6 ms·

Tell HN: Doing a PhD is good

70 points by Loic 16y ago

Or having a higher education. A general trend here is to discard PhD/higher education as a waste of time or money when one want to go the startup way. Effectively, you can become rich without such education, but very few of them get really rich and on the barrier to entry, if you consider a field where you can be disruptive without education is rather low. The real good point of having a PhD is not in the title you get, it is in the network you can build and the problems you try to solve. By definition, most of the scientific PhD are to solve industrial problems. This means, you have a complex problem and customers, directly, right now, during your studies. If you are smart, you can already have a portfolio of customers at the end of your PhD, you can have your product nearly ready and you will be able to charge your customers more in thousands of Dollars than in $9 per month. Bonus point, the barrier to entry will be high for the competition and it is relatively easy to become an expert in your field. So please, if you want to do a PhD, do it and do it wisely. A short list to think about: 1. Get a supervisor known to give his students a lot of freedom. 2. Do your PhD in a country where you get a good pay (most of the EU countries pay well for a PhD). 3. Go in a university with a good budget for travel to conferences. 4. Find labs with intensive industrial collaboration.

dshankar 16y ago
"at the end of your PhD, you can have your product nearly ready and you will be able to charge your customers more in thousands of Dollars than in $9 per month." PhD vs non-PhD does not determine whether you charge $1000/mo or $9/mo. It's what you actually build with your talent. A PhD building a mobile service is still limited by the economics everybody else faces.
- sedachv 16y ago
  I don't see too many PhD dissertations on iPhone fart apps getting published.
  - dshankar 16y ago
    You missed the point. If you're build mobile services like mobile payment platforms, video games, ecommerce solutions etc., a PhD isn't going to get you more money from a customer.
    - sedachv 16y ago
      No, you missed my point. No one is building "mobile payment platforms, video games, ecommerce solutions" in academia, either because those problems aren't interesting, or more likely because they will not get you grants. The point of a PhD is to work on fundamental problems in your field of study. This is something that is often ignored by people claiming to be studying computer science, which is why people constantly argue that it is not a science.
      - Someone 16y ago
        Well, actually people are building these things, but they are focussing on one aspect, and skipping any non-interesting parts as far as possible. So, that payment system will have one or more innovative aspects, but it will likely not be robust, fast enough to handle thousands of customers, secure, capable of handling international payments, etc, and it will certainly not be all of them.
rywang 16y ago
It is easier to acquire specialized skills in computer vision and machine learning in grad school than in industry. I've also personally had a good experience incubating technology during my PhD, although this depends on your advisor and your country. The PhD programs in the US are usually longer than the EU (6 versus 3 or 4 years), but typically provide more freedom and less pressure to publish constantly.
_delirium 16y ago
As an American PhD student currently finishing up and moving to a European faculty job, I was quite surprised at #2. Typical pay for a CS PhD student in the U.S. is somewhere in the $16k-24k range. In Denmark, it's $45k! (I clearly did things backwards, because the opposite is true of faculty pay.)
- jlees 16y ago
  The UK stipend is in line with the US one - it's not Europe-wide decent pay, that's for sure!
- Lewisham 16y ago
  ...although there is a cost of living aspect to factor in (not that that accounts for that large a difference, of course).
  - rbranson 16y ago
    So Boston, Bay Area, NYC, etc are more expensive than Denmark? Almost all of the universities in the US where getting a PhD would be worth a damn are in high cost of living areas.
    - Lewisham 16y ago
      Yes, pretty much. It's all relative. Food and commodities are much, much cheaper in the US than Europe.
      - _delirium 16y ago
        Even housing to some extent, from what I can tell. The Bay Area ain't cheap, but rents aren't like London or Paris, either. (Well, maybe NYC rents are.)
- InquilineKea 16y ago
  How is the Canadian stipend? And do higher-paying countries tend to pay lower stipends? Do schools in Scandinavia and the Netherlands even care if your only language is English?
amichail 16y ago
Your brain doesn't last forever. A PhD will make it harder to succeed because your brain will have deteriorated somewhat by the time you finish it. Try comparing programmers at ages 20 vs 30.
- scott_s 16y ago
