10 ms·
Why people still go to grad school
- m4dc4pXXX 10y agoThe link title here is misleading - it's about an article titled 'why people go to grad school.' A better title would be 'A reaction to "why people go to grad school."'
- gcr 10y agoI disagree with the premise. I went to grad school to do research. None of my cohort sees ourselves as losers. The trick is to go to grad school in a field where you can get funding. Then, you can get paid to learn and write papers. Then it's like a day job -- no losing necessary. I haven't seen any of the "Who goes to grad school?" thinkpieces the author mentions, but if I were a betting man, I'd bet the authors of such thinkpieces probably haven't been to grad school either...
- codingdave 10y agoSo according to this author, if other people write about the pragmatic problems with getting a PhD, those articles are worthless... but he comes to the same conclusions for different (cultural) reasons, and we should listen to him? Everybody has different goals. If your goal is simply to maximize your income, you will have a different decision making process than someone who is pursuing their interests, which will also be different than someone who is pursuing a job to pay bills, while keeping time for other interests outside of work. Any articles written that make presumptions about your goals are going to miss the mark.
- mimo777 10y agoInteresting, but sort of whiny, until he veers off into "Capitalism Bad!" Socialism Good! Wait it didn't work the last 10 times? "No true scotsman! no true scotsman!"
- oortcloud 10y agoAgreed. And if I can make a plea to anyone who wants to comment on this thread -- please make your comment without using the words "capitalism" or "socialism" since neither word has a proper, consensus definition. Using those words will just lead to tedious flamewars with people talking past each other and rehashing old debates. Rather, talk about the underlying structure of incentives that create this dynamic, and how incentives can be changed, if they can be at all.
- aninhumer 10y agoYou can add "freedom" and "entitled" to the list of words that are so poorly defined as to be useless for reasoned discussion.
- ktRolster 10y agoplease make your comment without using the words "capitalism" or "socialism" since neither word has a proper, consensus definition. This can not be repeated enough. It is absolutely true, if you use the words 'socialism' or 'capitalism' no one will have a clue what you are talking about.
- Apocryphon 10y agoThe problem with these discussions is that people usually mean "neoliberalism" when they're talking about capitalism, and "social democracy" when they're talking about "socialism". It's almost as if we never really broke out of the old Cold War terminology and paradigms.
- echlebek 10y agoThere's lots of countries that have socialist policies that are doing just fine, many of them western countries. Sometimes they are better off than the USA. Socialism just happens to be a dirty word in American culture. Here's one example of socialism in western culture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_health_care https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_health_care It's not all-or-nothing.
- mfoy_ 10y agoI like Canada. Social Capital is a good balance between capitalism and socialism.
- rhapsodic 10y agoI like Canada too. A relatively small population with a ridiculously huge amount of natural resources.
- mfoy_ 10y agoThe U.S. has a significantly higher GDP per capita than Canada.[1] The U.S. also has a significantly higher average wealth per citizen.[2] But if you look closely at the second source, you'll see that the U.S. actually has a REALLY low MEDIAN wealth per adult. This indicates a large inequality. The problem in the U.S. isn't that there isn't enough wealth to go around, it's that it's not going around. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe...
- mimo777 10y ago_All_ of them benefit from NATO. Do you think its a coincidence that the United states spends as much as the next several--don't remember the count--countries, and that most of the successful socialist nato members have very little military expenditures as a percentage of GDP?http://www.defenseone.com/politics/2015/06/nato-members-defense-spending-two-charts/116008/ http://www.defenseone.com/politics/2015/06/nato-members-defe... Remember that the US has a much larger GDP than many of those countries on the list.
- dpark 10y agoYour severe exaggeration weakens your critique. I read the comments here before the actual article and after reading yours I expected the article to devolve into a juvenile defense of communism at the end. The author blames the problem in part on capitalism, but there was a distinct lack of "no true Scotsman" fallacy toward socialism. Your anti-socialism bias is far more overt and absurd than the article's vague anti-capitalism bias. You got so bent out of shape at the mere mention of socialism in a positive light that you made up an argument that the article didn't put forth just so you could accuse the author of a fallacy. I don't know what to call this. It's not even a strawman. It's intellectually dishonest.
