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I have a PhD in aerospace engineering. I loved grad school. Loved loved loved it. I wouldn't give up the worst day I had in grad school for almost anything. An

I have a PhD in aerospace engineering. I loved grad school. Loved loved loved it. I wouldn't give up the worst day I had in grad school for almost anything. And I love having the skills it taught me. I am a much better engineer and researcher than I could possibly have been had I taken almost any other route. I was given freedom in grad school that just would not have been present in most industry jobs. I was given a hardware project - a submersible robot - that I was completely in charge of on day 1. I had to teach myself machining, how to do electrical and electonicd works, how to do embedded programming, how to tune a PID loop. How to work with other students. How to give a persuasive presentation. How to come uo with my own ideas, how to convince other people that they were worth pursuing, how to quickly become an expert in a topic. That being said, I am not under any illusions about the financial loss I experienced. I spent ten years making a pauper's wage, when if I had chosen to go into industry I would have been a software engineer... in the Valley... in 1993. I also was in a remarkable lab in grad school. It made top-ten lists of “coolest college lab”. And that wasn't hype. The caliber of student and of professor was off the charts. And they were not only smart, the vast majority of them were good people. A lot of places aren't like that. And as the srticle correctly said: a toxic graduate school environment is worse than most toxic work environments. In any practical sense, students don't have HR protections. If you can't get your advisor to write you a recommendation, getting into a different program is nearly impossible. You can be worked 100 hours a week. You can be blackballed for getting sick, for taking vacations, for taking maternity or paternity leave (even if it is - and it almost certainly will be - unpaid). The key is to find an advisor who is doing good work and who is sane and moral. If you can find that you're golden. If you can't you may be completely screwed.

