4 ms·

> 4. Ability to work with poorly defined goals. This is the most difficult part of a PhD for me. Note: This quote is from the article on which this thread was

> 4. Ability to work with poorly defined goals. This is the most difficult part of a PhD for me. Note: This quote is from the article on which this thread was pointing to before it has been changed by mods. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13382223 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13382223

uncletaco 10y ago
It is actually the part of the PhD that led me to terminate with my masters. Three years later I'm still back and forth on whether I did the right thing.
- sevensor 10y ago
  I bailed on a PhD with a terminal master's in 2004, worked as an engineer at a factory for a few years, and completed a PhD in a different field in 2016. In hindsight, both decisions were right, and having finished the PhD in one field, I don't think I would have been happy with a PhD in the other.
  - wikibob 10y ago
    I'm interested in your story, can you tell a bit of it? I'm trying to figure out if it's the right choice for me to pursue a PhD. What was your research experience like? I've seen a few sources mention the advisor conflict of interest (no incentive to help you finish and graduate because they will lose you after) that you mentioned earlier. Do you think this always a is a significant problem, or only if one is unaware of it?
    - sevensor 10y ago
      My first time in grad school (E.E.), I was really young and naive. I'd barely had any real-world experience of any kind, and I was very good at taking classes. So I signed up for a Ph.D. program and had a lot of fun doing the coursework. But then when it came time to do actual grad student things, like original research and paper writing, I was totally unprepared and my advisor showed me the door. The second time around, I think I still went into grad school for the wrong reasons, but they were different wrong reasons. After dealing with a lot of people who were woefully underprepared to work in industry, I thought getting a Ph.D. would put me in a position to fix the next generation. I underestimated how little the academy wants to do that. I opted not to continue in academia once I got my Ph.D. Regarding my specific research experience, I'm not sure where to begin. You work like a dog, your advisor probably doesn't agree with your conclusions, might not agree with your premises either, and he wants you to go back and read an ocean of literature. Repeat for 4-10 years. Advisor conflict of interest varies from advisor to advisor. Some of them like to produce lots of successful students, others like free labor. Either way, bear in mind that the advisor has his own agenda and is not just advising you out of the goodness of his heart. Final piece of advice: read some "quit lit" to get a perspective on the academic job market. Read some of the critical responses to "quit lit" by academics who haven't quit. (http://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2015/09/no-one-cares-that-you-quit-your-job/404467/ http://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2015/09/no-one-cares-that-y..., https://chroniclevitae.com/news/216-why-so-many-academics-quit-and-tell https://chroniclevitae.com/news/216-why-so-many-academics-qu..., https://historiann.com/2015/10/07/tired-of-academic-quit-lit-another-view-on-academic-labor/ https://historiann.com/2015/10/07/tired-of-academic-quit-lit...). Bear in mind that if you're in an engineering field the job market isn't quite as bleak as in the sciences, or worse yet, the humanities. But it's no picnic either.
compactmani 10y ago
I think it's the best part. The definition is left for the student to learn.
kbart 10y ago
"Ability to work with poorly defined goals." Poorly defined goals should not be unfamiliar or scary to anyone who has done at least one IT project for money. Actually, I haven't encountered many well defined goals in my professional life after graduating high school many years ago.
- jfaucett 10y ago
  Exactly this. I've never encountered any well-defined problem outside of a textbook. In practice, I've always had to discover the goals / problems and then the underlying processes that define them, and only then can you begin to manipulate the processes to optimize your goals. This whole process is iterative, self-influencing, and dynamic. I honestly can't think of one situation where anything was well defined and thats in over 7 years of software engineering exp, albiet startups, agencies, and freelancing, perhaps at Big Corp #1 its different, experience tells me to doubt it though...
- pjmorris 10y ago
  Having lived on both sides of the fence, I'd say work and PhD are different levels of poorly defined. Poorly defined goals a manager imposes on you are one thing. At least you don't have to make them up. Poorly defined goals you impose on yourself (based on funding and advisor constraints) are another thing. You can make the self-direction work for you, or you can drown in your own creativity.
- kelvin0 10y ago
  I think the difficulty the parent poster mentions is really meant to be read as: "Ability to work with poorly defined goals AND almost no one knows about this subject you are discovering". So of course you could start a new Web App for a customer and have poorly defined goals (good luck with that!), but the problems you might encounter have solutions already fleshed out by millions of other Web App devs (Stack Overflow). Something tells me undergoing a PhD is not quite the same, as the 'resources' in this context are a few orders of magnitude scarcer, and the subject matter a few orders of magnitude more complex ... (I am not a PhD, please forgive me if this is wrong)
  - 10y ago
sevensor 10y ago
The key thing I learned was that you're done when you decide you're done. From what I've seen, if you sit down and write a dissertation, it's a rare committee that will stand in your way. This even includes a friend whose advisor refused to read his dissertation -- the rest of his committee approved it and the advisor was pressured into compliance. (In this case the advisor wasn't adversarial, just always "too busy" and didn't want to lose my friend's almost-free labor.) In my own experience, I had a year that was almost completely wasted. I almost gave up, but instead I decided to stop trying to do work that other people wanted. I wrote the two chapters I wanted to write, because it was the only way they were going to get written, and in the end the committee was fine with them.
jartelt 10y ago
That is the part I enjoyed while getting my PhD. I spent 5 years learning and solving scientific questions. The lack of a concrete goal or predefined problem made it interesting because you get to figure it out along the way.

