7 ms·

As a former grad student, I strogly sympathize with the urge to get the hell out of there and make real money. But on the flip side, I'm pretty dubious about t

As a former grad student, I strogly sympathize with the urge to get the hell out of there and make real money. But on the flip side, I'm pretty dubious about the idea of abandoning your program just because the grass is greener in industry. The Ph.D. improves your chances of getting to work on interesting problems down the road, even if you leave academia. Selling that out for a few years of big money isn't something that should be done lightly. Especially when we're in the middle of such an obvious bubble -- what's the plan for 2-5 years from now when it pops?

notyourday 9y ago
Same as for anyone else 2-5 years of experience in real company, doing real stuff, making real money. That train ended? Migrate to a slightly different field.
- YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
  What if you're really interested in your subject? To be fair, if you're not then there's little reason to start a PhD and it makes perfect sense to drop out of it and go do something else... Btw, it's also perfectly possible to start a PhD after a few years of work in the industry. Not everyone goes on to have more studies right after graduating.
  - notyourday 9y ago
    > What if you're really interested in your subject? Pardon my french, but it is a stupid reason for someone who can barely has any money to support himself or herself. We have empirical evidence these grad students are not stupid because when Google or Apple or Facebook offers them $150k/year they move.
    - YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
      >> Pardon my french, but it is a stupid reason for someone who can barely has any money to support himself or herself. I don't think there's any better reason to do research than to be interested in your research subject. Actually, my guess is that this is the real difference between academia and the industry: if you're motivated by money, you'll optimise for making lots of money; if you're interested in generating new knowledge, you'll optimise for that.
olegkikin 9y ago
So your argument is they should stay and work for pennies, hoping to get an "interesting" job in the future, instead of getting an interesting and highly paid job right now? It's also not obvious at all it's a bubble. AI field is already much more complex than the regular CS field, which already suffers from talent shortages. AI is the future, and the demand is here to stay.
- Retric 9y ago
  AI is currently less complex than many CS fields that pay far less. This is basicly the boom times when most companies want a website but don't have one. Once the obvious applications are built these bubbles tend to burst as matence pays far less.
  - nopinsight 9y ago
    Plain vanilla convnets are not very complex. If you look at recent papers on Deep Reinforcement Learning with extra modules or Generative Adversarial Networks from DeepMind and the likes, the complexity is much higher than much of CS used in industry and it is increasing rapidly. More importantly, the performance of many AI implementations could be improved with the increased sophistication, so the demand for such complexity is there for businesses in competitive sectors. Any examples of topics in other fields of CS in practical use that are more complex than recent AI advances with potential practical applications?
    - Retric 9y ago
      I would argue a modern Graphics pipeline is significantly more complex. But, you run into issues of what the borders of a topic is. Lighting for example is a huge topic for research, but it does not mean much on it's own.
- wolfgke 9y ago
  If universities believe that AI is here to stay, offer tenured positions now to your AI scientists. Universities cannot compete on pay (and I don't think this is bad), but they can compete perfectly well on job security. So play this trump card (no pun intended).
Retric 9y ago
> when it pops Get a PHD.
criddell 9y ago
> The Ph.D. improves your chances of getting to work on interesting problems down the road That's how universities can compete -- let you work on the things that interest you. There doesn't have to be a commercial application.
- sevensor 9y ago
  Exactly. Most people without Ph.D.s have to do jobs made up by other people. The Ph.D. obligates you to cut your own path. It's not for everyone, but if it's the kind of thing you want to do, it's liberating.
notyourday 9y ago
> The Ph.D. improves your chances of getting to work on interesting problems down the road, even if you leave academia. What's the starting point? 0.01%? Because 100x improvement in that case is just 1%.
dogruck 9y ago
Opportunity Cost is one factor that’s overlooked by nearly every student. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost It’s true that a PhD is valuable for your career. Also, grad school is a special, and hopefully enjoyable period of your life (and therefore valulable). On the other hand, you are not only forfeighting the earnings that you could be making —- you are also sacrificing the difference in growth of those earnings. For example: Option Grad School: $0, $0, $0, $0, $200, $210, $220, $230 = $860 Option Worker Bee: $100, $110, $120, $130, $140, $150, $160, $170 = $1080. Tweak the numbers however you want. In particular, many good non-PhDs soon prove themselves and earn just as much as PhDs each year.
- CamelCaseName 9y ago
  Don't forget about time value of money! That $230 you'll earn 8 years from now is worth less than $200 today if you account for 2% inflation. (And in reality, you tend to get much better returns)
  - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
    And the value of time with money. Not wasting your 20s being poor, eating microwave noodles and doing someone else's research is worth something.
    - dogruck 9y ago
      I see your point, but I don’t think that’s as clear as the time value of money. For many people, grad school is where you form some of your best life-long relationships, in an environment where you’re surrounded by like-minded people. Many people would tolerate ramen noodles and free pizza for that trade.
      - notyourday 9y ago
        That's because they don't know that they have any alternative. The situation that professors and schools would love to continue indefinitely.
sheepmullet 9y ago
> Selling that out for a few years of big money isn't something that should be done lightly. What? I don't understand. What stops you from going back to grad school when the bubble pops? You can happily work for free then and still come out way ahead.
trisimix 9y ago
I think the plan might be get your 'asters with thousands of dollars and 3 years experience in the field
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
rndmwlk 9y ago
>Especially when we're in the middle of such an obvious bubble -- what's the plan for 2-5 years from now when it pops? I don't understand your argument. Wouldn't someone with 2-5 years of work experience, networking, and a much higher salary leave them better off than staying in academia? Either way you're still in the field you think is "an obvious bubble."
netheril96 9y ago
People cry "bubbles" every time hot money flows into a new field, much like those doomsday prophecies. The whole CS field has been declared as a bubble year after year on Hacker News, yet these companies are doing better and better. Even if it eventually pops, remember, the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. Besides, if a bubble exists and it will pop in two or five years, staying in school is worse than getting into industry now. When the bubble pops, no one will hire any new grads any more, but existing workers may survive the chopping block, and are far more likely to reenter the field when it recovers, simply because they have work experience.
bobdole1234 9y ago
Or you know, maybe the world runs on computers these days?

