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>I disagree. It is extremely unprofessional to act like doing research while pocketing mostly public funds like that. This can be true while it's also true tha

>I disagree. It is extremely unprofessional to act like doing research while pocketing mostly public funds like that. This can be true while it's also true that making a vague, unsubstantiated assertion about how your love for the field is just too deep and pure for academia is still unprofessional. Of the people who claim they dropped out of school because they were just too smart or creative to go through the motions, the vast majority are probably very wrong. If you want people to take you seriously, make a better argument.

TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
Can you quote research to support your claim? Alas I only have an anecdote. I considered starting a PhD around ten years ago. One particular university was having an open day. When I got there everyone was locked out because someone hadn't bothered to tell someone else the open day was happening. There were visits to the facilities, which were interesting enough but a lot of the tech had been there since the 90s (or 70s in some cases) and there wasn't anything fresh to see. And there was a show-and-tell by various researchers and one lead professor, during which I realised the professor was a Grade A Bullshitter [1], and the researchers weren't even remotely familiar with other work in the field. The main person I wanted to see didn't bother to turn up. Bizarrely, there was a persistently religious undertone - very strange in a field that isn't even remotely religious. (The university is quite well known for its theology department.) Now, this is a very niche field, so I have no way of knowing if it was typical. But as experiences go it certainly didn't suggest that that particular department was simmering with eager high-voltage professionalism. Since then I've read "We're looking for PhD students" notices on various email lists. It's striking how many [2] seem like transparently contrived attempts at getting funding from organisations who already know what exactly they want to fund, and how few have are truly research-driven. It feels very much like a box ticking exercise. Org gets money, org hands it out to researchers, researchers get students, students write up dissertation, dissertation is forgotten, rinse and repeat. [1] Subsequently confirmed independently by other people in various "Oh, him - yes, he's a loon" conversations. [2] Not all. There are places who on the leading edge. But even there some of the research feels dissociated from real problems - almost as if the goal is the production of "Towards..." "Considering..." and "A critique/summary/review/taxonomy of..." of papers, and not so much developing techniques and solutions that that would really move the field forward.

TheOtherHobbes 4y ago

Can you quote research to support your claim? Alas I only have an anecdote. I considered starting a PhD around ten years ago. One particular university was having an open day. When I got there everyone was locked out because someone hadn't bothered to tell someone else the open day was happening. There were visits to the facilities, which were interesting enough but a lot of the tech had been there since the 90s (or 70s in some cases) and there wasn't anything fresh to see. And there was a show-and-tell by various researchers and one lead professor, during which I realised the professor was a Grade A Bullshitter [1], and the researchers weren't even remotely familiar with other work in the field. The main person I wanted to see didn't bother to turn up. Bizarrely, there was a persistently religious undertone - very strange in a field that isn't even remotely religious. (The university is quite well known for its theology department.) Now, this is a very niche field, so I have no way of knowing if it was typical. But as experiences go it certainly didn't suggest that that particular department was simmering with eager high-voltage professionalism. Since then I've read "We're looking for PhD students" notices on various email lists. It's striking how many [2] seem like transparently contrived attempts at getting funding from organisations who already know what exactly they want to fund, and how few have are truly research-driven. It feels very much like a box ticking exercise. Org gets money, org hands it out to researchers, researchers get students, students write up dissertation, dissertation is forgotten, rinse and repeat. [1] Subsequently confirmed independently by other people in various "Oh, him - yes, he's a loon" conversations. [2] Not all. There are places who on the leading edge. But even there some of the research feels dissociated from real problems - almost as if the goal is the production of "Towards..." "Considering..." and "A critique/summary/review/taxonomy of..." of papers, and not so much developing techniques and solutions that that would really move the field forward.