9 ms·

Goodbye to academic research

270 points by rsaarelm 16y ago

argv_empty 16y ago
I keep getting 503 on the site. Here's a coral cache: http://blog.devicerandom.org.nyud.net/2011/02/18/getting-a-life/ http://blog.devicerandom.org.nyud.net/2011/02/18/getting-a-l...
tjmaxal 16y ago
This is a good outline of a problem, with absolutely no insights into any possible solutions. As far as I'm concerned this is a half finished post. It's not enough to simply complain/outline the problem. You have to use that personal experience to offer up some kind of personal redemption or possible global solution to really keep the conversation moving.
- mkr-hn 16y ago
  You don't have to find solutions to point out a problem. He might be so fried by the experience that he doesn't have the presence of mind to come up with solutions. It seems like the goal might have been to put academia on notice so _it_ could determine whether or not it cares about the problem enough to solve it.
- scott_s 16y ago
  I hope this is a farcical attempt to write an academic-style review of his Dear John letter to academia.
chime 16y ago
Reading this article makes me realize I certainly picked the road not taken. Last year I quit my job as the Director of IT at a small pharma, dropped out of a company-paid MBA program, drastically reduced my expenses, and started doing independent research. A lot of people around me thought I was crazy especially since I wasn't going the PhD or startup route either. In my mind though, it seems pretty logical - I want to do real computer science research without all the BS that goes on with academia or corporate research lab. I'm more productive when working solo than in teams. And I already have a specific research project in mind. All I needed was to plan my life so I'd have 50-60hr/week free after my bills were paid. For the past two months, I've been working on my research project diligently and without any external delays. I know I won't get a degree out of this and I doubt I can get published but since that's not my end-goal, it doesn't matter. I am looking for a hardware hacker if anyone is interested - it is a very fun/rewarding project: http://ktype.net http://ktype.net
- tjmaxal 16y ago
  Are you just doing research for researches sake? If so good for you. If not, why try and do it independently? Don't you think you deserve to be rewarded for your work? i.e. compensated either with prestige or money? At the very least would you like to be compensated for you contributions to the field?
  - nutanc 16y ago
    Prestige and compensation are two ways of being rewarded. Another way is to just see your work make the world a better place and feel satisfied.
  - chime 16y ago
    I guess I'm doing it for the end-goal's sake. I really do want people with disabilities to be able to communicate better, including my own cousin. As long as my bills are being paid (regardless of the source of income), I don't need any rewards. I'm not a saint or anything - I just don't want to deal with the overhead of funding, grants, scholarships, sales, marketing, clients, customers. I want to make a usable, innovative product and keep improving it. A few years ago my preliminary version got #1 on HN ( http://chir.ag/projects/ktype/ http://chir.ag/projects/ktype/ ) and since that day I have been working hard to change my life so I could work on it full-time. Took over a year but I can finally do it now, so I'm very happy.
    - msg 16y ago
      You might not want "customers" but nothing will help you innovate like users. Where I work we get mountains of feedback and use it to justify new features and to prioritize bug fixes.
      - chime 16y ago
        I wholeheartedly agree and I intend to start working with my potential users very soon.
- jazzyb 16y ago
snippyhollow 16y ago
It is a matter of finding balance: finding the right advisor, keeping some time for your other life (your girlfriend, your friends) even if you will have deadline rushes and think about your problem under the shower. This is a common problem to all passionate people more than only "scientists". It just seems that you find a lot of passionate scientist in academia. This writing seems about right (except that I didn't experience that much bad collaboration/competition though, even if I know it exists) to me, a second year Ph.D student in AI applied to RTS games. I don't really like that you have to work 24/7 to not be left behind, and I don't work that much indeed. Life is too short to have yours dictated by the actions of others. If you want to stop at 50hours/week while doing research, just try and make it so (focus your topic and focus on your advantages). But I'm happy pursuing a Ph.D. I don't have a fixed mindset/idea of what I would like to do next though: a startup? Working at a big firm? Seeking tenure? All options will be considered, but right now: I enjoy being paid (not much, particularly compared to my Masters prom comrades) to work on interesting topics and sometimes teach guys at the University about one of my passions (CS), with a great advisor (I picked him socially great and scientifically sharp, the mid-low h-index and the beard are byproducts), and so much intelligent people all around.
- rflrob 16y ago
  > This is a common problem to all passionate people more than only "scientists". It just seems that you find a lot of passionate scientist in academia. The reason you find a lot of passionate people in academia, I think, has a large part to do with the PhD process. The monetary compensation isn't great for highly skilled labor, so the only way you'll be able to get through 5+ years of it is if you think it's the most fun thing you can be doing (or at least you think that for some large-ish fraction of the process).
rubidium 16y ago
Thankfully this guy figured it out when he was only 30. He's still got lots of time to figure out new ways to use and market the skills he has acquired. New thought: academia isn't broken, there are just too many people who want to be academics. What do people think?
- robryan 16y ago
  In a perfect world, the growth in automation that improves efficiency should create more places for people who can engage in academic research for more longer term goals. Obviously wealth distribution is far from perfect. I think it's really a wasted opportunity that so many are ready and willing to devote their lives to research and we can't make the economics work for it.
- achompas 16y ago
  New thought: academia isn't broken, there are just too many people who want to be academics. What do people think? Not too much of a new thought, the recent Economist article [0] on academic made a similar assertion. [0] http://www.economist.com/node/17723223?story_id=17723223 http://www.economist.com/node/17723223?story_id=17723223
  - mhartl 16y ago
    Indeed, the OP cites the very same article.
narkee 16y ago
I've observed that success in an academic environment requires more than simply scientific acumen. It also requires relentless self-promotion, networking and a passion not only for science, but for winning the academic game. There are a lot of good science minded people, and there are a lot of good, driven self-promoters. Most successful scientists you encounter (apart from the odd genius) belong in the intersection between groups.
- jeffdavis 16y ago