  I'm 6 months from 30, and I'm a much better programmer now than when I was 20. (Which was my junior year of college.) Not sure what your point is.
  - amichail 16y ago
    Some things get better with age. Others such as analytic ability, thinking speed, and energy level get worse.
    - aristus 16y ago
      On the plus side, the urge to troll attenuates with age as well.
    - keefe 16y ago
      http://books.google.com/books?id=OXS8XBwP0coC&lpg=PA85&ots=syZTCKEPGt&dq=analytical%20thinking%20ability%20age%20decline&lr&pg=PA85#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=OXS8XBwP0coC&lpg=PA85&#... one source amongst many, note the # of achievements peaks around 40 not 20 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6X08-46P4PSB-1K&_user=10&_coverDate=08%2F31%2F1997&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1583264144&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=fb9fa6a7c29afda6bd2aac0352d624ae&searchtype=a http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi... ". In some cases (e.g., bisection), performance differences between the older participants and students nearly 50 years younger used in other studies were negligible." and so on and so forth, this is by no means a well solved problem that says, young people are smarter derp
      - 16y ago
citricsquid 16y ago
Isn't the real answer that it's different for everyone? Doing any sort of degree just because is surely wrong, especially in the way you suggest. Taking funding for a PHD and then working on a startup and moving into that once you're qualified probably isn't what those who are funding it intended on you doing... I guess that's what being a hacker is, playing the system, but it feels morally wrong to me when there are limited funding options etc etc etc
JeanPierre 16y ago
A warning before you simply look at just how much every single country pays for PhDs: Living in Europe, especially Scandinavia, cost usually a lot more than living in the States. You should take this into account when you decide where to take your PhD. As a little tips if you're interested in taking a PhD in Norway: They discuss whether to halve the amount of PhD-positions and double the pay or not. If this happens, it will be very reasonable to take a PhD here. If this does not happen, I would not recommend taking a PhD "for the money", because prices here are skyhigh.
crocowhile 16y ago
I don't know about CS but if you are thinking of doing a PhD in the biomedical field, do it only if you are really really really attracted by the idea of doing research and knowing that there is about 1 academic job for every 10-15 people who start PhD. Competition is fierce, pay is miserable, be sure you are in love with the job.
kgo 16y ago
Tell HN: It's your fucking life, do what the fuck makes you happy. If you find being an undergrad painful and you're bored to tears, and you're only doing it is because your parents and peers tell you you'll end up as a janitor without that piece of paper, and you're literally itching to get into the 'real world', drop the fuck out and work on that startup. If you're fascinated with Viking Poetry, and it's all you can think about, and people are telling you what a waste of money that Viking Poetry PhD is, tell them to fuck off and get that PhD anyway. If you wanna be an actor, move to NY or LA, get a job as a waiter, and bust your fucking ass working on your craft. Don't stay at home and get that HR degree from University of Phoenix. Both this post and the "X isn't worth it in the long run" articles it's responding to make the same mistakes. Assuming everyone has the same path in life. I think ultimately, deep down, all the posters want you to chase YOUR dream. But instead they take their dreams or their choices and find evidence prove to themselves that it's the right choice. And it probably is the right choice for them. It may or may not be the right choice for you. As long as you're making the choices because that's what you really want, and not out of fear, they're the right choices. So yeah, if the only reason you didn't go to college was because your high-school sweetheart was a year younger, you made the wrong choice. Why am I a software professional? Not because it pays well, but that sure helps. It's because I used to sit mesmerized in front of a computer typing in code from magazines, amazed that they followed my commands. It's because even before I had a computer to type the code into, I used to read the same code listings in the books, fascinated by them, even though I couldn't even run them. I didn't read the Economist's list of hot-fucking-jobs-for-the-next-ten-years and pick the top item on the list.
- aeurielesn 16y ago
  > It's because I used to sit mesmerized in front of a computer > typing in code from magazines and books, amazed that they followed my commands. Amen. P.S. Don't forget books.
- siddhant 16y ago
