9 ms·

I'm very similar and would just give you two pieces of advice: (1) buy books compulsively and don't do your research predominantly online, and (2) make sure you

I'm very similar and would just give you two pieces of advice: (1) buy books compulsively and don't do your research predominantly online, and (2) make sure you write often, whether or not you publish your work or keep it to yourself. I think the latter is the most important advice for those trying to pursue an intellectual path outside of academia -- if you don't develop a habit of writing, you aren't really synthesizing what you've learned and developing your thought. Don't worry if the quality is not great to begin with (and certainly don't worry that it seems cliched). The other thing I would suggest, if your career and family would manage, is spending time working in the UK. It's very easy to get a visa if you're involved in the tech industry and their higher education system for MA/MS degrees and PhDs is very different than the US, both more affordable and better suited towards working life. In the US, the thought is that if you're doing a PhD, say, it's a full-time professionalized pursuit under the assumption you will be a professor; in the rest of the world, a PhD is essentially an apprenticeship in writing under a mentor for however long it takes you, often with no aim (i.e. career) other than that writing itself. Personally, I've alternated between highly-paid years working in the tech industry and years studying or writing without employment to great personal satisfaction (and managed to help publish a few scholarly anthologies that wouldn't have happened without someone who didn't need to rely on academic grants etc).

tropdrop 5y ago
Agree with all said here, but a small caveat with PhDs in the UK – from my understanding, admissions can be very difficult for those not living in the UK (purposefully biased towards UK citizens). However, getting into a one year Master's program in the UK or Netherlands seems pretty feasible, and might get you a taste of what getting a PhD is like without too much commitment.
- hatmatrix 5y ago
  I'm not so sure. A Masters program is often affiliated with the PhD program (both being part of the graduate school) in many STEM fields, and you do substantial research as part of the degree (unless you go for a course-based MEng). Masters degrees in Europe tend to be affiliated with the Bachelors program - and they're often administered by the same people - as part of the Bologna system, and it's heavily course-based even while there might be some projects in it.
  - agentcoops 5y ago
    In the UK at least, MA/MS degrees are largely autonomous from either PhD or BA programs. They indeed are predominantly coursework-based alongside a research component, but typically offer a part-time option that is entirely manageable alongside full-time work. It’s a very competitive market and quality varies wildly, but it’s often possible to do an MA there in a discipline you may not have studied as an undergraduate — I’ve known several people who, over their working life, picked up numerous post-graduate degrees in multiple disciplines (even for an international student, we’re talking about 5-6k per year part-time).
jrochkind1 5y ago
> It's very easy to get a visa if you're involved in the tech industry I'm interested in more info on THAT!
- agentcoops 5y ago
  There are multiple paths, but the easiest is what is called an intra-company transfer. Basically after a year working for a company that has an office in the UK you can easily get a visa that will allow you to move overseas and work for that office, bringing family etc. As an engineer at even a medium-sized high growth startup, there are many opportunities to switch offices in this manner and I’d highly recommend it, even if you aren’t interested in studying.
- superlopuh 5y ago
  https://technation.io/visa/ https://technation.io/visa/
  - jrochkind1 5y ago
    I took the "quiz", it said i was not eligible. It did not say why. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But you think it's very easy? I wonder what I'm missing. Other brief googling research.... it might require you to be earlier in your career (first five years?) than I am?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - david927 5y ago
    It's a scam.
    - jrochkind1 5y ago
      say more? (Also, it looks like it may not in fact be very easy to get a UK visa simply by being a software engineer?)
      - 4y ago
nautilius 5y ago
> In the US, the thought is that if you're doing a PhD, say, it's a full-time professionalized pursuit under the assumption you will be a professor; in the rest of the world, a PhD is essentially an apprenticeship in writing under a mentor for however long it takes you, often with no aim (i.e. career) other than that writing itself. Couldn't disagree more with all of these statements.
- alonsonic 5y ago
  Very insightful comment. Would you mind to explain why you disagree?
  - blueblob 5y ago
    Not the parent commenter, but I agree with the sentiment. The selected portion of the earlier comment has multiple pieces that I disagree with: 1) A PhD isn't about writing, and 2) you are not expected to become a professor once you get a PhD in the US. A PhD isn't really about writing, it's about research. Writing is merely the means of demonstrating that you know how to do research. The way that you break something down involves finding a gap in understanding or a portion of a problem that has not been addressed. Then you find an insight that leads to potential solutions to address the gap. Then you run experiments based around the insight. It is fundamentally a way of thinking, not a way of writing. That's why it's a Doctorate of Philosophy. The actual topic that you cover for your thesis is not as important as the demonstration that you know how to think about research. It's moderately unlikely that you will be working on the same problem in industry. It's commonplace, at least in engineering programs, to ask whether you're going to go into industry or academia. Research positions in industry typically go to PhDs or Masters with a lot of experience. It is much harder to break into the research world without a PhD in the US. So I believe the original statement: > a full-time professionalized pursuit under the assumption you will be a professor is overly specific. Your future could be a professor, a researcher/scientist, or an entrepreneur.
    - agentcoops 5y ago
      Yes, completely agreed with your corrections. Research is really the term I should have used and, as I clarified in a response above, it’s certainly true that, especially in STEM, there are at least industrial and academic tracks. I would just clarify that my only intention was to address the particular case of someone currently working in tech who would like to additionally pursue non-STEM studies for their own sake. In that case, rare but that I wish were not so, the part-time, dissertation-only PhD programs of many European nations (Germany and the UK in particular) are, on average, a better fit.