  Well, some amount of self-promotion is necessary for success almost anywhere. Sure, if you come up with something miraculous, then it markets itself. But otherwise you have to make sure that the right group of people knows about it or your idea will just fade away.
beetmik 16y ago
Just to put it in perspective, I'm sure it's a real curse to have to spend the rest of your life doing something you purportedly absolutely love to do in a hell-hole like Pisa, Italy. That said, my heart absolutely goes out to this person who is apparently really depressed. Hope he can find his happiness in life.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  According to someone I know who got a job there, Pisa is a very boring town. Some scenery plus a few tourist traps, low standard of living compared to the US [1], very little to do. Sounds fun before you go, much less fun after you've been there a few months. [1] For hard numbers, I found this site, suggesting a professor in Italy has a real income about 2/3 that of a US professor: http://www.worldsalaries.org/professor.shtml http://www.worldsalaries.org/professor.shtml
  - Panoramix 16y ago
    Pisa is a nice (but tiny) town, which will be boring if you are young and are use to the big city life. That being said I don't agree that the standard of living is low compared to the US; the standard of living really depends on what you look for. For me the salary is a poor indicator of quality of life. I'd rather earn less and have more holidays, live in a place with great food, art & culture, slower rhythm of life, less pollution, health care, and nice landscapes.
- ot 16y ago
  I spent 7 years in Pisa and I moved to Cambridge some months ago. Cambridge is way more boring and depressing than Pisa.
deleted 16y ago
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- apl 16y ago
  > but how credible is he as a source if he can't even pass his quals? Where did he say that?
  - RickHull 16y ago
    The graphic showing what actually happened vs. what he planned.
    - crocowhile 16y ago
      That is a comic from "PhD comic", for newton sake.
- microarchitect 16y ago
  Where did you get the notion that he couldn't even pass his quals? Moreover, what does that have do with the correctness of his complaints. On an unrelated note, I find it mildly interesting you say it was your "fault" that you weren't cut out for academic research.
duncanj 16y ago
My current theory for success in academia (and I'm not an academic so take it with a grain of salt) is a sort of synthesis of Dick Hamming's thoughts and other things I've read. 1. The purpose of a Ph.D. is to become a pre-eminent expert in a field. It's not to get a piece of paper. If you're not working on a career that will make you an expert, you'll be disappointed with your options after you have achieved your doctorate. 2. Find the interesting problems that people are afraid to work on and work on them very hard. 3. Use lots of techniques and approach your problems from many sides. Often something cool will shake out of the mix, and it won't have been in your research proposal. 4. If you aren't self-motivated, it's not right for you. If you don't enjoy the work, take your masters and go do something you enjoy. 5. Prepare your life for long hours and low pay with lots of frustration. Research doesn't proceed easily from point to point and it's all about being around when you accidentally make a breakthrough. I'm sure I'm about 90% wrong, but perhaps less wrong than the naive, "Ph.D. is a way to stay in school and not have to face the real world" point of view.
- yogsototh 16y ago
  My vision: A rabbit is writing into a forest. A fox see him: Fox: "What are you writing?" Rabbit: "How rabbit eat Foxes" Fox: "It is completely wrong! You deserve I eat you now!" Rabbit: "Please, just go see my supervisor before. He's in this cave." The Fox enter into the cave and never go out. The rabbit continue to write. The same occurs with a wolf. And a bit latter with a bear. Except the bear cannot enter into the cave. Then a Lion go out and kill the bear. Conclusion. No matter if you are good or not. No matter the subject of your thesis. Only matter who's your supervisor.
  - gort 16y ago
    A nice parable, though bears would destroy lions in combat if they met. :)
achompas 16y ago
There is a second option, which is bare survival. What about the third option: get your PhD and work in industry? I keep coming across statistics and CS PhDs who now work for Twitter, the New York Times, and industry research labs (AT&T, Microsoft). Why isn't an industry job a viable option?
- barry-cotter 16y ago
  Because a Masters is almost as good for getting an industry job, and a Masters plus a 4 years relevant job experience is superior for the majority of positions where they hire Ph.D.s. And during those four years, the doctoral candidate was getting paid crap, the Masters's graduate raking it in.
- timr 16y ago
  "I keep coming across statistics and CS PhDs who now work for Twitter, the New York Times, and industry research labs (AT&T, Microsoft). Why isn't an industry job a viable option?" Because (speaking as one of those people), a PhD is total overkill for nearly all industry jobs, and it costs a lot more to get one. It also probably works against you in most parts of the tech industry, where there's a surprising amount of blind opposition to anyone with a doctorate. Finally, remember people with PhDs who work in industry have made a difficult, conscious decision to abandon the academic life. It's not the expected outcome, and there's an intense cultural pressure not to leave the ivory tower.
  - bd 16y ago
    "It also probably works against you in most parts of the tech industry, where there's a surprising amount of blind opposition to anyone with a doctorate." I didn't encounter any doctorate-opposition per se. I think it's more opportunity cost issue. Tech industry is quite meritocratic. Problem for many people with PhDs is that this is the only thing they can show after many years spent hidden in academia, working on esoteric things. If you keep up your real world skills during graduate school, I believe nobody is going to hold your degree against you. At least that was my experience (and experience of my classmates from graduate school). We did a lot of nitty-gritty software engineering during graduate school (ideas from our papers had to be implemented and integrated into bigger projects, that's how funding pipeline worked). Also it helps not to act smug about your degree - industry is full of very smart people who didn't even go to university.
RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
You're only getting one side of this, and before you find yourself in complete agreement ask yourself this: Are you agreeing because it confirms your bias and opinion of the academic system? I got a PhD from Cambridge. Everyone I worked with was helpful to a fault. Everyone shared credit when it was due, and declined offers of credit when they felt they hadn't contributed enough. I got my PhD, got a 3 year post-doc, changed fields into another 3 year post-doc, then got head-hunted into industry. My experience of academia couldn't be more different from the one described here. There's a story told of an elderly gentleman sitting sunning himself outside the city gates when a traveller came by. "What are people like here?" asked the traveller. "What were they like where you came from?" asked the elderly gentleman. Then no matter what the answer, he'd always say: "You'll find people here pretty much the same." I'm not saying that this individual didn't have bad experiences, I'm not saying he deserved them, I'm not saying academia is all roses, and I'm not saying manipulative sociopaths don't exist. They do. But my personal experience is different.
