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> I started my PhD in Quantum Computing. Even though I basically didn’t have any previous knowledge about it How does this happen?

adam_arthur 4y ago
PHDs are more about idealism for most than practical outcomes. Would be cool if colleges were required to estimate number of job openings relevant to each PHD program vs current cohort sizes. Or some central body could
ThePhysicist 4y ago
In Physics it's not unusual to start a PhD in a sub-discipline that you've got little experience in (I realize the author works more on the information theory side of things). When I started my PhD in experimental quantum computing I had experience with superconductivity and low-temperature physics but none with qubit design or high-frequency RF system design. It's the point of a PhD to learn about these things and get qualified to do your own research afterwards (e.g. as a PostDoc).
- ProjectArcturis 4y ago
  Yeah, but at least your PI should know about your field. This is a really weird article and weird PhD experience.
  - newswasboring 4y ago
    Advisors also have to start somewhere. There will always be a first PhD student who works on something everyone has only vague ideas about. I have worked with such students and they are genuinely a different kind of person from other PhDs. They require little to none guidance and have very strong opinions on how to do their work. I believe OP was a poor choice for this position.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - ModernMech 4y ago
    The author is probably leaving out a lot of context. Seems to me they joined a program without really thinking about who they would work with, and then when they finally thought to look they were shocked to discover there was no one they’d like to work with. Schools offer this kind of acceptance path for students who aren’t very strongly tied to a particular idea. The author, despite having no experience or knowledge in QC was very tied to the idea, which how would the faculty know that before admitting them? Usually when you are so devoted to a research idea you’ve worked on it to some degree before deciding to devote 10% of your life toward pursuing it. I’ve never seen a student quit in 6 months because they couldn’t make progress on an idea they had only just started to consider.
red_trumpet 4y ago
It sounds a bit like his supervisor(s) didn't know to much about Quantum Computing as well. Really seems like a strange situation...
- soheil 4y ago
  QM is not something you can pick up in a couple of sessions from your research supervisor. It's probably the hardest concept to grasp in Physics and some argue Physics is the hardest field to study.
- balsam 4y ago
  It isn’t that strange in Europe, or even parts of America. When funding is buzzword driven, everyone adjacent or even not so adjacent try to spin themselves into the latest fad. I have seen physics professors turn into data scientists overnight. At least in their grant submission. If they are successful, they start looking for grad students to play the role. Fake it and have your students make it.
- dguest 4y ago
  The funding situation around quantum computing is quite strange indeed. Governments want to get a foot in the door for a new high-tech industry, but it also has implications for national security. The few existing quantum computing nerds aren't enough to go around. So everyone is falling over each other to train up some new nerds. They are opening huge pots of money any professor who can make a plausible case for quantum computing with X. Here X is generally some form of pure research that the professor made a contribution to in the past. You'll inevitably have some growing pains when you try to repurpose hundreds of physicists like this. It seems sort of silly, but when a government decides it wants get a jump on a new industry, before it's commercially viable, I don't see a better option.
joshvm 4y ago
It can happen both ways. My PhD ended up being a computer vision project and while I could program better than most new grad students I didn't have any significant experience with image processing, visual geometry or CV (or ML for that matter). I did know that going in, but at the time I was more interested in working on instrumentation (which I got to do as well). As a PostDoc I flipped the other way, after a couple of years in industry I joined a group where I brought some specific expertise to the group that they didn't have. Good strategy for getting work in my experience. This is fairly normal: you get some funding to do a project and you have to hire someone with experience, though in this case the PIs were experts in the domain of application. That's reasonably common for cross-discipline projects, but in this case you really have to trust that your hires know what they're doing and you need to be able to assess their work without deep knowledge of the techniques used. PhDs can be absurdly specific and many are complex enough that you can't really study them until grad school. Many universities don't teach quantum computing, but as a physicist it's probably assumed you have enough of a background to understand the material.
bees_buzz 4y ago
There are a few ways. Maybe a research group wants to investigate a connection to another discipline. Maybe the research group comes across a talented student and sees the potential for a research grant (how this works depends on the country). Maybe the student has the means to self-fund and so the university happily collects a pay-cheque. I fell into the first category - I did my PhD in a quantum information group despite my background being in mathematical logic. I was accepted because I knew a lot about different formal logic systems, and they wanted to study connections between those and the formalism they were using for quantum information.

