5 ms·

The Illustrated Guide to a PhD

40 points by antioedipus 6y ago

amznthrowaway5 6y ago
Meaningless spam, advertises as a guide to PhD and gives a few meme images. Academia is very political, I saw senior folk looking down on writing actual code while glorifying corruption and the publishing of fraudulent or meaningless papers. These are closer to the realities you have to deal with getting a "PhD", even in computer science.
- SimplyUnknown 6y ago
  Everything is political. It's a waste of time to pretend they aren't. However, in academia these effect are amplified due to perverse incentives (publication count over doing meaningful research) and power dynamics (senior advisor pushing his/her agenda over what is The Right Thing). But it is important to remember what you are doing. In a PhD you should be pushing the boundary of knowledge. As a programmer in a company, you should be solving problems to generate value for your customer and your company. If you aren't doing these things, you are in the wrong place.
  - amznthrowaway5 6y ago
    > But it is important to remember what you are doing. In a PhD you should be pushing the boundary of knowledge. As a programmer in a company, you should be solving problems to generate value for your customer and your company. You don't need to get a phd to push the boundaries of knowledge, and often people who get phds aren't actually doing that. PhD is just a fake status indicator like an MBA. A lot of work that generates real value is also pushing the boundaries of science. Good scientific work often has real world impact. I noticed you used "programmer" to refer to the person working in a company, but programming is also an essential skill for pushing the boundaries in just about any field now. Many "scientists" are not capable of it and look upon it as grunt work, which says a lot about their true competence.
    - SimplyUnknown 6y ago
      > but programming is also an essential skill for pushing the boundaries in just about any field now This is definitely true. But it is important to remember that writing code is a means to an end and not the goal in many PhDs. You do it to get results and to many bears no more importance than measuring chemicals or prepping an animal for examination. In the eyes of professional coders this will lead to poor practices (hard to maintain, little testing, etc.) but up to a certain degree this is fine, IMO, because you don't need production-quality code to get results. > You don't need to get a phd to push the boundaries of knowledge > A lot of work that generates real value is also pushing the boundaries of computer science. I agree with both of these. A lot of cool stuff pushing the boundary of knowledge is happening outside of academia. But a lot of cool stuff is also happening within academia. > Good scientific work often has real world impact. I agree, whether it is within or outside of academia. As I think that this is the goal of academia, I remain with my stance that if you aren't trying to do that you are in the wrong place.
    - ChrisLomont 6y ago
      >You don't need to get a phd to push the boundaries of knowledge, and often people who get phds aren't actually doing that. PhD is just a fake status indicator like an MBA. Pick any field. Find some measure of who pushes the boundaries the most in that field. Check after picking the metric, not before, what percent of those making the advances had a PhD, compared to the field overall. For example, in computer science a the top advances sometimes get a Turing Award. Turing Awards winners need not have a PhD. Most people working in computer science don't have PhDs, yet among Turing Award winners, 59 have one and 13 don't (and most of those have masters degrees). The same happens in chemistry, physics, biology, engineering, history, geology, psychology, and on and on. Maybe a PhD is more than a "fake status indicator"? Maybe those most driven to push boundaries very often get a PhD along the way to become more skilled in their field. Care to present a field and a metric of who has pushed the boundaries the most for which we can asses the impact of PhD and non-PhDs where PhDs are not the most impactful?
      - amznthrowaway5 6y ago
        My point was a PhD alone should not be taken as an indicator of skill, it is a very weak signal at best and is no substitute for good evidence of ability. Showing that most who are extremely successful have a PhD does not prove that having a PhD itself is a good indicator of ability, even a small amount of real evidence will override that information. This is why things like basic leetcode interviews are so important, "phds" will often fail these.
Bellamy 6y ago
Brilliant pictures and an explanation. That's exactly what PhD is about!
commandlinefan 6y ago
When you finish a bachelor's degree, you know everything. When you finish a Master's degree, you realize you know nothing. When you finish a PhD, you realize nobody else knows anything, either.

