6 ms·

Exactly. Giving the OP the benefit of the doubt -- that he is completely correct in his assessment of the group -- he is certainly doing himself no favors publ

by JackFr 4y ago

Exactly. Giving the OP the benefit of the doubt -- that he is completely correct in his assessment of the group -- he is certainly doing himself no favors publicly throwing them under the bus. I imagine other prospective advisors, in any field, might be reluctant to take him on if this is a pontential outcome.

RobertRoberts 4y ago
This can go both ways. While he may be hurt by this, light needs to be shed on systemic failure. I know a few people who have PhD's that had fantastic support, counselors and teachers, and they still had questions on the validity of their degrees and processes. Here, this person's experience seems to be a money grab by a school unqualified to provide him a PhD in his area. Going public though, maybe a hard decision, and may hurt him, but who knows? Maybe there are people out there that want someone that is willing to stand up like this publicly?
- ethbr0 4y ago
  This seems like the most important point. Is it normal for research groups to take on PhD candidates who they are unable to support in the field of interest? {Takes on Quantum Computing grad student} + {has insufficient Quantum Computing expertise in group to even advise} seems... pretty bad. PS: And being from a tenured family and having grown up exposed to academia, I'm inclined to take author at their judgement here, given that taking on students in hot topics meshes with how the incentives of grant funding, publishing, and prestige work.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Kranar 4y ago
I don't think he's trying to do himself any favors. If anything he's trying to do others a favor by expressing a very common problem within academia.
- matthewdgreen 4y ago
  Academia is full of mechanisms to negatively judge your research work. In fact judgement is pretty much the only constant in the field: every single piece of work you do will be under constant scrutiny, will be torn apart both before and after publication, and your entire (research) value will be harshly judged by outsiders on a more or less constant basis. The one positive of this environment that when you see someone who has succeeded in publishing a substantial amount, it's safe to presume that their work is not entirely without merit. That's not a 100% guarantee, but it's a good heuristic. A post like this implies that the author's personal judgement is more insightful than a process that I know to be enormously thorough and harsh, and yet it provides only vague assertions and no details on methodology. At the same time it's hard to ignore that the post is written by someone who is (understandably) a bit bitter and probably isn't being entirely objective in their evaluation. In general it's not my impression that this sort of post produces reliable feedback that outsiders should rely on, and (unless it's very carefully anonymized, which it isn't) it also leaves bitterness in its wake.
  - Kranar 4y ago
    >Academia is full of mechanisms to negatively judge your research work. Fascinating, as I did not find this at all to be the case in general. I imagine in some cases it could be true, but for the most part I found most research in academia to not be of much interest to many people, one way or another. Hardly anyone takes much time to either validate research or to critique it. I'm glad to hear that you managed to find something to research that caught the attention of many people/mechanisms, even if only to judge it negatively. It must mean you were doing something important, which I think is the exception and not at all the norm.
    - matthewdgreen 4y ago
      I suspect from your comment that you're not familiar with the actual experience of R1 academic research. It is a Darwinian process that involves repeatedly submitting papers to highly competitive conferences for peer-review (a typical top-tier conference in computer security averages <20% acceptance rate.) You must do this many times just to get an Assistant Professorship. Then, assuming you publish N papers during grad school, you need to continue publishing maybe N/2 additional papers (or more) per year while also submitting successful grant proposals to organizations like NSF. These proposals are even more competitive (and worse: these organizations also consider your publication history and reputation, not just the merits of the proposal.) If you do this unabated for seven years or so then you might get tenure, which means you'll get to keep jumping those hurdles for another 25 years or so. Of course you can argue that all this academic competition selects for the wrong thing (that's subjective) but the competition and testing is never-ending. There is a reason that a lot of people leave for industry, simply because it's so much less stressful.

by JackFr 4y ago

RobertRoberts 4y ago

This can go both ways. While he may be hurt by this, light needs to be shed on systemic failure. I know a few people who have PhD's that had fantastic support, counselors and teachers, and they still had questions on the validity of their degrees and processes. Here, this person's experience seems to be a money grab by a school unqualified to provide him a PhD in his area. Going public though, maybe a hard decision, and may hurt him, but who knows? Maybe there are people out there that want someone that is willing to stand up like this publicly?

ethbr0 4y ago
This seems like the most important point. Is it normal for research groups to take on PhD candidates who they are unable to support in the field of interest? {Takes on Quantum Computing grad student} + {has insufficient Quantum Computing expertise in group to even advise} seems... pretty bad. PS: And being from a tenured family and having grown up exposed to academia, I'm inclined to take author at their judgement here, given that taking on students in hot topics meshes with how the incentives of grant funding, publishing, and prestige work.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Kranar 4y ago

I don't think he's trying to do himself any favors. If anything he's trying to do others a favor by expressing a very common problem within academia.

matthewdgreen 4y ago
Academia is full of mechanisms to negatively judge your research work. In fact judgement is pretty much the only constant in the field: every single piece of work you do will be under constant scrutiny, will be torn apart both before and after publication, and your entire (research) value will be harshly judged by outsiders on a more or less constant basis. The one positive of this environment that when you see someone who has succeeded in publishing a substantial amount, it's safe to presume that their work is not entirely without merit. That's not a 100% guarantee, but it's a good heuristic. A post like this implies that the author's personal judgement is more insightful than a process that I know to be enormously thorough and harsh, and yet it provides only vague assertions and no details on methodology. At the same time it's hard to ignore that the post is written by someone who is (understandably) a bit bitter and probably isn't being entirely objective in their evaluation. In general it's not my impression that this sort of post produces reliable feedback that outsiders should rely on, and (unless it's very carefully anonymized, which it isn't) it also leaves bitterness in its wake.
- Kranar 4y ago
  >Academia is full of mechanisms to negatively judge your research work. Fascinating, as I did not find this at all to be the case in general. I imagine in some cases it could be true, but for the most part I found most research in academia to not be of much interest to many people, one way or another. Hardly anyone takes much time to either validate research or to critique it. I'm glad to hear that you managed to find something to research that caught the attention of many people/mechanisms, even if only to judge it negatively. It must mean you were doing something important, which I think is the exception and not at all the norm.
  - matthewdgreen 4y ago
    I suspect from your comment that you're not familiar with the actual experience of R1 academic research. It is a Darwinian process that involves repeatedly submitting papers to highly competitive conferences for peer-review (a typical top-tier conference in computer security averages <20% acceptance rate.) You must do this many times just to get an Assistant Professorship. Then, assuming you publish N papers during grad school, you need to continue publishing maybe N/2 additional papers (or more) per year while also submitting successful grant proposals to organizations like NSF. These proposals are even more competitive (and worse: these organizations also consider your publication history and reputation, not just the merits of the proposal.) If you do this unabated for seven years or so then you might get tenure, which means you'll get to keep jumping those hurdles for another 25 years or so. Of course you can argue that all this academic competition selects for the wrong thing (that's subjective) but the competition and testing is never-ending. There is a reason that a lot of people leave for industry, simply because it's so much less stressful.