- mkr-hn 16y ago
  That's the hard part about things like this. It's almost completely subjective, so doing a study would be difficult. We're left with dueling anecdotes from credible people.
  - _delirium 16y ago
    Different fields vary a lot also, so it's probably not that useful to try to talk about "academia" as a whole. Not only do we have dueling anecdotes, but they aren't even anecdotes on the same subject. =] Imo, the pros and cons of being a physics versus a philosophy versus a CS academic just aren't that similar. I can believe that the 'hard' sciences are roughly like he says, at least at many places. It's common for there to be a sort of "lab" mentality, with a lot of grad-student cogs in a famous-professor-lab machine, and credit tends to go to the head of the lab (especially if the paper has 50 authors or something, as is common in some areas). Partly that's because it takes a lot of money to set up a physics/chem/bio lab, and there is a lot of grunt-work to be done. That's less common in CS, I think. Not inexistent, but you can find a research group that isn't like that. It's even less common in the humanities, but then you have a whole different set of problems (less money, fewer jobs).
amh 16y ago
Having spent some time in the academia sausage factory, I think this guy is fairly close to the mark. A lot of time and effort is consumed simply writing grants and genuflecting for government money. A perpetual stream of cheap labor (postdocs) is necessary to keep the cash spigot flowing, even though many of them have zero chance for a real career in their chosen field. I've seen incredibly petty behavior over attribution and credit on papers. I think most scientific progress happens in spite of the academic system, and not because of it. In some ways the old system of patronage was superior -- you had a direct connection between a king or wealthy merchant who had an interest in something, and the scientists who needed funding to investigate it, instead of a vast bureaucracy that probably consumes more than the total amount it exists to allocate.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
jtbigwoo 16y ago
This is how many, many professions work. Musicians, writers, inventors, athletes, research scientists, pilots, and even small business owners all have the same career path. A few really driven, really lucky ones win the lottery and get to be household names. A small minority (maybe 1 - 5%) make an upper middle class living. The other 99% work for poor wages until they give up or get used up. It sucks, but it's hardly unique to science. If you're in a profession with a massive oversupply of labor, you can pretty much be guaranteed to see this kind of structure. I also spent half the article thinking that the author's struggles with vocabulary and grammar might explain his/her struggles to get ahead. Perhaps he/she is a non-native speaker and that's adding to the trouble?
- mhartl 16y ago
  I also spent half the article thinking that the author's struggles with vocabulary and grammar might explain his/her struggles to get ahead. Perhaps he/she is a non-native speaker and that's adding to the trouble? I also noticed the many grammatical flaws in this post. I did a little digging, and the author does indeed appear to be a non-native speaker. (He's Italian: http://wiki.devicerandom.org/Who_am_I. http://wiki.devicerandom.org/Who_am_I.)
- msluyter 16y ago
  As an ex-classical musician, I can attest to your first point. However, the science Ph.D. glut seems to be generating more angst these days than it used to. I attribute this in part to rising tuition costs and greater student debt loads and an ever increasing disparity between supply and demand. I believe this Economist article was recently referenced on HN: http://www.economist.com/node/17723223?story_id=17723223 http://www.economist.com/node/17723223?story_id=17723223 Indeed, the production of PhDs has far outstripped demand for university lecturers. In a recent book, Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus, an academic and a journalist, report that America produced more than 100,000 doctoral degrees between 2005 and 2009. In the same period there were just 16,000 new professorships. Using PhD students to do much of the undergraduate teaching cuts the number of full-time jobs.
- tzs 16y ago
  For pilots, I don't think you want to be one of the ones who gets to become a household name, as that generally only happens when you are the pilot during a crash or serious emergency.
mdink 16y ago
Isn't the real problem here that we rely on "academia" to be the "experts"? I know a number of very accomplished and intelligent folks that did not pursue PhD and have done phenomenally well in their own research. But sadly many, for credibility's sake, had to advertise themselves as think tanks. Why can't we just put the damn degrees down and listen to the person to judge their competency??
- 16s 16y ago
  Self taught mathematicians used to be very common (100 years ago).
josgraha 16y ago
Here's a link to that article on The Economist that states there are too many people doing too much of _everything_ and life is hard in general. Oh wait, that doesn't exist yet perhaps because that's reality. It sounds like he has spent so much time doing everything but what he _should_ be doing which is looking for something he actually _enjoys_ doing. Not that the article wasn't insightful or lucid or anything but this article struck me in he clearly enjoys complaining about his work life than doing it so there's a problem. I don't love my job but I enjoy doing it most of the time and I have great hobbies, a great partner in life and am happier and fitter than I have ever been. Perhaps he should try doing different things and see how that works out as when you are doing something you don't have any expectations. Why would you say "I love science, I just don't love doing it?". I love Formula One cars but don't know anything about driving them but I love riding motorcycles, and riding bikes. He needs to find the action verb that defines his work life and not impose any expectations from a noun he associates with "love."
arjunnarayan 16y ago
I'm going to have to disagree with the article for many reasons: First, I'm a Ph.D student and thus obviously biased. But second, while Ph.Ds can be unwise life decisions for many, it really depends on your field, and the most relevant field to this demographic is computer science. It really doesn't work that way in CS because such a high volume of computer scientists leave academia post-Ph.D into industry. CS industry (and the finance industry) has an insatiable thirst for deeply knowledgeable qualified Ph.Ds. I don't know what the cost benefit is (of spending 4 years in academia vs getting paid high industry salaries) and I'm sure you could make more money going straight into a tech job; but I'm going to assume here that we are maximizing more than just $\sum_{life} income$ here. PG has a Ph.D; he did fine (yay anecdote). In my various internships around tech companies, there were plenty of senior coders who had Ph.Ds. And if you have a Ph.D in a relevant niche, you're probably going to be headhunted and well sought after. Where else does Wall Street or Google hire top machine learning specialists? Now a Ph.D in sociology on the other hand... where do you go from there?
