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> In some areas of computing (e.g. OS, Systems) work gets obsolete fairly quickly That's a very surprising statement. The number of advances in systems in the

> In some areas of computing (e.g. OS, Systems) work gets obsolete fairly quickly That's a very surprising statement. The number of advances in systems in the 21st century is.. embarrassingly low. It feels like a stale dead field. People keep pumping money into what is basically a dead body at this point. > consider attending top conferences in your field before committing (e.g. SOSP for OS/Systems, CVPR for vision, CHI for HCI,...). I I don't think that this is good advice. Certainly I would never suggest it to my own students. It's hard to see what they would gain. So you go to CVPR or NeurIPS, you see hundreds of posters per session and talk after talk. Maybe you stick around for workshops to interact with people. So what? This gives you zero information about what you will be doing as a PhD student or how useful your PhD will be. The way to figure out if you want to do a PhD is simple: do research first. Spend a summer in a research lab related to some topic you like and figure out if you like it. > I was talking to a theoretical Physics PhD at a conference recently, and even he was quite jaded (he switched to CS post PhD). Speaking of dead fields... I know many postdocs who come from physics into ML because many areas of theoretical physics just don't seem to be going anywhere anymore. Not a good sign!

sjg007 5y ago
Theoretical physics has been “dead” since the 70s. So all the physicists went to Wall Street and basically rebuilt it. Next up is biology etc…. but there’s a new kid in town which is ML/AI/DNNs These are great little democratic black boxes.
atrettel 5y ago
> Speaking of dead fields... I know many postdocs who come from physics into ML because many areas of theoretical physics just don't seem to be going anywhere anymore. Not a good sign! I do not necessarily agree with the notion that many fields are dead --- they could just be "resting" until some paradigm-shifting idea comes along, at which point they may spring back to life --- but I do agree with your observation that many people with PhDs have to move out of science or research. There simply are too few jobs available in research, so many people with PhDs eventually transition to non-scientific or non-research roles as their opportunities to continue doing research diminish. It's just economics. I do have to agree that it is frustrating how slow progress can be while conducting research, but I think people leave science more often due to the lack of job opportunities than the lack of progress in their research.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  As an undergrad, I asked if I should take a control theory class, and was told it was a dead field. It has become pretty important, since: all the quad copter controllers run it, and it is in network flow management protocols. I would have used it, unlike most of what I did study.

sjg007 5y ago

Theoretical physics has been “dead” since the 70s. So all the physicists went to Wall Street and basically rebuilt it. Next up is biology etc…. but there’s a new kid in town which is ML/AI/DNNs These are great little democratic black boxes.

atrettel 5y ago

> Speaking of dead fields... I know many postdocs who come from physics into ML because many areas of theoretical physics just don't seem to be going anywhere anymore. Not a good sign! I do not necessarily agree with the notion that many fields are dead --- they could just be "resting" until some paradigm-shifting idea comes along, at which point they may spring back to life --- but I do agree with your observation that many people with PhDs have to move out of science or research. There simply are too few jobs available in research, so many people with PhDs eventually transition to non-scientific or non-research roles as their opportunities to continue doing research diminish. It's just economics. I do have to agree that it is frustrating how slow progress can be while conducting research, but I think people leave science more often due to the lack of job opportunities than the lack of progress in their research.

ncmncm 5y ago
As an undergrad, I asked if I should take a control theory class, and was told it was a dead field. It has become pretty important, since: all the quad copter controllers run it, and it is in network flow management protocols. I would have used it, unlike most of what I did study.