3 ms·

It’d be pretty cool if we had a real path for later-in-life research time. I’m not sure that’s very realistic, but I’d love it too. Big problems are that kids a

by dahart 4y ago

It’d be pretty cool if we had a real path for later-in-life research time. I’m not sure that’s very realistic, but I’d love it too. Big problems are that kids and jobs lock you into needing to make enough money. I actually tried to join a PhD program after 5 years of industry experience, and they offered the top fellowship they had, which was not enough to cover only the health insurance for my family, not to mention rent or food. It simply wasn’t feasible, and so we would need a systemic change to education funding to enable late-in-life study opportunities for everyone. I dislike the comparison to VC funding. VC funding is essentially gambling and already a gross misallocation of resources. VC funding already goes to something analogous to the highest scoring grads who speculate wildly that they have a viable business model, and the real business model only shows up long after the funds, even in the small ~5-10% of successful startups. The ~90% of failures is proof enough. Also, research requires taking risks with resources. If we don’t take risks, we won’t make progress. Thinking of research in narrow immediate economic terms is short sighted. We often don’t understand the ROI of research until long after the initial investment, meaning there will never be a time that allocation of resources can be predicted or approximated in advance.

dehrmann 4y ago
It'd be interesting to see someone with industry experience bring industry problems to academia and explore them there. As a bonus, they might be accomplished enough professionally that they aren't interested in the publication rat race, so they're more likely to produce meaningful results (or nothing, but that's ok!) than a pointless paper.
- sally_glance 4y ago
  In most faculties this is already happening, mainly because solving a problem that big corp is interested in will make it more likely to secure funding (by big corp), and in general you probably want to discuss (or even evaluate) the practical applications of your (maybe theoretical) research. They will still be part of the rat race though. Actually it's been interesting to observe the opposite, I know some PhD students who quit because big corp offered them a nice position in their innovation branch with much more freedom (and financial security) to work on their favourite problem... A bit of luck involved to have your field of research align with big corps' goals though.
  - dehrmann 4y ago
    > big corp offered them a nice position in their innovation branch with much more freedom (and financial security) to work on their favourite problem I'm going to pick on Timnit Gebru, or at least what became more obvious with that debacle. Both the directional freedom and financial security are there, but part of your job is PR, and you don't have the same freedom a professor with tenure gets. If you have a paper that is critical of your employer or they don't like it for any reason, they can kill it. That's the deal.
    - sally_glance 4y ago
      Thanks for the reference, I did not follow that particular debacle. But I'm not convinced this couldn't happen at a faculty. "part of your job is PR" (i.e. fishing for grants) and "they can kill it" (i.e. funding dried up and focus changes) apply there as well...
bumby 4y ago
>It’d be pretty cool if we had a real path for later-in-life research time. I think some of these are out there. I've known a few people working in government, academia staff positions, and quasi-government organizations that pursued their PhDs (for free) while working full time. Occasionally, some got some push-back as to why they wouldn't be available to teach, for example, but often their advisors welcomed them because they came with real-world problems they were trying to solve and an organization willing to pay and support them in that effort as part of their "real" job.
Beldin 4y ago
> It’d be pretty cool if we had a real path for later-in-life research time. We do. You can do a PhD in part-time, self-funded. Yes, your financial situation will definitely take a hit; you can control to what extent though. Expect to need about 5-6 years of 1.5-2 days a week. If you'd like to know more, I'm happy to discuss my experiences as a supervisor of such PhD students and share what insights I have.
- kirubakaran 4y ago
  > If you'd like to know more, I'm happy to discuss my experiences as a supervisor of such PhD students and share what insights I have. It would be really cool if you can share that here.

by dahart 4y ago

dehrmann 4y ago

It'd be interesting to see someone with industry experience bring industry problems to academia and explore them there. As a bonus, they might be accomplished enough professionally that they aren't interested in the publication rat race, so they're more likely to produce meaningful results (or nothing, but that's ok!) than a pointless paper.

sally_glance 4y ago
In most faculties this is already happening, mainly because solving a problem that big corp is interested in will make it more likely to secure funding (by big corp), and in general you probably want to discuss (or even evaluate) the practical applications of your (maybe theoretical) research. They will still be part of the rat race though. Actually it's been interesting to observe the opposite, I know some PhD students who quit because big corp offered them a nice position in their innovation branch with much more freedom (and financial security) to work on their favourite problem... A bit of luck involved to have your field of research align with big corps' goals though.
- dehrmann 4y ago
  > big corp offered them a nice position in their innovation branch with much more freedom (and financial security) to work on their favourite problem I'm going to pick on Timnit Gebru, or at least what became more obvious with that debacle. Both the directional freedom and financial security are there, but part of your job is PR, and you don't have the same freedom a professor with tenure gets. If you have a paper that is critical of your employer or they don't like it for any reason, they can kill it. That's the deal.
  - sally_glance 4y ago
    Thanks for the reference, I did not follow that particular debacle. But I'm not convinced this couldn't happen at a faculty. "part of your job is PR" (i.e. fishing for grants) and "they can kill it" (i.e. funding dried up and focus changes) apply there as well...

bumby 4y ago

>It’d be pretty cool if we had a real path for later-in-life research time. I think some of these are out there. I've known a few people working in government, academia staff positions, and quasi-government organizations that pursued their PhDs (for free) while working full time. Occasionally, some got some push-back as to why they wouldn't be available to teach, for example, but often their advisors welcomed them because they came with real-world problems they were trying to solve and an organization willing to pay and support them in that effort as part of their "real" job.

Beldin 4y ago

> It’d be pretty cool if we had a real path for later-in-life research time. We do. You can do a PhD in part-time, self-funded. Yes, your financial situation will definitely take a hit; you can control to what extent though. Expect to need about 5-6 years of 1.5-2 days a week. If you'd like to know more, I'm happy to discuss my experiences as a supervisor of such PhD students and share what insights I have.

kirubakaran 4y ago
> If you'd like to know more, I'm happy to discuss my experiences as a supervisor of such PhD students and share what insights I have. It would be really cool if you can share that here.