- NY_USA_Hacker 16y ago
  Sociology Ph.D.? The better sociology programs try hard to be mathematical, in particular, good with non-parametic statistics, all of multivariate statistics, and log-linear. Also actually doing science in sociology is tough because have to be so careful about problem formulation, controls, spurious correlations, sampling, measures (reliability and validity). So, for any solid quantitative work on marketing, ad targeting, public relations, public opinion polling, social program design and evaluation, organizational design and evaluation (i.e., high end HR) a good sociology background is about the best. As I recall, P&G knows this, but I don't know how many others know it!
retube 16y ago
WELCOME TO LIFE. I've worked in academia, industry and finance. It's all a pyramid. Play the game or you'll be passed over.
- defilade 16y ago
  Exactly. Those of you who think the world is fair or based on merit need to read "Power: Why Some People Have It - And Others Don't" by Jeffrey Pfeffer. The world isn't fair. This is true whether you're in academia or industry, and accepting this fact isn't a bad thing, nor does it mean you've given in to the dark side. As retube points out, if you don't play the game you're conceding before you even start.
ryanjmo 16y ago
So, I often have to justify the time I spent getting a PhD in computer science (Cryptography), because I have a start-up that programs Facebook Apps now a days. The only reason I can, is because I really didn't spend that much time actually working during the whole period and spent a lot of time learning to surf and play tennis well. I really feel like I learned a lot of valuable lessons from learning to play tennis and to surf. I'm really glad my PhD afforded me time and money to make that possible.
PaulHoule 16y ago
I had a similar painful revelation, as do 95% of people who get science PhD's. Fortunately it happened when I was a postdoc, so at least I got my honorable discharge.
marknutter 16y ago
When I graduated with my degree in physics, I was introduced to something called Ruby on Rails, and instead of go on to grad school I pivoted into the life of a web developer. Best thing that ever happened to me.
- mhartl 16y ago
  I did go to physics grad school, but eventually I came around. :-) http://railstutorial.org/book#author http://railstutorial.org/book#author
pbiggar 16y ago
While I sympathize with the author, I don't think we can generalize from his experience all that much. For a balancing anecdote, here's my life progression to date: Bachelors: 22 Start PhD: 24 Meet girl: 25 Get engaged: 27 Submit thesis: 27 s/girlfriend/wife/: 28 Get 6 figure salary working for Mozilla: 28 Am now: 29 Yes, everything turned out better than expected (though I omitted the bit where I started and folded a company in there), and it could have gone horribly wrong. But you just can't generalize about doing a PhD, or anything really, from his anecdote, or from mine.
deleted 16y ago
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ylem 16y ago
I am a researcher who's fortunate enough to have found a permanent position at a place that I love doing work that I enjoy. I've served on program committees of conferences, organized workshops, etc. However, I must admit that some of the OPs thoughts are correct. There is definitely a problem with an oversupply of PhDs relative to the job market for physics (and likely biology). For a position at say Berkeley for a biology faculty position there used to be approx. 600 applicants per position. For physics at first tier or second tier institutions the number may drop to 200. Even if we are cruel and suggest that half of those are unqualified, that still leaves a large pool of extraordinarily qualified people competing for a rather small pool of jobs. I see this regularly when there are young postdocs with good publication records (Nature, PRL, etc.) who are having trouble finding permanent positions after their postdocs. Part of this may be related to decreased state funding and hiring freezes (in several states, there have been furloughs). Even for postdocs who have decided that they would prefer to work at an undergraduate institution and teach, the competition is fierce. Oddly, even for those that want to teach at a public high school, it's hard because of the education requirements (you can run a facility, teach freshmen at an elite college--but teaching high school seniors....). Things are so fierce that it's rather hard to have much selectivity about geography. This can wreak havoc with relationships and in physics is known as the two body problem--where a couple in science has difficulty finding positions in the same zipcode. As one colleague told me, she'd be happy to just have the same timezone.... For my subfield, industrial research positions have been gradually drying up (at least for doing physics rather than engineering). A number of companies in the past were able to use monopoly profits to drive research (think of AT&T Bell Labs which is now but a shadow of it's former self--when I was there as an intern, it was amazing....). However, many have scaled back. Thus, I have seen a number of people pursuing various exit strategies. During the internet boom (where I had decided to drop computer engineering as a major because physics was more fun), a number of people who could code dropped out an joined startups. Later, people from Ivy institutions joined consulting firms such as McKinsey (with a "mini-MBA"). Later, a number joined in the gold rush of financial engineering. While that continues, many go through a brief masters first to get their foot in the door. A few turn to more engineering related work. So, while the unemployment rate for physics PhDs is low--not so many are actually still doing physics research. For myself, I'll take on undergraduate and high school interns. No graduate students. I really respect String Theorists who for years intentionally limited the number of students they would accept due to the paucity of permanent positions. For years, I'd been reluctant to take on a postdoc due to the current situation. Now, I've taken on my first postdoc and will do my best by him--but I have to be honest about the job market and I'm having him learn some programming as a plan B. Plan C is that I'm very confident that he'll be able to get a position in his home country afterwards. I've seen some people who are bitter (think of the opportunity costs!) when they leave. But, I've seen some who are mellow--"At least I got to work with something beautiful for awhile....".Part of the difficulty is that for scientists, you don't go into it for the money (at least I hope you don't!), you go into it for love. So, doing science becomes not just a job, but rather a calling and a way of life. So, someone's sense of self may often become tied to being a scientist--and that's hard to leave behind... So to summarize, while all fields of science are not cutthroat, given the level of competition, it is very hard to find a job. Also, given the level, then people have to work extremely hard and it takes a toll on people's personal lives (it's hard to have one when average work weeks extend to 60-80 hrs for a number of experimentalists--my solution has been to sleep less, but I'm told that's unhealthy...).