adam_arthur 4y ago

PHDs are more about idealism for most than practical outcomes. Would be cool if colleges were required to estimate number of job openings relevant to each PHD program vs current cohort sizes. Or some central body could

ThePhysicist 4y ago

In Physics it's not unusual to start a PhD in a sub-discipline that you've got little experience in (I realize the author works more on the information theory side of things). When I started my PhD in experimental quantum computing I had experience with superconductivity and low-temperature physics but none with qubit design or high-frequency RF system design. It's the point of a PhD to learn about these things and get qualified to do your own research afterwards (e.g. as a PostDoc).

ProjectArcturis 4y ago
Yeah, but at least your PI should know about your field. This is a really weird article and weird PhD experience.
- newswasboring 4y ago
  Advisors also have to start somewhere. There will always be a first PhD student who works on something everyone has only vague ideas about. I have worked with such students and they are genuinely a different kind of person from other PhDs. They require little to none guidance and have very strong opinions on how to do their work. I believe OP was a poor choice for this position.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ModernMech 4y ago
  The author is probably leaving out a lot of context. Seems to me they joined a program without really thinking about who they would work with, and then when they finally thought to look they were shocked to discover there was no one they’d like to work with. Schools offer this kind of acceptance path for students who aren’t very strongly tied to a particular idea. The author, despite having no experience or knowledge in QC was very tied to the idea, which how would the faculty know that before admitting them? Usually when you are so devoted to a research idea you’ve worked on it to some degree before deciding to devote 10% of your life toward pursuing it. I’ve never seen a student quit in 6 months because they couldn’t make progress on an idea they had only just started to consider.

red_trumpet 4y ago

It sounds a bit like his supervisor(s) didn't know to much about Quantum Computing as well. Really seems like a strange situation...

soheil 4y ago
QM is not something you can pick up in a couple of sessions from your research supervisor. It's probably the hardest concept to grasp in Physics and some argue Physics is the hardest field to study.
balsam 4y ago
It isn’t that strange in Europe, or even parts of America. When funding is buzzword driven, everyone adjacent or even not so adjacent try to spin themselves into the latest fad. I have seen physics professors turn into data scientists overnight. At least in their grant submission. If they are successful, they start looking for grad students to play the role. Fake it and have your students make it.
dguest 4y ago
The funding situation around quantum computing is quite strange indeed. Governments want to get a foot in the door for a new high-tech industry, but it also has implications for national security. The few existing quantum computing nerds aren't enough to go around. So everyone is falling over each other to train up some new nerds. They are opening huge pots of money any professor who can make a plausible case for quantum computing with X. Here X is generally some form of pure research that the professor made a contribution to in the past. You'll inevitably have some growing pains when you try to repurpose hundreds of physicists like this. It seems sort of silly, but when a government decides it wants get a jump on a new industry, before it's commercially viable, I don't see a better option.

joshvm 4y ago

It can happen both ways. My PhD ended up being a computer vision project and while I could program better than most new grad students I didn't have any significant experience with image processing, visual geometry or CV (or ML for that matter). I did know that going in, but at the time I was more interested in working on instrumentation (which I got to do as well). As a PostDoc I flipped the other way, after a couple of years in industry I joined a group where I brought some specific expertise to the group that they didn't have. Good strategy for getting work in my experience. This is fairly normal: you get some funding to do a project and you have to hire someone with experience, though in this case the PIs were experts in the domain of application. That's reasonably common for cross-discipline projects, but in this case you really have to trust that your hires know what they're doing and you need to be able to assess their work without deep knowledge of the techniques used. PhDs can be absurdly specific and many are complex enough that you can't really study them until grad school. Many universities don't teach quantum computing, but as a physicist it's probably assumed you have enough of a background to understand the material.

bees_buzz 4y ago

There are a few ways. Maybe a research group wants to investigate a connection to another discipline. Maybe the research group comes across a talented student and sees the potential for a research grant (how this works depends on the country). Maybe the student has the means to self-fund and so the university happily collects a pay-cheque. I fell into the first category - I did my PhD in a quantum information group despite my background being in mathematical logic. I was accepted because I knew a lot about different formal logic systems, and they wanted to study connections between those and the formalism they were using for quantum information.