3 ms·

As a grad student, I feel compelled to repeat my usual spiel: it's just supply and demand. All problems of grad school are caused by a massive oversupply of po

by knzhou 7y ago

As a grad student, I feel compelled to repeat my usual spiel: it's just supply and demand. All problems of grad school are caused by a massive oversupply of potential grad students, tens to hundreds of times more than necessary to fill all permanent faculty positions, and the fact that we willingly participate despite long hours, low wages, or, as the author complains, depressing architecture. As long as this holds, it cannot be stopped by any economic reform or social pressure. It's part of the deal when you sign up.

wronkos 7y ago
CS PhD student here. I think you're oversimplifying "all problems of grad school". For example, severe anxiety about developing interesting research and passing peer review (which often has randomness involved) has nothing to do with "supply and demand". Also, would you tell a depressed friend of yours that their declining mental health is "part of the deal"? Surely there's a better academic world we can create.
- knzhou 7y ago
  But these are fundamentally supply and demand issues. Why is there so much pressure to develop interesting research? Because there is a deluge of research coming out from our huge oversupply of graduate students, and you only will progress to the next stage if yours is deemed most interesting. Why is it hard to pass peer review? Exactly the same reason. Why don't people just quit their abusive advisors? Again, same reason. None of this is an argument against having empathy, but it is an argument against high-minded ideas that are supposed to change things without addressing the root problem, namely the 100:1 oversupply of grad students. For example, peer review can be brutal, so why not start journals with gentler peer review requirements? Well, those already exist, they're called lower-tier journals. But they haven't relieved the pressure on PhD students one bit, because you can't make a career by publishing only in such journals. So why not just ban top-tier journals? Then competition would instantly shift to drumming up buzz for your papers by some other route, to get citations. Why not ban selection based on citation counts? Competition instantly shifts to indirect avenues, such as recommendation letters from prestigious people or extreme polish in presentations. And so on.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- ssivark 7y ago
  As a simple example, (anecdotally) most CS graduate students currently have a much more comfortable (even cushy) time in grad school compared to counterparts in the hard sciences. Just an observation, not casting aspersions or making a value judgement.
ssivark 7y ago
Completely agreed with the fundamental point that it's all about the "funnel" from ~100 (arbitrary number) grad school hopefuls to ~1 tenured role. Unless the number of hopefuls changes, the only design choices correspond to a bunch of "selection events" where the group could be winnowed: grad school admission, qualifiers, granting degree, offer postdoc1 after degree, offer postdoc2 after postdoc1, offer tenure track after postdoc2, offer tenure after tenure review. The "shape" of the funnel will reflect the design choices we make, based on which groups to be "kind" towards, and which groups to be "brutal" towards. I think prevalent mindset is that it's acceptable to be most brutal in grad school admissions, or after granting PhDs -- because then people have a degree to take away and get to leave with a sense of closure, without much sunk cost worry. The system of each faculty member graduating significantly more than one student is fundamentally unsustainable, and will lead to all kinds of problems. They can only be shuffled around and partially hidden, but never fully solved. It's amazing how many otherwise smart people don't want to understand this.
- knzhou 7y ago
  Absolutely. I helped to write a series of tests that had to create a 200:1 funnel. There was some debate over whether it was less brutal to cut, say, 20:1 and then 10:1, or 10:1 and then 20:1, or perhaps add another stage and cut 10:1, 5:1, 4:1. For every argument for early cuts there was an equal and opposite argument for late cuts. But I think every cut was still equally cruel, since multiplication is commutative.
- Dumblydorr 7y ago
  100 is not bad. My friend got a PhD in humanities with the goal of professorship. He applied to positions where literally 150 other PhDs applied, so your chance is much less than 1%. And now, that friend is doing ad junct slavery, 10k a year for 15 hours a week, no benefits, plus only 3/15 students at this school do the homework and participate in class. And did I mention he had 300k in loans?

by knzhou 7y ago

wronkos 7y ago

CS PhD student here. I think you're oversimplifying "all problems of grad school". For example, severe anxiety about developing interesting research and passing peer review (which often has randomness involved) has nothing to do with "supply and demand". Also, would you tell a depressed friend of yours that their declining mental health is "part of the deal"? Surely there's a better academic world we can create.

knzhou 7y ago
But these are fundamentally supply and demand issues. Why is there so much pressure to develop interesting research? Because there is a deluge of research coming out from our huge oversupply of graduate students, and you only will progress to the next stage if yours is deemed most interesting. Why is it hard to pass peer review? Exactly the same reason. Why don't people just quit their abusive advisors? Again, same reason. None of this is an argument against having empathy, but it is an argument against high-minded ideas that are supposed to change things without addressing the root problem, namely the 100:1 oversupply of grad students. For example, peer review can be brutal, so why not start journals with gentler peer review requirements? Well, those already exist, they're called lower-tier journals. But they haven't relieved the pressure on PhD students one bit, because you can't make a career by publishing only in such journals. So why not just ban top-tier journals? Then competition would instantly shift to drumming up buzz for your papers by some other route, to get citations. Why not ban selection based on citation counts? Competition instantly shifts to indirect avenues, such as recommendation letters from prestigious people or extreme polish in presentations. And so on.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
ssivark 7y ago
As a simple example, (anecdotally) most CS graduate students currently have a much more comfortable (even cushy) time in grad school compared to counterparts in the hard sciences. Just an observation, not casting aspersions or making a value judgement.

ssivark 7y ago

Completely agreed with the fundamental point that it's all about the "funnel" from ~100 (arbitrary number) grad school hopefuls to ~1 tenured role. Unless the number of hopefuls changes, the only design choices correspond to a bunch of "selection events" where the group could be winnowed: grad school admission, qualifiers, granting degree, offer postdoc1 after degree, offer postdoc2 after postdoc1, offer tenure track after postdoc2, offer tenure after tenure review. The "shape" of the funnel will reflect the design choices we make, based on which groups to be "kind" towards, and which groups to be "brutal" towards. I think prevalent mindset is that it's acceptable to be most brutal in grad school admissions, or after granting PhDs -- because then people have a degree to take away and get to leave with a sense of closure, without much sunk cost worry. The system of each faculty member graduating significantly more than one student is fundamentally unsustainable, and will lead to all kinds of problems. They can only be shuffled around and partially hidden, but never fully solved. It's amazing how many otherwise smart people don't want to understand this.

knzhou 7y ago
Absolutely. I helped to write a series of tests that had to create a 200:1 funnel. There was some debate over whether it was less brutal to cut, say, 20:1 and then 10:1, or 10:1 and then 20:1, or perhaps add another stage and cut 10:1, 5:1, 4:1. For every argument for early cuts there was an equal and opposite argument for late cuts. But I think every cut was still equally cruel, since multiplication is commutative.
Dumblydorr 7y ago
100 is not bad. My friend got a PhD in humanities with the goal of professorship. He applied to positions where literally 150 other PhDs applied, so your chance is much less than 1%. And now, that friend is doing ad junct slavery, 10k a year for 15 hours a week, no benefits, plus only 3/15 students at this school do the homework and participate in class. And did I mention he had 300k in loans?