majos 8y ago
As a current PhD student in CS -- seconded. I'm fortunate to have a great advisor, and my research career so far has been largely fun and productive as a result. I have also seen equally (or more) talented and hard-working students have worse experiences because of worse advisors. It's just hard to become a good researcher without good mentorship. As far as practical advice for finding good advisors, track records of previous students can be a helpful first filter once you've made a list of people who wrote papers you like. Probably the most helpful thing is talking to current students at the admitted students day and listening to them. Bad advisors usually have at least one notable case, and there will probably be at least one person who'll take you aside and tell you about it. Listen to them carefully. Even great advisors can have at least one unsuccessful and bitter student through no fault of their own...but they usually don't show up to the admitted student events unless there's a real cause for animus.
- pyedpiper 8y ago
  recently minted Chemistry PhD here -- Thirded. Grad school was one of my best decisions. I went to a great school that was what I call the Goldilocks size, big enough to have a great faculty, equipment, and decent funding but small enough so that collaboration was the norm and the crazy horror stories of maniacal hours and/or cutthroat competition were normally self induced. My PI was an incredibly good guy and still a close friend. I met my business partner and co-founder while working with him the lab and we're now building a company that expands on the work we did in grad school. That being said, I saw plenty of people not having the experience I did. This was almost always because i) they didn't really like research and didn't know it until they were there or ii) they picked a PI (PI = professor/boss) that was a really bad match for their work style and personality. Finding a lab & PI that matches your personal expectations about the PhD I would say is more important than the research focus. Don't choose something you'll hate learning about but ultimately the PhD can be more about learning how to teach yourself than the skills you learn during research. YMMV
  - wink 8y ago
    What would interest me much more is if y'all liked studying or university life before that? Because for me.. I originally started to study CS because I wanted to learn stuff (was already working as a programmer) and hadn't ruled out pursuing a PhD afterwards per se. But the longer I was at university (German Diploma, 13 semesters for me, 9 minimum) the more I couldn't wait to leave - so even the thought of staying there went away quite quickly, although I wasn't "in academia" per se. I'm still not sure if I'm just more on the practical and pragmatic side of problem-solving and less in research.
    - GlenTheMachine 8y ago
      I didn’t mind being an undergrad. But that was largely because of my friends and being an adult away from home for the first time. My friends and I built robots in our dorm room with our own money because the university didn’t have a program and wasn’t willing to accommodate us in any way. I enjoyed learning in class but it was always so rushed and stressful - you were always working up to an exam, then making it past and preparing for the next one. There was never any time to breathe. Grad school was far, far better. Completely different league.
sleavey 8y ago
I had a similar experience during my physics PhD. Going in to the degree I thought I'd just learn physics more deeply. What I ended up learning is how to learn itself, not because of any course I took but because I spent years surrounded by incredibly smart people who asked the right (often difficult) questions about my work. Eventually I learned to ask myself the right questions about my work. I spent my undergrad learning the theory, and then spent my PhD applying it to real problems, working with actual geniuses, being paid a reasonable salary to do it, and getting to discuss it with external colleagues in nice places. The experience will stay with me forever.
russfink 8y ago
I can't agree with this enough. And, in industry, in a truly toxic culture, Human Resources ironically supports and defends the very toxicity that it's designed to protect employees from. "Oh, you went to HR, huh? So you think you're better than us?" Or "Let's have a one-on-one sit-down with your boss, and air our grievances," Or, "hey, there's this great new job opening up in our <2+ hr away> branch." Even promotions in a toxic culture can end up taking the course of, "oh, you want to be promoted, and you're in a technical role? That's nice and all, but we really value line management employees." My point is, things can be equally bad in industry.
- fsloth 8y ago
  "Human Resources ironically supports and defends the very toxicity that it's designed to protect employees from" The main function of HR is not to serve employees. The main function of HR is to protect the employer from legal liabilities. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Corporate-Confidential-Secrets-Company-Know/dp/0312337361 https://www.amazon.com/Corporate-Confidential-Secrets-Compan...
  - telchar 8y ago
    This is offtopic, but I have to point out that these sort of cynical pronouncements are somewhat dangerous. You are probably coming from a good place and trying to warn people about being too trusting, but I see a risk in these sort of statements in making younger readers believe that this is a normative statement (as opposed to the positive sense I think you meant it in). Ideally HR does have something to offer the employee, balancing their interest with the company's. Let's not retreat entirely from that ideal.
    - fsloth 8y ago
      Sure, I wasn't trying to suggest people turn sociopaths the moment they become employed by a large corporation. I expect people to be decent human beings and that includes compassionate interaction whatever the situation. It's just good to remember HR is not an agent of the employee but of the employer, and you can't lean on the HR representative as you would for example on your own lawyer.
ptero 8y ago
I second (by now probably seventh or eight) most of your post: I loved most of my time in my Math PhD program. > A toxic graduate school environment is worse than most toxic work environments I agree with this 100%. I would even extend this to overall academia pre-tenure (and maybe tenure as well). Moving to a different employer is usually easy and non-traumatic; in PhD program you are stuck -- leaving will mean abandoning your half-written thesis and starting from scratch, etc. Thus it is critical to avoid bad programs, either with a toxic environment or those that treat grad students as long term slaves. > A lot of places aren't (expand) ... with vast majority of smart and good people. ... You can be worked 100 hours a week. You can be blackballed for getting sick, for taking vacations, for taking maternity or paternity leave With this I disagree. I had friends in many schools and while there were a few exceptions by and large the environment was very good: supportive and enabling without kid gloves. I was on the theory side, which surely made things easier (no expensive hardware or purchases to pay for), but I basically wasted third year of 5 of my PhD on aimless wandering: I could get no traction on any problem, would try something and drop it at the first challenge, etc. And I heard no complaints from my adviser -- he was checking in, asking if I want feedback or suggestions on problems to look at, but otherwise let me be. No 100 hour weeks, etc. I knew he was not thrilled, but he let that disease (or growth) run its course. I much later spoke to other folks doing theoretical PhDs and found that this is not that uncommon: transition from doing great in classes (learning along an externally designed sequence) to planning and doing your own research may not go smoothly.
- jacobolus 8y ago
  > transition from doing great in classes (learning along an externally designed sequence) to planning and doing your own research may not go smoothly I would speculate that this is largely because students spend most of their attention on pre-planned classroom-like work and do almost no research-like work during the first 16+ years of their formal schooling.
bbgm 8y ago
I echo everything said above. Mine was in theoretical chemistry/biophysics. I was also married through most of grad school, which was a big reason I chose not to do a postdoc (the norm in my area) and joined a startup instead. I was lucky that I was able to do that. If I had to do it all over again, I would.
earthscienceman 8y ago
This might be the most accurate description of grad school I've ever read. It's almost too poignant. It's this balance between freedom and toxicity that makes graduate school such a polarizing experience. Recovering from a difficult graduate school experience, like the one you perfectly described, is insanely difficult. Financially, emotionally, and temporally.
Kagerjay 8y ago
I only have a bachelors of science, but I went to a top 10 school in my degree field (material science). The caliber of student and professor was off the charts like you said. Everyone was infinitely smarter than I was. They had some of the nicest equipment available. I worked in a 3 research labs for 3 years in college, under 3 different professors. My first grad mentor, I took everything for granted. Didn't really realize how great he was and how much of an effort he put foward. My second mentor ... didn't give a shit about me at all. Actually, this lab was the most interesting too, which made it worse. He saw me just as someone who clearly was wasting his time everyday. My third mentor, I started to appreciate the value in a good teacher. Not the greatest but made efforts in making the concepts much easier to understand. I cared way more about my final honors dissertation in this lab than previous research I did. I wouldn't even call the other 2 labs research, I just read papers all day and did lab tech work. In the end I realized research is not for me. Its not fun, and painstakingly slow to see results. Still learned a lot.

