short PhD programs basically mean you need to do a postdoc for your CV to even be competitive with US CS PhDs -- assuming you want to do research in a top institution or research lab. So it's far from an obvious optimization.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
markeroon 11y ago
All I can say is, I was exactly where you are now. You sound like you're on the right track, sometimes getting publications accepted takes a long time. Good luck to you.

by timtadh 11y ago

throwitaway1981 11y ago

Grad school isn't easy for most people. I had quite a few years of rejections and then bam, bam, bam ... three first author acceptances in a row at top conferences. Even Jean mentioned she submitted to several top-tier conferences and didn't get any of those papers accepted. I'm sorry to hear about your family situation. Internships provide much needed $$$ to supplement the crappy stipend if you are in North America. I lectured part-time and being a TA is also an option. The teaching was one of the better parts of my grad experience. One mistake I made was not work as a free-lance dev while in grad school. I know people who did and it pays well and also looks good on the resume (also a distraction so you maintain sanity). Be proactive about getting a job after school. Sad to say .. the primary goal during the PhD is to get out of grad school (ideally with a PhD). The old style industrial labs are in bad shape IMHO. Try your very best to get a prof job ... I went for labs but friends who went the prof route got tenure around years 4-6. I am year 8 and still have to deal with work insecurities. The good news is that non-research jobs are plentiful and the PhD gives you a leg up. My overall suggestion ... lower your expectations and find happiness. A CS PhD doesn't mean success or status these days (not sure if it ever did). Good luck!

a_bonobo 11y ago

I feel that the US PhD system is extremely bad not for students, but for human beings. Other countries like Australia or Germany have a much more stringent timeplan - maybe 4 years, usually 3 years. I often talk to researchers from the US and it's always 7, 8 years spent, with maybe one publication, or even 0 - the time is spent interning, or drifting between departments, taking various university courses that really lead nowhere (like OP), or drifting along without a real project, or you're the cheap work monkey of the supervisor (the last one seems to be extremely common in the US). I think that's the universities' fault - Australian unis force you to have a project proposal after the 6 or 12 months mark, and then you have about a year or two to do that project, then you have to write. There is very little time to do courses, and if you take a course, you lose one out of 3 possible time extensions. If you don't make it in time your student visa will expire (I think maximum is 4 years?) and you have to leave the country. If you're a citizen your scholarship will end at the same time. And these are good scholarships, usually about $500-700 per week. My PhD experience was nothing like OP's or yours, much more focused, much less time wasted, much more publications too! I think our bioinformatics group's record was 12 papers in one PhD (3 first author). I had 2 first author and a few more middle author papers, one of them in Science.

munin 11y ago
the strict timeline can be a lie. yeah, on paper, you have a 3 year plan, but it fails most of the time so students wind up taking unpaid years to finish.
- a_bonobo 11y ago
  In my area, no-one has failed their 3 year plan yet, maybe up to 4 years taken - our area has very little Australian citizens so the incentives are large. (there's an obvious Soviet joke here about 3 year plans)
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- danieldk 11y ago
  I did my PhD in The Netherlands. In my field (computational linguistics), the majority of people finished within the allotted four years. The working conditions are good: PhDs are generally employed as regular employees with vacation money and 13th month. The teaching duties were very light (typically TAing and later teaching one 7-week course), giving you a lot of time to focus on research.
- programLyrique 11y ago
  Same in France: all the PhD students in computer science I know have finished in 3 years, or 3 years and 6 months (you can request a 6 month extension). You can't carry on after that duration because you have to be funded and be full-time (so no side job).
  - emeryberger 11y ago
    FWIW, these (IMHO absurdly) short PhD programs basically mean you need to do a postdoc for your CV to even be competitive with US CS PhDs -- assuming you want to do research in a top institution or research lab. So it's far from an obvious optimization.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

markeroon 11y ago

All I can say is, I was exactly where you are now. You sound like you're on the right track, sometimes getting publications accepted takes a long time. Good luck to you.