  > Tell HN: It's your fucking life, do what the fuck makes you happy. Yes. But also make it a point to listen to people who've been there (which is exactly how I see these "Tell HN" and the "X isn't worth it in the long run" posts). Doing what makes you happy might make you happy in the short term. It might not necessarily be the best choice in the long run.
tluyben2 16y ago
Tell NH: don't worry about money so much and if you do want to waste time thinking/talking about money and the making thereof, don't do a PhD.
sedachv 16y ago
The thing about doing a PhD in CS today is that from reading about all the famous people who did PhDs in the US in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, it seems they were much better off. ARPA/DARPA funding was plentiful, industrial research labs were at their peak, commercial firms seem to have been hungry for consulting. I forgot where I read it, but someone was writing about how their PhD advisor wanted his students to spend half their time consulting at commercial firms outside the university. I don't have any first-hand knowledge of this, maybe it is just the opinion of the successful and/or lucky people who had a good time and wrote about it, I would love for people to confirm or deny this perception. But the contrast with people I know who are/were doing their PhDs today is night and day. "Starving grad student" is an accurate stereotype. I really can't see myself spending 5 years earning barely $30k a year, busting my ass TAing undergrads, dealing with publishing deadlines and BS from the supervisor and university (you'd be surprised at the amount of people who end up with asshole supervisors!), practically begging for grants. I don't know any PhD candidates who regularly do consulting, or anyone who has a comfortable annual income. And the stress is crazy. I don't know why anyone would do this to themselves. To add insult to injury, I know I'm making the same or more money than many people my age (or a year or two older, I'm 25) straight out of CS PhD programs. If I want to hack on interesting R&D projects, I can do that as Free Software in my spare time (which I do). The contrast is I have actual users instead of papers to submit. If I had to write an interesting system for a dissertation, I'm practically guaranteed that no one will use it because everyone knows that software that comes out of academia is shit. So, what's the point?
- tincholio 16y ago
  If you think doing a PhD in CS is about writing software, you don't know what you're talking about, dude. You started your post with a coherent argument, but the ending was completely WTF material.
  - sedachv 16y ago
    If I wanted to do more math, I'd go to grad school for mathematics (one of my undergrad degrees is in math). I don't want to beg Sun for grant money to develop new ways to make Java less shitty (you would be amazed at the number of papers that have been written about this topic), since they don't want to invest the money in setting up a real R&D lab with real-world salaries. I'm not interested in type theory, complexity, encryption, or formal verification. Are there any other areas of CS research where I can get away with not writing any software as a grad student?
vitobcn 16y ago
I really don't get this type of statements (and I am referring both to this article and the opposite one that also got to front page today). Doing a PhD is neither good nor bad. There is just no right choice for everybody. Some people will rather pursue one, some others will rather avoid higher education and go for other endeavors. It is just an individual decision which will turn out good for some and bad for others. Personally, I didn't see the point for one and decided to graduate just with an MSc, but I have many friends with PhDs and in hindsight they are fully satisfied with their decisions.
jlees 16y ago
Anecdotally (why my PhD turned out to be a bad idea): 1. I got a supervisor who gave her students a lot of freedom but it worked entirely the wrong way. 2. The UK doesn't pay well. 3. I didn't get any money for conference travel as my PhD stipend was a grant from my college. 4. Yeah, this is the fun one - you're doing a highly research focused degree and finding somewhere that actually has a foot in the real world, in the exact area you want to study and build a startup around, is difficult. But if you can pull it off, I'm sure it could work. I got a lot of credit for starting a startup around my PhD topic - but I was forced to do so because I simply couldn't continue working on this stuff in academia any more, as it was too applied for my university.
snow_mac 16y ago
Do you have a PhD?
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
somedays 16y ago
You can do all these things without giving up half a dozen years of your life. In fact, in the years it takes one to complete a PHD, so much more could have been done in the outside world. This is a reality. But if YOU were to do PHD even then, its most likely because you just want to. Its not because its as valuable in any way you at look it as 5 to 6 years of equally sustained efforts in the industries one is doing PHD for. That is at least my experience. Abshir

