6 ms·

Thanks for this perspective. I am one of these mismatched PhD students. When I entered 6 years ago, no professors in my department had time to advise me. The pr

Thanks for this perspective. I am one of these mismatched PhD students. When I entered 6 years ago, no professors in my department had time to advise me. The professor for whom I was a GTA took pity on me after two years of rejection, and now serves as my committee chair despite having little to no expertise in my field. I am coadvised through a different department, but again, my coadvisor has little overlap with my interests. I am nearing completion, but stumbling over the lack of support, technical leadership, and community of practice. I am unconvinced that my proposed dissertation is meritorious or valuable in any way, but the only advise my advisors can give is “persist and finish quickly” because I am more expert than both of them. Defending feels like a gamble. The bitterness that comes from poor-fit advising is real, even when both advisors are earnestly doing their best. I wish I had learned this lesson sooner and quit with a master’s when I had the chance.

hnaccount_rng 4y ago
You can still quit. And, at least I would recommend you doing it. I have yet to do the jump to industry, but from what I'm hearing so far: There is little to no value assigned to the _paper_. And, at least in my view, this is exactly as it should be. There are two and only two situations [0]: 1) The company requires your specific expertise and won't care about the title as you are the one with the knowledge 2) The company does not require your specific expertise at which point they care about the PhD as a marker of "can do stuff autonomously", which has nothing to do with the title. On the other hand: (that is an assumption that may be wrong) You are miserable! That is time and joy that you won't get back. Academia will not be thankful for your sacrifice! And besides: I highly doubt that you would have to work for less pay if you quit. [0] well there is a third one: Someone wants someone with a title for title slides and reports. But I _really_ don't want to work for these people, so I'm discarding it.
- treesknees 4y ago
  There are some programs where you can earn a Doctorate without a Master's degree. Sometimes the program will combine both into one curriculum. In these cases, it's not possible to just quit and still have a Master's. You will have a Bachelor's and a bunch of debt. Perhaps they could work with an academic advisor to apply those credits taken to a Master's, maybe fill in the gaps and be done with it.
  - hnaccount_rng 4y ago
    Okay yeah I should mention that I did my PhD in Germany, where a Master's is a prerequisite and there is nearly no course work (the little that is required is solved ... let's call it ... creatively, but the real work is done in the Master's)
  - nycticorax 4y ago
    "a bunch of debt"? PhD students in STEM fields, at least in the US, can usually get a PhD without taking on additional debt. Also, many programs that don't offer a master's degree program will still let you graduate with a master's if you're a few years into a PhD program and decide to bail.
- yanderekko 4y ago
  >You can still quit. This is bad advice. The sheepskin effect is real and a company that "cares about the PhD as a marker" is not being petty or superficial in using this as a screening mechanism. Unless you're truly looking to enter a field where having a PhD would be of no value on your resume, just finish your PhD if you're 6 years in and can do so without too much additional distraction.
- ModernMech 4y ago