- mimo777 10y agoI'm sorry that my writing isn't clear enough to differentiate between my criticism of the article whining about capitalism and then socialism good because reasons, _And_ my anticipatory response to everyone trying to defend socialism because it hasn't been done correctly yet.
- dpark 10y agoThis doesn't make me think more highly of your argument. You're so close-minded that your "anticipatory response" is to simply assume that no one has a defense of socialism except a "true Scotsman" appeal. I'm also left to assume from your comments that you think socialism and communism are the same thing. The defenders of socialism rarely say that no one's done it correctly. They instead point to the myriad of socialist programs in other countries that they consider successful (e.g. Canadian healthcare, German education, even US food stamps).
- KKKKkkkk1 10y agoI tried to scan through the wall-of-text but couldn't find the part where he says "To become a scientist", which is really all there is to it.
- Avshalom 10y agoPretty much. Grad school is the easiest path to living in an observatory.
- petra 10y agoIs the writing extremely bad and intentionally obfuscated ? or is just my understanding as a non native speaker ?
- trobertson 10y agoThe point of the (grad and above) academic treadmill is to become a scientist. KKKKkkkk is saying that the author did not mention this at all, which means the author may have been misguided or under false pretenses.
- j_m_b 10y agoI went to grad school and published several peer-reviewed articles. Even after I die, people will be able to search my name and retrieve work that I did. To me, that is priceless.
- Aelinsaar 10y agoA little slice of intellectual immortality? People have fought and died for less.
- whateveridunno 10y ago...which is exactly his point. People will do things that are objectively not in their best interest (become scientists, poets, or French poetry critics) because we've been strongly inculcated in that whole "do what you love" "everything is worth it as long as [you touch someone with your art] [your science is remembered after you die] [insert reason here]" philosophy. Which means those fields get a free pass to treat their members horribly, and people will still gravitate towards them in huge numbers, because "do what you love" is so strongly ingrained in us. A perfect example is that game dev crunch article that was going around a few days ago: if you're complaining about 80 hour work weeks you don't really love what you're doing!
- wolfram74 10y agoThat's only about a third of the point, it's also criticizing not being aware of the flip side "But that too is our culture: everyone else’s dream is a delusion. Mine is a tale of noble perseverance. Everybody else should be practical." And then the author goes on to mention how extending the same generosity we give ourself with regards to pursuing higher purposes would probably be helpful in the long run.
- inverba 10y agoHow are you defining "objective" in relation to someone's inherently subjective utility function? That makes no sense. I understand the rest of your point, but the underlying assumption is very wrong.
- Aelinsaar 10y agoThis feels a lot more like an unfocused rant against social norms, than anything coherent. It also, as others have noted already, totally ignored the huge number of STEM fields which encourage or require this.
- rm_-rf_slash 10y agoI work for a major university and I am in the process of applying for a master's in engineering to enhance my skills (primarily) in AI and systems engineering. This is a remarkable opportunity to get a master's for free while continuing full time work. I doubt the author had anything like this in mind. It's also expected (all but explicitly required) to have a master's degree or higher to expect any kind of management role here. May seem weird to you, but higher education plays by its own rules.
- preordained 10y agoI wouldn't call it unfocused. I think it pokes holes pretty accurately in the psychology behind the pieces (and those like it) which it was a reaction to. It shows a lot of the pot-shot-taking and one-upsmanship for what it is; namely, a psychological defense to feeling like a failure in a society where to simply be adequate is perceived as failure--you have to be better(™) than some other class of your peers. It could just as we'll be a piece about how we all gather around to defend ourselves or join in throwing stones when there is a new "Why Johnny Can't Code" or "Fizz-Buzz" article.
- mcnamaratw 10y agoI guess, I mean, this feels like fighting fire with fire. Which is fine ... but what bugs me about competitive humble-whine-bragging is that I feel it's ineffectual. So hearing this as a pro-grad-school rant actually feels even a little worse than hearing the anti-grad-school rants he's complaining about.