70 points by Loic 16y ago

dshankar 16y ago

"at the end of your PhD, you can have your product nearly ready and you will be able to charge your customers more in thousands of Dollars than in $9 per month." PhD vs non-PhD does not determine whether you charge $1000/mo or $9/mo. It's what you actually build with your talent. A PhD building a mobile service is still limited by the economics everybody else faces.

sedachv 16y ago
I don't see too many PhD dissertations on iPhone fart apps getting published.
- dshankar 16y ago
  You missed the point. If you're build mobile services like mobile payment platforms, video games, ecommerce solutions etc., a PhD isn't going to get you more money from a customer.
  - sedachv 16y ago
    No, you missed my point. No one is building "mobile payment platforms, video games, ecommerce solutions" in academia, either because those problems aren't interesting, or more likely because they will not get you grants. The point of a PhD is to work on fundamental problems in your field of study. This is something that is often ignored by people claiming to be studying computer science, which is why people constantly argue that it is not a science.
    - Someone 16y ago
      Well, actually people are building these things, but they are focussing on one aspect, and skipping any non-interesting parts as far as possible. So, that payment system will have one or more innovative aspects, but it will likely not be robust, fast enough to handle thousands of customers, secure, capable of handling international payments, etc, and it will certainly not be all of them.

rywang 16y ago

It is easier to acquire specialized skills in computer vision and machine learning in grad school than in industry. I've also personally had a good experience incubating technology during my PhD, although this depends on your advisor and your country. The PhD programs in the US are usually longer than the EU (6 versus 3 or 4 years), but typically provide more freedom and less pressure to publish constantly.

_delirium 16y ago

As an American PhD student currently finishing up and moving to a European faculty job, I was quite surprised at #2. Typical pay for a CS PhD student in the U.S. is somewhere in the $16k-24k range. In Denmark, it's $45k! (I clearly did things backwards, because the opposite is true of faculty pay.)

jlees 16y ago
The UK stipend is in line with the US one - it's not Europe-wide decent pay, that's for sure!
Lewisham 16y ago
...although there is a cost of living aspect to factor in (not that that accounts for that large a difference, of course).
- rbranson 16y ago
  So Boston, Bay Area, NYC, etc are more expensive than Denmark? Almost all of the universities in the US where getting a PhD would be worth a damn are in high cost of living areas.
  - Lewisham 16y ago
    Yes, pretty much. It's all relative. Food and commodities are much, much cheaper in the US than Europe.
    - _delirium 16y ago
      Even housing to some extent, from what I can tell. The Bay Area ain't cheap, but rents aren't like London or Paris, either. (Well, maybe NYC rents are.)
InquilineKea 16y ago
How is the Canadian stipend? And do higher-paying countries tend to pay lower stipends? Do schools in Scandinavia and the Netherlands even care if your only language is English?

amichail 16y ago

Your brain doesn't last forever. A PhD will make it harder to succeed because your brain will have deteriorated somewhat by the time you finish it. Try comparing programmers at ages 20 vs 30.