270 points by rsaarelm 16y ago

I keep getting 503 on the site. Here's a coral cache: http://blog.devicerandom.org.nyud.net/2011/02/18/getting-a-life/ http://blog.devicerandom.org.nyud.net/2011/02/18/getting-a-l...

tjmaxal 16y ago

This is a good outline of a problem, with absolutely no insights into any possible solutions. As far as I'm concerned this is a half finished post. It's not enough to simply complain/outline the problem. You have to use that personal experience to offer up some kind of personal redemption or possible global solution to really keep the conversation moving.

mkr-hn 16y ago
You don't have to find solutions to point out a problem. He might be so fried by the experience that he doesn't have the presence of mind to come up with solutions. It seems like the goal might have been to put academia on notice so _it_ could determine whether or not it cares about the problem enough to solve it.
scott_s 16y ago
I hope this is a farcical attempt to write an academic-style review of his Dear John letter to academia.

chime 16y ago

Reading this article makes me realize I certainly picked the road not taken. Last year I quit my job as the Director of IT at a small pharma, dropped out of a company-paid MBA program, drastically reduced my expenses, and started doing independent research. A lot of people around me thought I was crazy especially since I wasn't going the PhD or startup route either. In my mind though, it seems pretty logical - I want to do real computer science research without all the BS that goes on with academia or corporate research lab. I'm more productive when working solo than in teams. And I already have a specific research project in mind. All I needed was to plan my life so I'd have 50-60hr/week free after my bills were paid. For the past two months, I've been working on my research project diligently and without any external delays. I know I won't get a degree out of this and I doubt I can get published but since that's not my end-goal, it doesn't matter. I am looking for a hardware hacker if anyone is interested - it is a very fun/rewarding project: http://ktype.net http://ktype.net

tjmaxal 16y ago
Are you just doing research for researches sake? If so good for you. If not, why try and do it independently? Don't you think you deserve to be rewarded for your work? i.e. compensated either with prestige or money? At the very least would you like to be compensated for you contributions to the field?
- nutanc 16y ago
  Prestige and compensation are two ways of being rewarded. Another way is to just see your work make the world a better place and feel satisfied.
- chime 16y ago
  I guess I'm doing it for the end-goal's sake. I really do want people with disabilities to be able to communicate better, including my own cousin. As long as my bills are being paid (regardless of the source of income), I don't need any rewards. I'm not a saint or anything - I just don't want to deal with the overhead of funding, grants, scholarships, sales, marketing, clients, customers. I want to make a usable, innovative product and keep improving it. A few years ago my preliminary version got #1 on HN ( http://chir.ag/projects/ktype/ http://chir.ag/projects/ktype/ ) and since that day I have been working hard to change my life so I could work on it full-time. Took over a year but I can finally do it now, so I'm very happy.
  - msg 16y ago
    You might not want "customers" but nothing will help you innovate like users. Where I work we get mountains of feedback and use it to justify new features and to prioritize bug fixes.
    - chime 16y ago
      I wholeheartedly agree and I intend to start working with my potential users very soon.
jazzyb 16y ago

snippyhollow 16y ago

It is a matter of finding balance: finding the right advisor, keeping some time for your other life (your girlfriend, your friends) even if you will have deadline rushes and think about your problem under the shower. This is a common problem to all passionate people more than only "scientists". It just seems that you find a lot of passionate scientist in academia. This writing seems about right (except that I didn't experience that much bad collaboration/competition though, even if I know it exists) to me, a second year Ph.D student in AI applied to RTS games. I don't really like that you have to work 24/7 to not be left behind, and I don't work that much indeed. Life is too short to have yours dictated by the actions of others. If you want to stop at 50hours/week while doing research, just try and make it so (focus your topic and focus on your advantages). But I'm happy pursuing a Ph.D. I don't have a fixed mindset/idea of what I would like to do next though: a startup? Working at a big firm? Seeking tenure? All options will be considered, but right now: I enjoy being paid (not much, particularly compared to my Masters prom comrades) to work on interesting topics and sometimes teach guys at the University about one of my passions (CS), with a great advisor (I picked him socially great and scientifically sharp, the mid-low h-index and the beard are byproducts), and so much intelligent people all around.

rflrob 16y ago
> This is a common problem to all passionate people more than only "scientists". It just seems that you find a lot of passionate scientist in academia. The reason you find a lot of passionate people in academia, I think, has a large part to do with the PhD process. The monetary compensation isn't great for highly skilled labor, so the only way you'll be able to get through 5+ years of it is if you think it's the most fun thing you can be doing (or at least you think that for some large-ish fraction of the process).

rubidium 16y ago

Thankfully this guy figured it out when he was only 30. He's still got lots of time to figure out new ways to use and market the skills he has acquired. New thought: academia isn't broken, there are just too many people who want to be academics. What do people think?

robryan 16y ago
In a perfect world, the growth in automation that improves efficiency should create more places for people who can engage in academic research for more longer term goals. Obviously wealth distribution is far from perfect. I think it's really a wasted opportunity that so many are ready and willing to devote their lives to research and we can't make the economics work for it.
achompas 16y ago
New thought: academia isn't broken, there are just too many people who want to be academics. What do people think? Not too much of a new thought, the recent Economist article [0] on academic made a similar assertion. [0] http://www.economist.com/node/17723223?story_id=17723223 http://www.economist.com/node/17723223?story_id=17723223
- mhartl 16y ago
  Indeed, the OP cites the very same article.

narkee 16y ago

I've observed that success in an academic environment requires more than simply scientific acumen. It also requires relentless self-promotion, networking and a passion not only for science, but for winning the academic game. There are a lot of good science minded people, and there are a lot of good, driven self-promoters. Most successful scientists you encounter (apart from the odd genius) belong in the intersection between groups.