uncletaco 10y ago

It is actually the part of the PhD that led me to terminate with my masters. Three years later I'm still back and forth on whether I did the right thing.

sevensor 10y ago
I bailed on a PhD with a terminal master's in 2004, worked as an engineer at a factory for a few years, and completed a PhD in a different field in 2016. In hindsight, both decisions were right, and having finished the PhD in one field, I don't think I would have been happy with a PhD in the other.
- wikibob 10y ago
  I'm interested in your story, can you tell a bit of it? I'm trying to figure out if it's the right choice for me to pursue a PhD. What was your research experience like? I've seen a few sources mention the advisor conflict of interest (no incentive to help you finish and graduate because they will lose you after) that you mentioned earlier. Do you think this always a is a significant problem, or only if one is unaware of it?
  - sevensor 10y ago
    My first time in grad school (E.E.), I was really young and naive. I'd barely had any real-world experience of any kind, and I was very good at taking classes. So I signed up for a Ph.D. program and had a lot of fun doing the coursework. But then when it came time to do actual grad student things, like original research and paper writing, I was totally unprepared and my advisor showed me the door. The second time around, I think I still went into grad school for the wrong reasons, but they were different wrong reasons. After dealing with a lot of people who were woefully underprepared to work in industry, I thought getting a Ph.D. would put me in a position to fix the next generation. I underestimated how little the academy wants to do that. I opted not to continue in academia once I got my Ph.D. Regarding my specific research experience, I'm not sure where to begin. You work like a dog, your advisor probably doesn't agree with your conclusions, might not agree with your premises either, and he wants you to go back and read an ocean of literature. Repeat for 4-10 years. Advisor conflict of interest varies from advisor to advisor. Some of them like to produce lots of successful students, others like free labor. Either way, bear in mind that the advisor has his own agenda and is not just advising you out of the goodness of his heart. Final piece of advice: read some "quit lit" to get a perspective on the academic job market. Read some of the critical responses to "quit lit" by academics who haven't quit. (http://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2015/09/no-one-cares-that-you-quit-your-job/404467/ http://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2015/09/no-one-cares-that-y..., https://chroniclevitae.com/news/216-why-so-many-academics-quit-and-tell https://chroniclevitae.com/news/216-why-so-many-academics-qu..., https://historiann.com/2015/10/07/tired-of-academic-quit-lit-another-view-on-academic-labor/ https://historiann.com/2015/10/07/tired-of-academic-quit-lit...). Bear in mind that if you're in an engineering field the job market isn't quite as bleak as in the sciences, or worse yet, the humanities. But it's no picnic either.

compactmani 10y ago

I think it's the best part. The definition is left for the student to learn.

kbart 10y ago

"Ability to work with poorly defined goals." Poorly defined goals should not be unfamiliar or scary to anyone who has done at least one IT project for money. Actually, I haven't encountered many well defined goals in my professional life after graduating high school many years ago.

jfaucett 10y ago
Exactly this. I've never encountered any well-defined problem outside of a textbook. In practice, I've always had to discover the goals / problems and then the underlying processes that define them, and only then can you begin to manipulate the processes to optimize your goals. This whole process is iterative, self-influencing, and dynamic. I honestly can't think of one situation where anything was well defined and thats in over 7 years of software engineering exp, albiet startups, agencies, and freelancing, perhaps at Big Corp #1 its different, experience tells me to doubt it though...
pjmorris 10y ago
Having lived on both sides of the fence, I'd say work and PhD are different levels of poorly defined. Poorly defined goals a manager imposes on you are one thing. At least you don't have to make them up. Poorly defined goals you impose on yourself (based on funding and advisor constraints) are another thing. You can make the self-direction work for you, or you can drown in your own creativity.
kelvin0 10y ago
I think the difficulty the parent poster mentions is really meant to be read as: "Ability to work with poorly defined goals AND almost no one knows about this subject you are discovering". So of course you could start a new Web App for a customer and have poorly defined goals (good luck with that!), but the problems you might encounter have solutions already fleshed out by millions of other Web App devs (Stack Overflow). Something tells me undergoing a PhD is not quite the same, as the 'resources' in this context are a few orders of magnitude scarcer, and the subject matter a few orders of magnitude more complex ... (I am not a PhD, please forgive me if this is wrong)
- 10y ago

sevensor 10y ago

The key thing I learned was that you're done when you decide you're done. From what I've seen, if you sit down and write a dissertation, it's a rare committee that will stand in your way. This even includes a friend whose advisor refused to read his dissertation -- the rest of his committee approved it and the advisor was pressured into compliance. (In this case the advisor wasn't adversarial, just always "too busy" and didn't want to lose my friend's almost-free labor.) In my own experience, I had a year that was almost completely wasted. I almost gave up, but instead I decided to stop trying to do work that other people wanted. I wrote the two chapters I wanted to write, because it was the only way they were going to get written, and in the end the committee was fine with them.

jartelt 10y ago

That is the part I enjoyed while getting my PhD. I spent 5 years learning and solving scientific questions. The lack of a concrete goal or predefined problem made it interesting because you get to figure it out along the way.