  > from what I'm hearing so far: There is little to no value assigned to the _paper_ I was given this advice when I was wavering on whether to finish my Ph.D. In fact, a guy who had finished his Ph.D. told me don't bother, nothing changed from before or after he got it. Then I went to his wedding and he had the DJ refer to him as "Dr." the entire night in front of his entire family, and by God did they care. They were so proud of him for that title and that degree. After seeing that, I immediately went and applied to defend my dissertation. And here's the other thing -- even if you work in an industry like CS that has more egalitarian views on credentials like a Ph.D., the whole world is not like that. The actual piece of paper opens up several opportunities not available otherwise: - Some jobs require a Ph.D. All the experience in the world won't qualify you for that kind of role without the piece of paper. - You can get jobs as an "expert" easily, where the piece of paper reifies your expertise to your clients (think expert witness or consultant). It's difficult to explain "Yes, I'm at the top of my field except I don't have the same credentials as those other people who also claim they are at the top". The credentials are more convincing to a lot of people. - It's easier to emigrate to various places. Having a Ph.D. could help you qualify for a O1 visa in the US, and other countries have special carve outs in their immigration codes for Ph.D.s. You don't get any special treatment for being ABD, no matter how much you insist it wasn't worth your time. etc. So having completed the Ph.D., it was by far the right choice for me.
  - bumby 4y ago
    >and by God did they care. I find it generally bad advice to chase after something when the main driver is social prestige. For one, by definition, you hinging your esteem to the (possibly fickle) opinion of somebody else and two, the people who are in fields for status rather than because of intrinsic joy of the work itself are often not the most productive or ethical. For example, the surgeons I know who are in the field mainly due to the status it confers seem to be quite miserable.
    - lumost 4y ago
      A phd is a one time expense, you can choose to discard it or use it as needed. Unlike a surgeon, who must spend their career actually doing surgery or face financial ruin. Anecdotally, I have seen phds create expectation vs reality mismatches for some. The degree can easily become an anchor which holds someone to problems that they no longer care about, or provides false belief in one’s credentials.
musicale 4y ago
One approach that some supervisors take is to encourage their students to submit a paper (or poster, demo, etc.) each term (or a few times a year) to an appropriate conference or journal. Even if the paper isn't accepted, you get the experience of conducting adequate background research and literature surveys, writing your own work up in a clear and coherent manner, and receiving feedback, some of which may be valuable. You also get used to rejection (and sometimes very harsh and dismissive criticism) as something that happens but isn't the end of the world. Eventually you get published, which in some sense proves the value of your work because it has been peer reviewed and identified as something worth publishing (and has arguably met the often nebulous "novelty" requirement as well.) Sometimes innovative work just gets rejected for publication because it goes against the status quo, and that's perhaps another good lesson to learn (as well as how to get around such bias if you need to.)
cycomanic 4y ago
Something I would highly recommend you to do is seek out an expert I your area of research (there would be someone) and contact them. Many academics are open to discuss ideas, work related to their research etc.. This might give you valuable feedback from someone who understands your work. Now from your post it sounds like you don't work in the natural sciences (apologies if I assumed wrong) so you might not have publications (in many natural sciences it's very common to have multiple publications before the defence, in many humanities the thesis is the publication), if you don't be prepared to send that person some condensed work (they likely don't have time to read a whole thesis) or if you have a publication. However only do that after starting a dialogue and after they have agreed to look at some of your work.
dr_dshiv 4y ago
Most good phd programs ensure that you won’t defend unless you will pass. That’s the purpose of the proposal. PhDs can be great— they mostly aren’t. But having a PhD is awesome. You can be an expert in anything the rest of your life. I say that sort of tongue in cheek. But really, your dissertation doesn’t matter.
wuschel 4y ago
Keep pushing. You were not the only one. You can do it. You will make it.