majos 8y ago

As a current PhD student in CS -- seconded. I'm fortunate to have a great advisor, and my research career so far has been largely fun and productive as a result. I have also seen equally (or more) talented and hard-working students have worse experiences because of worse advisors. It's just hard to become a good researcher without good mentorship. As far as practical advice for finding good advisors, track records of previous students can be a helpful first filter once you've made a list of people who wrote papers you like. Probably the most helpful thing is talking to current students at the admitted students day and listening to them. Bad advisors usually have at least one notable case, and there will probably be at least one person who'll take you aside and tell you about it. Listen to them carefully. Even great advisors can have at least one unsuccessful and bitter student through no fault of their own...but they usually don't show up to the admitted student events unless there's a real cause for animus.

pyedpiper 8y ago
recently minted Chemistry PhD here -- Thirded. Grad school was one of my best decisions. I went to a great school that was what I call the Goldilocks size, big enough to have a great faculty, equipment, and decent funding but small enough so that collaboration was the norm and the crazy horror stories of maniacal hours and/or cutthroat competition were normally self induced. My PI was an incredibly good guy and still a close friend. I met my business partner and co-founder while working with him the lab and we're now building a company that expands on the work we did in grad school. That being said, I saw plenty of people not having the experience I did. This was almost always because i) they didn't really like research and didn't know it until they were there or ii) they picked a PI (PI = professor/boss) that was a really bad match for their work style and personality. Finding a lab & PI that matches your personal expectations about the PhD I would say is more important than the research focus. Don't choose something you'll hate learning about but ultimately the PhD can be more about learning how to teach yourself than the skills you learn during research. YMMV
- wink 8y ago
  What would interest me much more is if y'all liked studying or university life before that? Because for me.. I originally started to study CS because I wanted to learn stuff (was already working as a programmer) and hadn't ruled out pursuing a PhD afterwards per se. But the longer I was at university (German Diploma, 13 semesters for me, 9 minimum) the more I couldn't wait to leave - so even the thought of staying there went away quite quickly, although I wasn't "in academia" per se. I'm still not sure if I'm just more on the practical and pragmatic side of problem-solving and less in research.
  - GlenTheMachine 8y ago
    I didn’t mind being an undergrad. But that was largely because of my friends and being an adult away from home for the first time. My friends and I built robots in our dorm room with our own money because the university didn’t have a program and wasn’t willing to accommodate us in any way. I enjoyed learning in class but it was always so rushed and stressful - you were always working up to an exam, then making it past and preparing for the next one. There was never any time to breathe. Grad school was far, far better. Completely different league.

sleavey 8y ago

I had a similar experience during my physics PhD. Going in to the degree I thought I'd just learn physics more deeply. What I ended up learning is how to learn itself, not because of any course I took but because I spent years surrounded by incredibly smart people who asked the right (often difficult) questions about my work. Eventually I learned to ask myself the right questions about my work. I spent my undergrad learning the theory, and then spent my PhD applying it to real problems, working with actual geniuses, being paid a reasonable salary to do it, and getting to discuss it with external colleagues in nice places. The experience will stay with me forever.

russfink 8y ago

I can't agree with this enough. And, in industry, in a truly toxic culture, Human Resources ironically supports and defends the very toxicity that it's designed to protect employees from. "Oh, you went to HR, huh? So you think you're better than us?" Or "Let's have a one-on-one sit-down with your boss, and air our grievances," Or, "hey, there's this great new job opening up in our <2+ hr away> branch." Even promotions in a toxic culture can end up taking the course of, "oh, you want to be promoted, and you're in a technical role? That's nice and all, but we really value line management employees." My point is, things can be equally bad in industry.