scott_s 16y ago
I'm 6 months from 30, and I'm a much better programmer now than when I was 20. (Which was my junior year of college.) Not sure what your point is.
- amichail 16y ago
  Some things get better with age. Others such as analytic ability, thinking speed, and energy level get worse.
  - aristus 16y ago
    On the plus side, the urge to troll attenuates with age as well.
  - keefe 16y ago
    http://books.google.com/books?id=OXS8XBwP0coC&lpg=PA85&ots=syZTCKEPGt&dq=analytical%20thinking%20ability%20age%20decline&lr&pg=PA85#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=OXS8XBwP0coC&lpg=PA85&#... one source amongst many, note the # of achievements peaks around 40 not 20 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6X08-46P4PSB-1K&_user=10&_coverDate=08%2F31%2F1997&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1583264144&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=fb9fa6a7c29afda6bd2aac0352d624ae&searchtype=a http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi... ". In some cases (e.g., bisection), performance differences between the older participants and students nearly 50 years younger used in other studies were negligible." and so on and so forth, this is by no means a well solved problem that says, young people are smarter derp
    - 16y ago

citricsquid 16y ago

Isn't the real answer that it's different for everyone? Doing any sort of degree just because is surely wrong, especially in the way you suggest. Taking funding for a PHD and then working on a startup and moving into that once you're qualified probably isn't what those who are funding it intended on you doing... I guess that's what being a hacker is, playing the system, but it feels morally wrong to me when there are limited funding options etc etc etc

JeanPierre 16y ago

A warning before you simply look at just how much every single country pays for PhDs: Living in Europe, especially Scandinavia, cost usually a lot more than living in the States. You should take this into account when you decide where to take your PhD. As a little tips if you're interested in taking a PhD in Norway: They discuss whether to halve the amount of PhD-positions and double the pay or not. If this happens, it will be very reasonable to take a PhD here. If this does not happen, I would not recommend taking a PhD "for the money", because prices here are skyhigh.

crocowhile 16y ago

I don't know about CS but if you are thinking of doing a PhD in the biomedical field, do it only if you are really really really attracted by the idea of doing research and knowing that there is about 1 academic job for every 10-15 people who start PhD. Competition is fierce, pay is miserable, be sure you are in love with the job.

kgo 16y ago

Tell HN: It's your fucking life, do what the fuck makes you happy. If you find being an undergrad painful and you're bored to tears, and you're only doing it is because your parents and peers tell you you'll end up as a janitor without that piece of paper, and you're literally itching to get into the 'real world', drop the fuck out and work on that startup. If you're fascinated with Viking Poetry, and it's all you can think about, and people are telling you what a waste of money that Viking Poetry PhD is, tell them to fuck off and get that PhD anyway. If you wanna be an actor, move to NY or LA, get a job as a waiter, and bust your fucking ass working on your craft. Don't stay at home and get that HR degree from University of Phoenix. Both this post and the "X isn't worth it in the long run" articles it's responding to make the same mistakes. Assuming everyone has the same path in life. I think ultimately, deep down, all the posters want you to chase YOUR dream. But instead they take their dreams or their choices and find evidence prove to themselves that it's the right choice. And it probably is the right choice for them. It may or may not be the right choice for you. As long as you're making the choices because that's what you really want, and not out of fear, they're the right choices. So yeah, if the only reason you didn't go to college was because your high-school sweetheart was a year younger, you made the wrong choice. Why am I a software professional? Not because it pays well, but that sure helps. It's because I used to sit mesmerized in front of a computer typing in code from magazines, amazed that they followed my commands. It's because even before I had a computer to type the code into, I used to read the same code listings in the books, fascinated by them, even though I couldn't even run them. I didn't read the Economist's list of hot-fucking-jobs-for-the-next-ten-years and pick the top item on the list.

aeurielesn 16y ago
> It's because I used to sit mesmerized in front of a computer > typing in code from magazines and books, amazed that they followed my commands. Amen. P.S. Don't forget books.
siddhant 16y ago
> Tell HN: It's your fucking life, do what the fuck makes you happy. Yes. But also make it a point to listen to people who've been there (which is exactly how I see these "Tell HN" and the "X isn't worth it in the long run" posts). Doing what makes you happy might make you happy in the short term. It might not necessarily be the best choice in the long run.