hnaccount_rng 4y ago

You can still quit. And, at least I would recommend you doing it. I have yet to do the jump to industry, but from what I'm hearing so far: There is little to no value assigned to the _paper_. And, at least in my view, this is exactly as it should be. There are two and only two situations [0]: 1) The company requires your specific expertise and won't care about the title as you are the one with the knowledge 2) The company does not require your specific expertise at which point they care about the PhD as a marker of "can do stuff autonomously", which has nothing to do with the title. On the other hand: (that is an assumption that may be wrong) You are miserable! That is time and joy that you won't get back. Academia will not be thankful for your sacrifice! And besides: I highly doubt that you would have to work for less pay if you quit. [0] well there is a third one: Someone wants someone with a title for title slides and reports. But I _really_ don't want to work for these people, so I'm discarding it.

treesknees 4y ago
There are some programs where you can earn a Doctorate without a Master's degree. Sometimes the program will combine both into one curriculum. In these cases, it's not possible to just quit and still have a Master's. You will have a Bachelor's and a bunch of debt. Perhaps they could work with an academic advisor to apply those credits taken to a Master's, maybe fill in the gaps and be done with it.
- hnaccount_rng 4y ago
  Okay yeah I should mention that I did my PhD in Germany, where a Master's is a prerequisite and there is nearly no course work (the little that is required is solved ... let's call it ... creatively, but the real work is done in the Master's)
- nycticorax 4y ago
  "a bunch of debt"? PhD students in STEM fields, at least in the US, can usually get a PhD without taking on additional debt. Also, many programs that don't offer a master's degree program will still let you graduate with a master's if you're a few years into a PhD program and decide to bail.
yanderekko 4y ago
>You can still quit. This is bad advice. The sheepskin effect is real and a company that "cares about the PhD as a marker" is not being petty or superficial in using this as a screening mechanism. Unless you're truly looking to enter a field where having a PhD would be of no value on your resume, just finish your PhD if you're 6 years in and can do so without too much additional distraction.
ModernMech 4y ago
> from what I'm hearing so far: There is little to no value assigned to the _paper_ I was given this advice when I was wavering on whether to finish my Ph.D. In fact, a guy who had finished his Ph.D. told me don't bother, nothing changed from before or after he got it. Then I went to his wedding and he had the DJ refer to him as "Dr." the entire night in front of his entire family, and by God did they care. They were so proud of him for that title and that degree. After seeing that, I immediately went and applied to defend my dissertation. And here's the other thing -- even if you work in an industry like CS that has more egalitarian views on credentials like a Ph.D., the whole world is not like that. The actual piece of paper opens up several opportunities not available otherwise: - Some jobs require a Ph.D. All the experience in the world won't qualify you for that kind of role without the piece of paper. - You can get jobs as an "expert" easily, where the piece of paper reifies your expertise to your clients (think expert witness or consultant). It's difficult to explain "Yes, I'm at the top of my field except I don't have the same credentials as those other people who also claim they are at the top". The credentials are more convincing to a lot of people. - It's easier to emigrate to various places. Having a Ph.D. could help you qualify for a O1 visa in the US, and other countries have special carve outs in their immigration codes for Ph.D.s. You don't get any special treatment for being ABD, no matter how much you insist it wasn't worth your time. etc. So having completed the Ph.D., it was by far the right choice for me.
- bumby 4y ago
  >and by God did they care. I find it generally bad advice to chase after something when the main driver is social prestige. For one, by definition, you hinging your esteem to the (possibly fickle) opinion of somebody else and two, the people who are in fields for status rather than because of intrinsic joy of the work itself are often not the most productive or ethical. For example, the surgeons I know who are in the field mainly due to the status it confers seem to be quite miserable.
  - lumost 4y ago
    A phd is a one time expense, you can choose to discard it or use it as needed. Unlike a surgeon, who must spend their career actually doing surgery or face financial ruin. Anecdotally, I have seen phds create expectation vs reality mismatches for some. The degree can easily become an anchor which holds someone to problems that they no longer care about, or provides false belief in one’s credentials.

musicale 4y ago

One approach that some supervisors take is to encourage their students to submit a paper (or poster, demo, etc.) each term (or a few times a year) to an appropriate conference or journal. Even if the paper isn't accepted, you get the experience of conducting adequate background research and literature surveys, writing your own work up in a clear and coherent manner, and receiving feedback, some of which may be valuable. You also get used to rejection (and sometimes very harsh and dismissive criticism) as something that happens but isn't the end of the world. Eventually you get published, which in some sense proves the value of your work because it has been peer reviewed and identified as something worth publishing (and has arguably met the often nebulous "novelty" requirement as well.) Sometimes innovative work just gets rejected for publication because it goes against the status quo, and that's perhaps another good lesson to learn (as well as how to get around such bias if you need to.)

cycomanic 4y ago

Something I would highly recommend you to do is seek out an expert I your area of research (there would be someone) and contact them. Many academics are open to discuss ideas, work related to their research etc.. This might give you valuable feedback from someone who understands your work. Now from your post it sounds like you don't work in the natural sciences (apologies if I assumed wrong) so you might not have publications (in many natural sciences it's very common to have multiple publications before the defence, in many humanities the thesis is the publication), if you don't be prepared to send that person some condensed work (they likely don't have time to read a whole thesis) or if you have a publication. However only do that after starting a dialogue and after they have agreed to look at some of your work.

dr_dshiv 4y ago

Most good phd programs ensure that you won’t defend unless you will pass. That’s the purpose of the proposal. PhDs can be great— they mostly aren’t. But having a PhD is awesome. You can be an expert in anything the rest of your life. I say that sort of tongue in cheek. But really, your dissertation doesn’t matter.

wuschel 4y ago

Keep pushing. You were not the only one. You can do it. You will make it.