tropdrop 5y ago

Agree with all said here, but a small caveat with PhDs in the UK – from my understanding, admissions can be very difficult for those not living in the UK (purposefully biased towards UK citizens). However, getting into a one year Master's program in the UK or Netherlands seems pretty feasible, and might get you a taste of what getting a PhD is like without too much commitment.

hatmatrix 5y ago
I'm not so sure. A Masters program is often affiliated with the PhD program (both being part of the graduate school) in many STEM fields, and you do substantial research as part of the degree (unless you go for a course-based MEng). Masters degrees in Europe tend to be affiliated with the Bachelors program - and they're often administered by the same people - as part of the Bologna system, and it's heavily course-based even while there might be some projects in it.
- agentcoops 5y ago
  In the UK at least, MA/MS degrees are largely autonomous from either PhD or BA programs. They indeed are predominantly coursework-based alongside a research component, but typically offer a part-time option that is entirely manageable alongside full-time work. It’s a very competitive market and quality varies wildly, but it’s often possible to do an MA there in a discipline you may not have studied as an undergraduate — I’ve known several people who, over their working life, picked up numerous post-graduate degrees in multiple disciplines (even for an international student, we’re talking about 5-6k per year part-time).

jrochkind1 5y ago

> It's very easy to get a visa if you're involved in the tech industry I'm interested in more info on THAT!

agentcoops 5y ago
There are multiple paths, but the easiest is what is called an intra-company transfer. Basically after a year working for a company that has an office in the UK you can easily get a visa that will allow you to move overseas and work for that office, bringing family etc. As an engineer at even a medium-sized high growth startup, there are many opportunities to switch offices in this manner and I’d highly recommend it, even if you aren’t interested in studying.
superlopuh 5y ago
https://technation.io/visa/ https://technation.io/visa/
- jrochkind1 5y ago
  I took the "quiz", it said i was not eligible. It did not say why. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But you think it's very easy? I wonder what I'm missing. Other brief googling research.... it might require you to be earlier in your career (first five years?) than I am?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- david927 5y ago
  It's a scam.
  - jrochkind1 5y ago
    say more? (Also, it looks like it may not in fact be very easy to get a UK visa simply by being a software engineer?)
    - 4y ago

nautilius 5y ago

> In the US, the thought is that if you're doing a PhD, say, it's a full-time professionalized pursuit under the assumption you will be a professor; in the rest of the world, a PhD is essentially an apprenticeship in writing under a mentor for however long it takes you, often with no aim (i.e. career) other than that writing itself. Couldn't disagree more with all of these statements.

alonsonic 5y ago
Very insightful comment. Would you mind to explain why you disagree?
- blueblob 5y ago
  Not the parent commenter, but I agree with the sentiment. The selected portion of the earlier comment has multiple pieces that I disagree with: 1) A PhD isn't about writing, and 2) you are not expected to become a professor once you get a PhD in the US. A PhD isn't really about writing, it's about research. Writing is merely the means of demonstrating that you know how to do research. The way that you break something down involves finding a gap in understanding or a portion of a problem that has not been addressed. Then you find an insight that leads to potential solutions to address the gap. Then you run experiments based around the insight. It is fundamentally a way of thinking, not a way of writing. That's why it's a Doctorate of Philosophy. The actual topic that you cover for your thesis is not as important as the demonstration that you know how to think about research. It's moderately unlikely that you will be working on the same problem in industry. It's commonplace, at least in engineering programs, to ask whether you're going to go into industry or academia. Research positions in industry typically go to PhDs or Masters with a lot of experience. It is much harder to break into the research world without a PhD in the US. So I believe the original statement: > a full-time professionalized pursuit under the assumption you will be a professor is overly specific. Your future could be a professor, a researcher/scientist, or an entrepreneur.
  - agentcoops 5y ago
    Yes, completely agreed with your corrections. Research is really the term I should have used and, as I clarified in a response above, it’s certainly true that, especially in STEM, there are at least industrial and academic tracks. I would just clarify that my only intention was to address the particular case of someone currently working in tech who would like to additionally pursue non-STEM studies for their own sake. In that case, rare but that I wish were not so, the part-time, dissertation-only PhD programs of many European nations (Germany and the UK in particular) are, on average, a better fit.