notyourday 9y ago

Same as for anyone else 2-5 years of experience in real company, doing real stuff, making real money. That train ended? Migrate to a slightly different field.

YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
What if you're really interested in your subject? To be fair, if you're not then there's little reason to start a PhD and it makes perfect sense to drop out of it and go do something else... Btw, it's also perfectly possible to start a PhD after a few years of work in the industry. Not everyone goes on to have more studies right after graduating.
- notyourday 9y ago
  > What if you're really interested in your subject? Pardon my french, but it is a stupid reason for someone who can barely has any money to support himself or herself. We have empirical evidence these grad students are not stupid because when Google or Apple or Facebook offers them $150k/year they move.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
    >> Pardon my french, but it is a stupid reason for someone who can barely has any money to support himself or herself. I don't think there's any better reason to do research than to be interested in your research subject. Actually, my guess is that this is the real difference between academia and the industry: if you're motivated by money, you'll optimise for making lots of money; if you're interested in generating new knowledge, you'll optimise for that.

olegkikin 9y ago

So your argument is they should stay and work for pennies, hoping to get an "interesting" job in the future, instead of getting an interesting and highly paid job right now? It's also not obvious at all it's a bubble. AI field is already much more complex than the regular CS field, which already suffers from talent shortages. AI is the future, and the demand is here to stay.