fsloth 8y ago
"Human Resources ironically supports and defends the very toxicity that it's designed to protect employees from" The main function of HR is not to serve employees. The main function of HR is to protect the employer from legal liabilities. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Corporate-Confidential-Secrets-Company-Know/dp/0312337361 https://www.amazon.com/Corporate-Confidential-Secrets-Compan...
- telchar 8y ago
  This is offtopic, but I have to point out that these sort of cynical pronouncements are somewhat dangerous. You are probably coming from a good place and trying to warn people about being too trusting, but I see a risk in these sort of statements in making younger readers believe that this is a normative statement (as opposed to the positive sense I think you meant it in). Ideally HR does have something to offer the employee, balancing their interest with the company's. Let's not retreat entirely from that ideal.
  - fsloth 8y ago
    Sure, I wasn't trying to suggest people turn sociopaths the moment they become employed by a large corporation. I expect people to be decent human beings and that includes compassionate interaction whatever the situation. It's just good to remember HR is not an agent of the employee but of the employer, and you can't lean on the HR representative as you would for example on your own lawyer.

ptero 8y ago

I second (by now probably seventh or eight) most of your post: I loved most of my time in my Math PhD program. > A toxic graduate school environment is worse than most toxic work environments I agree with this 100%. I would even extend this to overall academia pre-tenure (and maybe tenure as well). Moving to a different employer is usually easy and non-traumatic; in PhD program you are stuck -- leaving will mean abandoning your half-written thesis and starting from scratch, etc. Thus it is critical to avoid bad programs, either with a toxic environment or those that treat grad students as long term slaves. > A lot of places aren't (expand) ... with vast majority of smart and good people. ... You can be worked 100 hours a week. You can be blackballed for getting sick, for taking vacations, for taking maternity or paternity leave With this I disagree. I had friends in many schools and while there were a few exceptions by and large the environment was very good: supportive and enabling without kid gloves. I was on the theory side, which surely made things easier (no expensive hardware or purchases to pay for), but I basically wasted third year of 5 of my PhD on aimless wandering: I could get no traction on any problem, would try something and drop it at the first challenge, etc. And I heard no complaints from my adviser -- he was checking in, asking if I want feedback or suggestions on problems to look at, but otherwise let me be. No 100 hour weeks, etc. I knew he was not thrilled, but he let that disease (or growth) run its course. I much later spoke to other folks doing theoretical PhDs and found that this is not that uncommon: transition from doing great in classes (learning along an externally designed sequence) to planning and doing your own research may not go smoothly.

jacobolus 8y ago
> transition from doing great in classes (learning along an externally designed sequence) to planning and doing your own research may not go smoothly I would speculate that this is largely because students spend most of their attention on pre-planned classroom-like work and do almost no research-like work during the first 16+ years of their formal schooling.

bbgm 8y ago

I echo everything said above. Mine was in theoretical chemistry/biophysics. I was also married through most of grad school, which was a big reason I chose not to do a postdoc (the norm in my area) and joined a startup instead. I was lucky that I was able to do that. If I had to do it all over again, I would.

earthscienceman 8y ago

This might be the most accurate description of grad school I've ever read. It's almost too poignant. It's this balance between freedom and toxicity that makes graduate school such a polarizing experience. Recovering from a difficult graduate school experience, like the one you perfectly described, is insanely difficult. Financially, emotionally, and temporally.

Kagerjay 8y ago

I only have a bachelors of science, but I went to a top 10 school in my degree field (material science). The caliber of student and professor was off the charts like you said. Everyone was infinitely smarter than I was. They had some of the nicest equipment available. I worked in a 3 research labs for 3 years in college, under 3 different professors. My first grad mentor, I took everything for granted. Didn't really realize how great he was and how much of an effort he put foward. My second mentor ... didn't give a shit about me at all. Actually, this lab was the most interesting too, which made it worse. He saw me just as someone who clearly was wasting his time everyday. My third mentor, I started to appreciate the value in a good teacher. Not the greatest but made efforts in making the concepts much easier to understand. I cared way more about my final honors dissertation in this lab than previous research I did. I wouldn't even call the other 2 labs research, I just read papers all day and did lab tech work. In the end I realized research is not for me. Its not fun, and painstakingly slow to see results. Still learned a lot.