40 points by antioedipus 6y ago

Meaningless spam, advertises as a guide to PhD and gives a few meme images. Academia is very political, I saw senior folk looking down on writing actual code while glorifying corruption and the publishing of fraudulent or meaningless papers. These are closer to the realities you have to deal with getting a "PhD", even in computer science.

SimplyUnknown 6y ago
Everything is political. It's a waste of time to pretend they aren't. However, in academia these effect are amplified due to perverse incentives (publication count over doing meaningful research) and power dynamics (senior advisor pushing his/her agenda over what is The Right Thing). But it is important to remember what you are doing. In a PhD you should be pushing the boundary of knowledge. As a programmer in a company, you should be solving problems to generate value for your customer and your company. If you aren't doing these things, you are in the wrong place.
- amznthrowaway5 6y ago
  > But it is important to remember what you are doing. In a PhD you should be pushing the boundary of knowledge. As a programmer in a company, you should be solving problems to generate value for your customer and your company. You don't need to get a phd to push the boundaries of knowledge, and often people who get phds aren't actually doing that. PhD is just a fake status indicator like an MBA. A lot of work that generates real value is also pushing the boundaries of science. Good scientific work often has real world impact. I noticed you used "programmer" to refer to the person working in a company, but programming is also an essential skill for pushing the boundaries in just about any field now. Many "scientists" are not capable of it and look upon it as grunt work, which says a lot about their true competence.
  - SimplyUnknown 6y ago
    > but programming is also an essential skill for pushing the boundaries in just about any field now This is definitely true. But it is important to remember that writing code is a means to an end and not the goal in many PhDs. You do it to get results and to many bears no more importance than measuring chemicals or prepping an animal for examination. In the eyes of professional coders this will lead to poor practices (hard to maintain, little testing, etc.) but up to a certain degree this is fine, IMO, because you don't need production-quality code to get results. > You don't need to get a phd to push the boundaries of knowledge > A lot of work that generates real value is also pushing the boundaries of computer science. I agree with both of these. A lot of cool stuff pushing the boundary of knowledge is happening outside of academia. But a lot of cool stuff is also happening within academia. > Good scientific work often has real world impact. I agree, whether it is within or outside of academia. As I think that this is the goal of academia, I remain with my stance that if you aren't trying to do that you are in the wrong place.
  - ChrisLomont 6y ago
    >You don't need to get a phd to push the boundaries of knowledge, and often people who get phds aren't actually doing that. PhD is just a fake status indicator like an MBA. Pick any field. Find some measure of who pushes the boundaries the most in that field. Check after picking the metric, not before, what percent of those making the advances had a PhD, compared to the field overall. For example, in computer science a the top advances sometimes get a Turing Award. Turing Awards winners need not have a PhD. Most people working in computer science don't have PhDs, yet among Turing Award winners, 59 have one and 13 don't (and most of those have masters degrees). The same happens in chemistry, physics, biology, engineering, history, geology, psychology, and on and on. Maybe a PhD is more than a "fake status indicator"? Maybe those most driven to push boundaries very often get a PhD along the way to become more skilled in their field. Care to present a field and a metric of who has pushed the boundaries the most for which we can asses the impact of PhD and non-PhDs where PhDs are not the most impactful?
    - amznthrowaway5 6y ago
      My point was a PhD alone should not be taken as an indicator of skill, it is a very weak signal at best and is no substitute for good evidence of ability. Showing that most who are extremely successful have a PhD does not prove that having a PhD itself is a good indicator of ability, even a small amount of real evidence will override that information. This is why things like basic leetcode interviews are so important, "phds" will often fail these.

Bellamy 6y ago

Brilliant pictures and an explanation. That's exactly what PhD is about!

commandlinefan 6y ago

When you finish a bachelor's degree, you know everything. When you finish a Master's degree, you realize you know nothing. When you finish a PhD, you realize nobody else knows anything, either.