Retric 9y ago
AI is currently less complex than many CS fields that pay far less. This is basicly the boom times when most companies want a website but don't have one. Once the obvious applications are built these bubbles tend to burst as matence pays far less.
- nopinsight 9y ago
  Plain vanilla convnets are not very complex. If you look at recent papers on Deep Reinforcement Learning with extra modules or Generative Adversarial Networks from DeepMind and the likes, the complexity is much higher than much of CS used in industry and it is increasing rapidly. More importantly, the performance of many AI implementations could be improved with the increased sophistication, so the demand for such complexity is there for businesses in competitive sectors. Any examples of topics in other fields of CS in practical use that are more complex than recent AI advances with potential practical applications?
  - Retric 9y ago
    I would argue a modern Graphics pipeline is significantly more complex. But, you run into issues of what the borders of a topic is. Lighting for example is a huge topic for research, but it does not mean much on it's own.
wolfgke 9y ago
If universities believe that AI is here to stay, offer tenured positions now to your AI scientists. Universities cannot compete on pay (and I don't think this is bad), but they can compete perfectly well on job security. So play this trump card (no pun intended).

Retric 9y ago

> when it pops Get a PHD.

criddell 9y ago

> The Ph.D. improves your chances of getting to work on interesting problems down the road That's how universities can compete -- let you work on the things that interest you. There doesn't have to be a commercial application.

sevensor 9y ago
Exactly. Most people without Ph.D.s have to do jobs made up by other people. The Ph.D. obligates you to cut your own path. It's not for everyone, but if it's the kind of thing you want to do, it's liberating.

notyourday 9y ago

> The Ph.D. improves your chances of getting to work on interesting problems down the road, even if you leave academia. What's the starting point? 0.01%? Because 100x improvement in that case is just 1%.

dogruck 9y ago

Opportunity Cost is one factor that’s overlooked by nearly every student. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost It’s true that a PhD is valuable for your career. Also, grad school is a special, and hopefully enjoyable period of your life (and therefore valulable). On the other hand, you are not only forfeighting the earnings that you could be making —- you are also sacrificing the difference in growth of those earnings. For example: Option Grad School: $0, $0, $0, $0, $200, $210, $220, $230 = $860 Option Worker Bee: $100, $110, $120, $130, $140, $150, $160, $170 = $1080. Tweak the numbers however you want. In particular, many good non-PhDs soon prove themselves and earn just as much as PhDs each year.

CamelCaseName 9y ago
Don't forget about time value of money! That $230 you'll earn 8 years from now is worth less than $200 today if you account for 2% inflation. (And in reality, you tend to get much better returns)
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  And the value of time with money. Not wasting your 20s being poor, eating microwave noodles and doing someone else's research is worth something.
  - dogruck 9y ago
    I see your point, but I don’t think that’s as clear as the time value of money. For many people, grad school is where you form some of your best life-long relationships, in an environment where you’re surrounded by like-minded people. Many people would tolerate ramen noodles and free pizza for that trade.
    - notyourday 9y ago
      That's because they don't know that they have any alternative. The situation that professors and schools would love to continue indefinitely.

sheepmullet 9y ago

> Selling that out for a few years of big money isn't something that should be done lightly. What? I don't understand. What stops you from going back to grad school when the bubble pops? You can happily work for free then and still come out way ahead.

trisimix 9y ago

I think the plan might be get your 'asters with thousands of dollars and 3 years experience in the field

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

rndmwlk 9y ago

>Especially when we're in the middle of such an obvious bubble -- what's the plan for 2-5 years from now when it pops? I don't understand your argument. Wouldn't someone with 2-5 years of work experience, networking, and a much higher salary leave them better off than staying in academia? Either way you're still in the field you think is "an obvious bubble."

netheril96 9y ago

People cry "bubbles" every time hot money flows into a new field, much like those doomsday prophecies. The whole CS field has been declared as a bubble year after year on Hacker News, yet these companies are doing better and better. Even if it eventually pops, remember, the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. Besides, if a bubble exists and it will pop in two or five years, staying in school is worse than getting into industry now. When the bubble pops, no one will hire any new grads any more, but existing workers may survive the chopping block, and are far more likely to reenter the field when it recovers, simply because they have work experience.

bobdole1234 9y ago

Or you know, maybe the world runs on computers these days?