jeffdavis 16y ago
Well, some amount of self-promotion is necessary for success almost anywhere. Sure, if you come up with something miraculous, then it markets itself. But otherwise you have to make sure that the right group of people knows about it or your idea will just fade away.

beetmik 16y ago

Just to put it in perspective, I'm sure it's a real curse to have to spend the rest of your life doing something you purportedly absolutely love to do in a hell-hole like Pisa, Italy. That said, my heart absolutely goes out to this person who is apparently really depressed. Hope he can find his happiness in life.

yummyfajitas 16y ago
According to someone I know who got a job there, Pisa is a very boring town. Some scenery plus a few tourist traps, low standard of living compared to the US [1], very little to do. Sounds fun before you go, much less fun after you've been there a few months. [1] For hard numbers, I found this site, suggesting a professor in Italy has a real income about 2/3 that of a US professor: http://www.worldsalaries.org/professor.shtml http://www.worldsalaries.org/professor.shtml
- Panoramix 16y ago
  Pisa is a nice (but tiny) town, which will be boring if you are young and are use to the big city life. That being said I don't agree that the standard of living is low compared to the US; the standard of living really depends on what you look for. For me the salary is a poor indicator of quality of life. I'd rather earn less and have more holidays, live in a place with great food, art & culture, slower rhythm of life, less pollution, health care, and nice landscapes.
ot 16y ago
I spent 7 years in Pisa and I moved to Cambridge some months ago. Cambridge is way more boring and depressing than Pisa.

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apl 16y ago
> but how credible is he as a source if he can't even pass his quals? Where did he say that?
- RickHull 16y ago
  The graphic showing what actually happened vs. what he planned.
  - crocowhile 16y ago
    That is a comic from "PhD comic", for newton sake.
microarchitect 16y ago
Where did you get the notion that he couldn't even pass his quals? Moreover, what does that have do with the correctness of his complaints. On an unrelated note, I find it mildly interesting you say it was your "fault" that you weren't cut out for academic research.

duncanj 16y ago

My current theory for success in academia (and I'm not an academic so take it with a grain of salt) is a sort of synthesis of Dick Hamming's thoughts and other things I've read. 1. The purpose of a Ph.D. is to become a pre-eminent expert in a field. It's not to get a piece of paper. If you're not working on a career that will make you an expert, you'll be disappointed with your options after you have achieved your doctorate. 2. Find the interesting problems that people are afraid to work on and work on them very hard. 3. Use lots of techniques and approach your problems from many sides. Often something cool will shake out of the mix, and it won't have been in your research proposal. 4. If you aren't self-motivated, it's not right for you. If you don't enjoy the work, take your masters and go do something you enjoy. 5. Prepare your life for long hours and low pay with lots of frustration. Research doesn't proceed easily from point to point and it's all about being around when you accidentally make a breakthrough. I'm sure I'm about 90% wrong, but perhaps less wrong than the naive, "Ph.D. is a way to stay in school and not have to face the real world" point of view.

yogsototh 16y ago
My vision: A rabbit is writing into a forest. A fox see him: Fox: "What are you writing?" Rabbit: "How rabbit eat Foxes" Fox: "It is completely wrong! You deserve I eat you now!" Rabbit: "Please, just go see my supervisor before. He's in this cave." The Fox enter into the cave and never go out. The rabbit continue to write. The same occurs with a wolf. And a bit latter with a bear. Except the bear cannot enter into the cave. Then a Lion go out and kill the bear. Conclusion. No matter if you are good or not. No matter the subject of your thesis. Only matter who's your supervisor.
- gort 16y ago
  A nice parable, though bears would destroy lions in combat if they met. :)

achompas 16y ago

There is a second option, which is bare survival. What about the third option: get your PhD and work in industry? I keep coming across statistics and CS PhDs who now work for Twitter, the New York Times, and industry research labs (AT&T, Microsoft). Why isn't an industry job a viable option?

barry-cotter 16y ago
Because a Masters is almost as good for getting an industry job, and a Masters plus a 4 years relevant job experience is superior for the majority of positions where they hire Ph.D.s. And during those four years, the doctoral candidate was getting paid crap, the Masters's graduate raking it in.
timr 16y ago
"I keep coming across statistics and CS PhDs who now work for Twitter, the New York Times, and industry research labs (AT&T, Microsoft). Why isn't an industry job a viable option?" Because (speaking as one of those people), a PhD is total overkill for nearly all industry jobs, and it costs a lot more to get one. It also probably works against you in most parts of the tech industry, where there's a surprising amount of blind opposition to anyone with a doctorate. Finally, remember people with PhDs who work in industry have made a difficult, conscious decision to abandon the academic life. It's not the expected outcome, and there's an intense cultural pressure not to leave the ivory tower.
- bd 16y ago
  "It also probably works against you in most parts of the tech industry, where there's a surprising amount of blind opposition to anyone with a doctorate." I didn't encounter any doctorate-opposition per se. I think it's more opportunity cost issue. Tech industry is quite meritocratic. Problem for many people with PhDs is that this is the only thing they can show after many years spent hidden in academia, working on esoteric things. If you keep up your real world skills during graduate school, I believe nobody is going to hold your degree against you. At least that was my experience (and experience of my classmates from graduate school). We did a lot of nitty-gritty software engineering during graduate school (ideas from our papers had to be implemented and integrated into bigger projects, that's how funding pipeline worked). Also it helps not to act smug about your degree - industry is full of very smart people who didn't even go to university.

RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago

You're only getting one side of this, and before you find yourself in complete agreement ask yourself this: Are you agreeing because it confirms your bias and opinion of the academic system? I got a PhD from Cambridge. Everyone I worked with was helpful to a fault. Everyone shared credit when it was due, and declined offers of credit when they felt they hadn't contributed enough. I got my PhD, got a 3 year post-doc, changed fields into another 3 year post-doc, then got head-hunted into industry. My experience of academia couldn't be more different from the one described here. There's a story told of an elderly gentleman sitting sunning himself outside the city gates when a traveller came by. "What are people like here?" asked the traveller. "What were they like where you came from?" asked the elderly gentleman. Then no matter what the answer, he'd always say: "You'll find people here pretty much the same." I'm not saying that this individual didn't have bad experiences, I'm not saying he deserved them, I'm not saying academia is all roses, and I'm not saying manipulative sociopaths don't exist. They do. But my personal experience is different.

mkr-hn 16y ago
That's the hard part about things like this. It's almost completely subjective, so doing a study would be difficult. We're left with dueling anecdotes from credible people.
- _delirium 16y ago
  Different fields vary a lot also, so it's probably not that useful to try to talk about "academia" as a whole. Not only do we have dueling anecdotes, but they aren't even anecdotes on the same subject. =] Imo, the pros and cons of being a physics versus a philosophy versus a CS academic just aren't that similar. I can believe that the 'hard' sciences are roughly like he says, at least at many places. It's common for there to be a sort of "lab" mentality, with a lot of grad-student cogs in a famous-professor-lab machine, and credit tends to go to the head of the lab (especially if the paper has 50 authors or something, as is common in some areas). Partly that's because it takes a lot of money to set up a physics/chem/bio lab, and there is a lot of grunt-work to be done. That's less common in CS, I think. Not inexistent, but you can find a research group that isn't like that. It's even less common in the humanities, but then you have a whole different set of problems (less money, fewer jobs).

amh 16y ago

Having spent some time in the academia sausage factory, I think this guy is fairly close to the mark. A lot of time and effort is consumed simply writing grants and genuflecting for government money. A perpetual stream of cheap labor (postdocs) is necessary to keep the cash spigot flowing, even though many of them have zero chance for a real career in their chosen field. I've seen incredibly petty behavior over attribution and credit on papers. I think most scientific progress happens in spite of the academic system, and not because of it. In some ways the old system of patronage was superior -- you had a direct connection between a king or wealthy merchant who had an interest in something, and the scientists who needed funding to investigate it, instead of a vast bureaucracy that probably consumes more than the total amount it exists to allocate.

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jtbigwoo 16y ago

This is how many, many professions work. Musicians, writers, inventors, athletes, research scientists, pilots, and even small business owners all have the same career path. A few really driven, really lucky ones win the lottery and get to be household names. A small minority (maybe 1 - 5%) make an upper middle class living. The other 99% work for poor wages until they give up or get used up. It sucks, but it's hardly unique to science. If you're in a profession with a massive oversupply of labor, you can pretty much be guaranteed to see this kind of structure. I also spent half the article thinking that the author's struggles with vocabulary and grammar might explain his/her struggles to get ahead. Perhaps he/she is a non-native speaker and that's adding to the trouble?

mhartl 16y ago
I also spent half the article thinking that the author's struggles with vocabulary and grammar might explain his/her struggles to get ahead. Perhaps he/she is a non-native speaker and that's adding to the trouble? I also noticed the many grammatical flaws in this post. I did a little digging, and the author does indeed appear to be a non-native speaker. (He's Italian: http://wiki.devicerandom.org/Who_am_I. http://wiki.devicerandom.org/Who_am_I.)
msluyter 16y ago
As an ex-classical musician, I can attest to your first point. However, the science Ph.D. glut seems to be generating more angst these days than it used to. I attribute this in part to rising tuition costs and greater student debt loads and an ever increasing disparity between supply and demand. I believe this Economist article was recently referenced on HN: http://www.economist.com/node/17723223?story_id=17723223 http://www.economist.com/node/17723223?story_id=17723223 Indeed, the production of PhDs has far outstripped demand for university lecturers. In a recent book, Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus, an academic and a journalist, report that America produced more than 100,000 doctoral degrees between 2005 and 2009. In the same period there were just 16,000 new professorships. Using PhD students to do much of the undergraduate teaching cuts the number of full-time jobs.
tzs 16y ago
For pilots, I don't think you want to be one of the ones who gets to become a household name, as that generally only happens when you are the pilot during a crash or serious emergency.

mdink 16y ago

Isn't the real problem here that we rely on "academia" to be the "experts"? I know a number of very accomplished and intelligent folks that did not pursue PhD and have done phenomenally well in their own research. But sadly many, for credibility's sake, had to advertise themselves as think tanks. Why can't we just put the damn degrees down and listen to the person to judge their competency??

16s 16y ago
Self taught mathematicians used to be very common (100 years ago).

josgraha 16y ago

Here's a link to that article on The Economist that states there are too many people doing too much of _everything_ and life is hard in general. Oh wait, that doesn't exist yet perhaps because that's reality. It sounds like he has spent so much time doing everything but what he _should_ be doing which is looking for something he actually _enjoys_ doing. Not that the article wasn't insightful or lucid or anything but this article struck me in he clearly enjoys complaining about his work life than doing it so there's a problem. I don't love my job but I enjoy doing it most of the time and I have great hobbies, a great partner in life and am happier and fitter than I have ever been. Perhaps he should try doing different things and see how that works out as when you are doing something you don't have any expectations. Why would you say "I love science, I just don't love doing it?". I love Formula One cars but don't know anything about driving them but I love riding motorcycles, and riding bikes. He needs to find the action verb that defines his work life and not impose any expectations from a noun he associates with "love."

arjunnarayan 16y ago

I'm going to have to disagree with the article for many reasons: First, I'm a Ph.D student and thus obviously biased. But second, while Ph.Ds can be unwise life decisions for many, it really depends on your field, and the most relevant field to this demographic is computer science. It really doesn't work that way in CS because such a high volume of computer scientists leave academia post-Ph.D into industry. CS industry (and the finance industry) has an insatiable thirst for deeply knowledgeable qualified Ph.Ds. I don't know what the cost benefit is (of spending 4 years in academia vs getting paid high industry salaries) and I'm sure you could make more money going straight into a tech job; but I'm going to assume here that we are maximizing more than just $\sum_{life} income$ here. PG has a Ph.D; he did fine (yay anecdote). In my various internships around tech companies, there were plenty of senior coders who had Ph.Ds. And if you have a Ph.D in a relevant niche, you're probably going to be headhunted and well sought after. Where else does Wall Street or Google hire top machine learning specialists? Now a Ph.D in sociology on the other hand... where do you go from there?