- dasil003 10y agoA lot of good food for thought here, but then it goes off the rails: > But capitalism needs to keep everyone working at a manic pace, boosting productivity endlessly and recouping none of it in real wage growth, and that requires the concept of the loser. I am no great cheerleader of capitalism, I could go on and on about the way people worship at the alter of "free markets" as if a market is inherently virtuous, but this is utter hogwash. Capitalism does not require the concept of a loser. It's the base human instinct of comparison to ones neighbor that requires the concept of a loser. Making everyone happy and prosperous beyond ones immediate tribe is just not an instinctive goal in large-scale humanity.
- drzaiusapelord 10y agoIts fairly ironic that the biggest criticism I've seen of continuing education is that academics get really out of touch with the status quo and academia becomes its own weird echo chamber of near nonsense, especially outside the hard sciences. The fact that this guy ended his little essay with a "tear down capitalism and replace it with $failed_communist_lite_ideas" fulfills that prediction. Everyone I know who went to grad school had a "meh, I dont have anything else to do and being a student beats working" attitude as opposed to some cutthroat "fuck you losers" attitude the writer is suggesting. This is a bizarre essay unless you're to the far left and casually blaming everything on capitalism is the only card in your intellectual deck (which is often the case on the internet I'm afraid).
- jackcosgrove 10y agoIf everyone's basic needs are covered, and they are free to pursue artistic or otherwise unnecessary pursuits to fulfill themselves, they will fast begin to compete with each other about who is the most artistic, or free-spirited, or creative. Then it will become a game to be gamed, and the sheen will wear off for a lot of people.
- beambot 10y agoAren't artistic endeavors already plagued by this... at least to some extent? Any small microcosm will ultimately generate heated, competitive spirit -- even when the reward is minuscule and virtually meaningless. In other words: people love to compete over stupid shit.
- tkinom 10y agoSociety needs colleges/professors. Grad schools help produce them.
- rhapsodic 10y agoAnd quite inefficiently, I might add.
- jrochkind1 10y agoProduces way way way more people wanting to be such than society apparently needs, or is at any rate willing to employ at non-poverty wages.
- dang 10y agoThe prior article was discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11543439 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11543439.
- electrograv 10y agoThis whole article is filled with negative stereotypes, incredibly warped views of capitalism, and seems hell-bent on pushing its own message independent of the truth of its supporting "arguments". > This is why we’ve created all these bullshit “arty” corporate jobs in marketing and related fields, why software engineering is discussed in terms of people really making things rather than in terms of sitting at a computer, staring bleary-eyed at your code What...? I love my job, and it does involve making things while I sit at my desk -- incredibly cool things. Not only that, but my manager is awesome and discourages anything of the "up late bleary-eyed" variety. Sure, there's a lot of crap jobs out there, but also a lot of amazing jobs where we do make incredible things that change the world. That's the "capitalist american dream" this article loves to call totalitarian propaganda (read the article if you don't believe he said something so absurd).
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- methodover 10y ago> [R]ecognizing the sickness within capitalist “success” is necessary to inspire broad rejection of a cruel, embittering, inhumane system [...] Once you are among those lucky enough to pay for your basic material needs, the fear of being a loser keeps you motivated to work those 60 hour weeks that people are so proud of in American achievement culture. The "sickness" the article speaks of -- fear of being a loser -- isn't a sickness at all, in my mind. It's a boon to the world. Fear of letting down your customers, fear of letting down your employees, your cofounders, your investors -- that's a GOOD THING. That encourages people to try and make their new businesses work: to figure out what's wrong with them, to figure out how to make them better. And the point of that business is to provide customers with something valuable. And when you have lots of humans doing that across the whole world, you get a better world -- a world that turns typewriters into laptops, unused cars and houses into shared rides and shared vacations, long lost acquaintances into Facebook friends, etc etc etc.