tluyben2 16y ago

Tell NH: don't worry about money so much and if you do want to waste time thinking/talking about money and the making thereof, don't do a PhD.

sedachv 16y ago

The thing about doing a PhD in CS today is that from reading about all the famous people who did PhDs in the US in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, it seems they were much better off. ARPA/DARPA funding was plentiful, industrial research labs were at their peak, commercial firms seem to have been hungry for consulting. I forgot where I read it, but someone was writing about how their PhD advisor wanted his students to spend half their time consulting at commercial firms outside the university. I don't have any first-hand knowledge of this, maybe it is just the opinion of the successful and/or lucky people who had a good time and wrote about it, I would love for people to confirm or deny this perception. But the contrast with people I know who are/were doing their PhDs today is night and day. "Starving grad student" is an accurate stereotype. I really can't see myself spending 5 years earning barely $30k a year, busting my ass TAing undergrads, dealing with publishing deadlines and BS from the supervisor and university (you'd be surprised at the amount of people who end up with asshole supervisors!), practically begging for grants. I don't know any PhD candidates who regularly do consulting, or anyone who has a comfortable annual income. And the stress is crazy. I don't know why anyone would do this to themselves. To add insult to injury, I know I'm making the same or more money than many people my age (or a year or two older, I'm 25) straight out of CS PhD programs. If I want to hack on interesting R&D projects, I can do that as Free Software in my spare time (which I do). The contrast is I have actual users instead of papers to submit. If I had to write an interesting system for a dissertation, I'm practically guaranteed that no one will use it because everyone knows that software that comes out of academia is shit. So, what's the point?

tincholio 16y ago
If you think doing a PhD in CS is about writing software, you don't know what you're talking about, dude. You started your post with a coherent argument, but the ending was completely WTF material.
- sedachv 16y ago
  If I wanted to do more math, I'd go to grad school for mathematics (one of my undergrad degrees is in math). I don't want to beg Sun for grant money to develop new ways to make Java less shitty (you would be amazed at the number of papers that have been written about this topic), since they don't want to invest the money in setting up a real R&D lab with real-world salaries. I'm not interested in type theory, complexity, encryption, or formal verification. Are there any other areas of CS research where I can get away with not writing any software as a grad student?

vitobcn 16y ago

I really don't get this type of statements (and I am referring both to this article and the opposite one that also got to front page today). Doing a PhD is neither good nor bad. There is just no right choice for everybody. Some people will rather pursue one, some others will rather avoid higher education and go for other endeavors. It is just an individual decision which will turn out good for some and bad for others. Personally, I didn't see the point for one and decided to graduate just with an MSc, but I have many friends with PhDs and in hindsight they are fully satisfied with their decisions.

jlees 16y ago

Anecdotally (why my PhD turned out to be a bad idea): 1. I got a supervisor who gave her students a lot of freedom but it worked entirely the wrong way. 2. The UK doesn't pay well. 3. I didn't get any money for conference travel as my PhD stipend was a grant from my college. 4. Yeah, this is the fun one - you're doing a highly research focused degree and finding somewhere that actually has a foot in the real world, in the exact area you want to study and build a startup around, is difficult. But if you can pull it off, I'm sure it could work. I got a lot of credit for starting a startup around my PhD topic - but I was forced to do so because I simply couldn't continue working on this stuff in academia any more, as it was too applied for my university.

snow_mac 16y ago

Do you have a PhD?

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

somedays 16y ago

You can do all these things without giving up half a dozen years of your life. In fact, in the years it takes one to complete a PHD, so much more could have been done in the outside world. This is a reality. But if YOU were to do PHD even then, its most likely because you just want to. Its not because its as valuable in any way you at look it as 5 to 6 years of equally sustained efforts in the industries one is doing PHD for. That is at least my experience. Abshir