NY_USA_Hacker 16y ago
Sociology Ph.D.? The better sociology programs try hard to be mathematical, in particular, good with non-parametic statistics, all of multivariate statistics, and log-linear. Also actually doing science in sociology is tough because have to be so careful about problem formulation, controls, spurious correlations, sampling, measures (reliability and validity). So, for any solid quantitative work on marketing, ad targeting, public relations, public opinion polling, social program design and evaluation, organizational design and evaluation (i.e., high end HR) a good sociology background is about the best. As I recall, P&G knows this, but I don't know how many others know it!

retube 16y ago

WELCOME TO LIFE. I've worked in academia, industry and finance. It's all a pyramid. Play the game or you'll be passed over.

defilade 16y ago
Exactly. Those of you who think the world is fair or based on merit need to read "Power: Why Some People Have It - And Others Don't" by Jeffrey Pfeffer. The world isn't fair. This is true whether you're in academia or industry, and accepting this fact isn't a bad thing, nor does it mean you've given in to the dark side. As retube points out, if you don't play the game you're conceding before you even start.

ryanjmo 16y ago

So, I often have to justify the time I spent getting a PhD in computer science (Cryptography), because I have a start-up that programs Facebook Apps now a days. The only reason I can, is because I really didn't spend that much time actually working during the whole period and spent a lot of time learning to surf and play tennis well. I really feel like I learned a lot of valuable lessons from learning to play tennis and to surf. I'm really glad my PhD afforded me time and money to make that possible.

PaulHoule 16y ago

I had a similar painful revelation, as do 95% of people who get science PhD's. Fortunately it happened when I was a postdoc, so at least I got my honorable discharge.

marknutter 16y ago

When I graduated with my degree in physics, I was introduced to something called Ruby on Rails, and instead of go on to grad school I pivoted into the life of a web developer. Best thing that ever happened to me.

mhartl 16y ago
I did go to physics grad school, but eventually I came around. :-) http://railstutorial.org/book#author http://railstutorial.org/book#author

pbiggar 16y ago

While I sympathize with the author, I don't think we can generalize from his experience all that much. For a balancing anecdote, here's my life progression to date: Bachelors: 22 Start PhD: 24 Meet girl: 25 Get engaged: 27 Submit thesis: 27 s/girlfriend/wife/: 28 Get 6 figure salary working for Mozilla: 28 Am now: 29 Yes, everything turned out better than expected (though I omitted the bit where I started and folded a company in there), and it could have gone horribly wrong. But you just can't generalize about doing a PhD, or anything really, from his anecdote, or from mine.

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ylem 16y ago

I am a researcher who's fortunate enough to have found a permanent position at a place that I love doing work that I enjoy. I've served on program committees of conferences, organized workshops, etc. However, I must admit that some of the OPs thoughts are correct. There is definitely a problem with an oversupply of PhDs relative to the job market for physics (and likely biology). For a position at say Berkeley for a biology faculty position there used to be approx. 600 applicants per position. For physics at first tier or second tier institutions the number may drop to 200. Even if we are cruel and suggest that half of those are unqualified, that still leaves a large pool of extraordinarily qualified people competing for a rather small pool of jobs. I see this regularly when there are young postdocs with good publication records (Nature, PRL, etc.) who are having trouble finding permanent positions after their postdocs. Part of this may be related to decreased state funding and hiring freezes (in several states, there have been furloughs). Even for postdocs who have decided that they would prefer to work at an undergraduate institution and teach, the competition is fierce. Oddly, even for those that want to teach at a public high school, it's hard because of the education requirements (you can run a facility, teach freshmen at an elite college--but teaching high school seniors....). Things are so fierce that it's rather hard to have much selectivity about geography. This can wreak havoc with relationships and in physics is known as the two body problem--where a couple in science has difficulty finding positions in the same zipcode. As one colleague told me, she'd be happy to just have the same timezone.... For my subfield, industrial research positions have been gradually drying up (at least for doing physics rather than engineering). A number of companies in the past were able to use monopoly profits to drive research (think of AT&T Bell Labs which is now but a shadow of it's former self--when I was there as an intern, it was amazing....). However, many have scaled back. Thus, I have seen a number of people pursuing various exit strategies. During the internet boom (where I had decided to drop computer engineering as a major because physics was more fun), a number of people who could code dropped out an joined startups. Later, people from Ivy institutions joined consulting firms such as McKinsey (with a "mini-MBA"). Later, a number joined in the gold rush of financial engineering. While that continues, many go through a brief masters first to get their foot in the door. A few turn to more engineering related work. So, while the unemployment rate for physics PhDs is low--not so many are actually still doing physics research. For myself, I'll take on undergraduate and high school interns. No graduate students. I really respect String Theorists who for years intentionally limited the number of students they would accept due to the paucity of permanent positions. For years, I'd been reluctant to take on a postdoc due to the current situation. Now, I've taken on my first postdoc and will do my best by him--but I have to be honest about the job market and I'm having him learn some programming as a plan B. Plan C is that I'm very confident that he'll be able to get a position in his home country afterwards. I've seen some people who are bitter (think of the opportunity costs!) when they leave. But, I've seen some who are mellow--"At least I got to work with something beautiful for awhile....".Part of the difficulty is that for scientists, you don't go into it for the money (at least I hope you don't!), you go into it for love. So, doing science becomes not just a job, but rather a calling and a way of life. So, someone's sense of self may often become tied to being a scientist--and that's hard to leave behind... So to summarize, while all fields of science are not cutthroat, given the level of competition, it is very hard to find a job. Also, given the level, then people have to work extremely hard and it takes a toll on people's personal lives (it's hard to have one when average work weeks extend to 60-80 hrs for a number of experimentalists--my solution has been to sleep less, but I'm told that's unhealthy...).