- marketforlemmas 10y agoI think it's possible that its both a sickness and a boon. I fully agree with your point that the "fear of being a loser" does drive people to work harder, do better, etc. All of that has (generally) positive effects (well, assuming that you are willing to ignore the fact that many people will use less-tan-ethical means of making more money). However I can also see it as a sickness in the sense that we fetishize this extreme success. Imagine a hypothetical person that has to make a choice between doing some risky start-up that will consume his/her life or getting a solid job that allows them to work 40 hours per week and then enjoy their personal lives. Nobody would explicitly blame the person who chooses the latter option but we celebrate (especially on HN) the people who choose the former option. We celebrate it to the point that there are many people who choose the harder option simply because they feel they are a loser for not going after it and throwing everything they have at it. I don't see that being a good thing that everyone who is on the fence decides to go for the risky/hard path simply because of some societal zeitgeist. Then again, as you point out, those individual choices lead to our collective advancement, so it's a really hard balance.
- aninhumer 10y agoThe problem is, if everyone's spending all their time frantically trying not to be a loser, no one has any time to enjoy the fruits of our success.
- rayiner 10y agoThe article hits it right on the nose about our culture's fetishization of education and credentials. My brother is a trader at a bank. Going to grad school would cost a ton of money between tuition and opportunity costs, while doing nothing to advance his career, yet my parents still lament that he has "only a bachelors degree." I don't know what can be done. As jobs continue to get automated away, the emphasis on education will only become more extreme. To listen to some Presidential candidates talk everyone should have a PhD in underwater basket weaving, paid for by the government. It's insane.
- oconnore 10y ago> As jobs continue to get automated away, the emphasis on education will only become more extreme. Why is that insane? What else should people be doing instead of learning -- especially when they don't need to work?
- rayiner 10y agoBecause it will be pitched as a way to get what few jobs are still available--jobs which don't require all the education people have.
- mimo777 10y agoUnless a few hours twice a week amount to severe opportunity costs, why not work and do grad school? My brother and I and many of my colleagues took advantage of the benefit that many employers offer to get a masters after work at their expense.
- unprepare 10y agoto be fair, I havent seen any underwater basket weaving robots
- jrochkind1 10y agoThanks for posting, spot on.
- tstactplsignore 10y agoI can't understand why everyone doesn't go to grad school. In grad school in a computationally focused biology lab, I'll be able to come in every day and code on whatever projects I want (well, in my case all of the projects I want to work on are in my field) to in whatever language I want to. It'll be open-source, on github, and be shared with other scientists through publications. It will contribute to advancememts in environmental and medical genomics (however small!), which are important and morally/intellectually fulfilling fields. Why would people ever choose to instead go write code for some corporation that will always be closed source, has to be be whatever your supervisor tells you, won't even be owned by you, and may never see the light of day for the first 4-5 years out of college? Grad school seems more fulfilling, interesting, better for portfolio development, and you just happen to get a PhD out of it than most entry level coding positions.
- grillvogel 10y ago>Why would people ever choose to instead go write code for some corporation that will always be closed source, why? because I have a BS in engineering and I make 6 figures. My wife spent 5 years after college getting her phd in a hard science and she now makes less than half of what I do and has to work way harder.
- 3minus1 10y agoI'm not even sure the work is more fulfilling. My wife is scientist and she mostly just works in isolation teaching herself things. My job is much more collaborative; I get a lot more opportunities to be mentored by peers and learn the state of the art. To me that is incredibly valuable. I'm not so arrogant as to think that I could be just as good at my job if I worked alone.
- tcpekin 10y agoI'm a grad student as well, just finished my third year. Yeah it's super fun and I have a ton of freedom, but I make roughly 1/5 of what people I graduated with. I'm sure that holds a lot of people back. That being said, I really enjoy it, especially since you continually get to learn new things.
- awt 10y ago> But capitalism needs to keep everyone working at a manic pace, boosting productivity endlessly and recouping none of it in real wage growth, and that requires the concept of the loser. Academia in the US is not capitalism.
- giaour 10y agoAs someone who spent five years as a "sad French poetry PhD student," I'd like to know when French poetry became the single most pathetic thing anyone could deign to study. Probably ~40% of the people in my grad program ended up in translation or international affairs/relations jobs solely or largely because of their strong language skills, so I think French literature is a safer choice than English or history. Heck, even my software engineer colleagues who are trying to pick up French are glad there's another engineer who can help them with what they're learning or accompany them to a French conversation meetup.