5 ms·

I'm considering getting a masters or PhD (in PL) under a professor I work with now for my undergrad thesis. It has been my observation that the standard path of

I'm considering getting a masters or PhD (in PL) under a professor I work with now for my undergrad thesis. It has been my observation that the standard path of getting a standard corporate job tends to nullify all impact you could have (with a few rare exceptions). And after that I could get a job, become a professor, turn my research into a startup etc. The pros are 1) I know my professor and he's a solid guy 2) Pays decently well, money isn't too much of a concern 3) I get paid to do research, university provides generous grants if turned into a startup Cons 1) Hear a lot of bad things about the academic rat race, pressure to public even at masters/PhD level 2) I could probably hack out some paper into journals but whether I could have any real impact "on demand" (versus say spontaneously coming up with something) is a big question mark, especially within the deadlines given in the program Any thoughts on this? Especially heuristics, methods or ways to increase impact?

sashank_1509 2y ago
Ask yourself this, has there been any useful Programming Language that has come out of PL research/ Academia in the last 20 years? The only example I can think of is Julia, and it only seems to be used by other academics. If you’re looking to be impactful, you are much better off joining a job and working in your free time, than doing a PhD. A PhD is a program to compete for academic prestige. Grad students want to publish papers that get them noticed at conferences, invited to talks at prestigious universities etc, those are the incentives, always has been in academia. The brightest minds join academia because they care more about prestige than money (as they should, anyone can earn money, few can win a Nobel prize). In a healthy academic system, prestige is linked to real world societal impact. That is still somewhat true in fields like Machine Learning, in some fields it seems to be completely dis-aligned from any real world impact whatsoever (which seems to be PL research). Our academic system unfortunately is a rotten carcass. You could still, advisor willing, do research that interests you and not care at all whether you get noticed by conferences/ journals, your peers etc. But that takes a certain level of anti-social behavior that very few humans possess and so I say join a job. Plenty of companies are still building programming languages, like Google, Apple etc which are being used by engineers worldwide and if you finagle your way into a job at those teams, you will have a meaningful, impactful job, which is also well paying as a side bonus.
- bdangubic 2y ago
  Ask yourself this, has there been any useful Programming Language that has come out of PL research/ Academia in the last 20 years? Scala
- noelwelsh 2y ago
  > has there been any useful Programming Language that has come out of PL research/ Academia in the last 20 years? The goal of PL research is not, usually, to produce languages that see commercial adoption but to produce ideas that industry adopts. You cannot say a language like Rust is not influenced by PL research.
  - sashank_1509 2y ago
    No, I can very strongly claim that I doubt any of the modern languages like Rust, Go etc have been influenced by the trainwreck, that is programming language research. PL research today is actually the study of something called “type theory,” whose relation to the act of building programming languages is the same relation a math PhD has to a carpenter. You will be a great mathematician if you do PL research but I would prefer if you do it in the maths department and not con us into believing it has something to do with programming languages. This is apparently what undergrads are taught in a compilers course: https://x.com/deedydas/status/1846366712616403366 https://x.com/deedydas/status/1846366712616403366 I rest my case. (imagine the grad course syllabus) On the fringes, you might find research groups who are doing interesting useful stuff in programming languages, but that is an exception to the rule. Which is probably why, you never hear any of the new language developers ever cite programming language research.
    - yodsanklai 2y ago
      There is much more to PL research than "type theory". Look for instance at POPL 2024 program [1]. Also Rust has been influenced by type theory. Rust first compiler was written in OCaml and the influence of OCaml/Haskell (and many other languages [2]) is pretty clear. Goal of PL research isn't to design programming languages but academic research has a lot of influence on programming languages. [1] https://popl24.sigplan.org/program/program-POPL-2024/ https://popl24.sigplan.org/program/program-POPL-2024/ [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34704772 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34704772) Edit: regarding https://x.com/deedydas/status/1846366712616403366?mx=2 https://x.com/deedydas/status/1846366712616403366?mx=2 these are just the formal specs of a type checker. Nothing magic or very complicated there, it's just a notation. Anyone who can understand and implement a type checker should be able to understand this notation as well.
hiAndrewQuinn 2y ago
>getting a standard corporate job tends to nullify all impact you could have It's very strange to me that you think other people would pay you millions or tens of millions of dollars over an average 30- or 40-year career, without you generating at least that amount of value back to the external world as a whole, and probably generating some huge multiple more, and yet all that counts as "no impact" to you. Especially when your comparison point isn't oncology or something, but doing research in PL theory of all things. But I thank you for giving me the opportunity to get a little riled up on a lazy Sunday morning, it's one of my favorite hobbies. My recommendation to you for "increasing [overall] impact" is to read https://80000hours.org/ https://80000hours.org/ and follow their advice, and for "increasing impact [in this niche I really care about]" is simply to be more bounded with your claims.
- InkCanon 2y ago
  >people would pay millions over a career without you generating at least that value back Some of it is empirical observation. I've seen many friends at big/elite tech firms get paid to do very little. Many claims online to that effect, although I weigh it lesser. And I think it's completely plausible. I think because of the exponential advancement of technology, huge accrual of capital and inability of human incentive structures to keep up, value does not universally equal money. IMO many examples. Many people are tech firms do things that are very loosely related to revenue generation - so you can almost double your headcount during COVID, fire tons of them and still function the same (a substantial amount of hiring and firing was tech companies FOMOing about each othe). Meta's VR division has burned through $50 billion, but it's people got paid incredible salaries. One in three Nvidia employees are now worth over 20 million. Many of them were working decent jobs making GPUs for video games and suddenly because of AI, their net worth went up 100x. Oncology is another possible example. By far the wealthy people today are all in computers, instead of curing cancer. I'm not saying these people are bad or anything like that. The other part of the equation, wealth as a signal, has become incredibly noisy. In some areas it is still a strong signal, typically smaller companies and startups where providing value is a lot more closely related to what you make. And conversely, I don't agree with money generated being a signal of impact in itself.
Eduard 2y ago
> The main reason being getting a standard corporate job tends to nullify all impact you could have (with a few rare exceptions). "Impact" is an ambiguous term, so it's quite vague what you mean. I assume "positive impact on the world and knowledge". While this mantra is indeed motivational, it can set you up for disappointment, both in corporate as well as research/PhD settings, at the moment you realize how many hurdles there can be (toxic colleagues, bureaucracy, ignorance, etc.). Also, for this interpretation of "impact", a corporate job can be very impactful as well.
- InkCanon 2y ago
  >impact is ambiguous This is the core of the issue (most replies usually involve some slightly different definitions). I take many definitions of impact, including societal use, contributing to knowledge, etc. But it's much clearer there are many things people do that are low impact, especially in places with a lot of bureaucracy, politics etc. A corporate job can, but it seems to me as a result of various incentives corporate jobs tend to be compartmentalized, low impact and repetitive. We're also at a down cycle where tech, the historical haven for impact in a job, is scaling back a ton of things to focus on stock prices. If you know of any corporate jobs that do have impact by some definition of it, I'd love to hear it. In my experience these have been mostly startups.
noelwelsh 2y ago
Understand that a PhD is an apprenticeship to become a researcher. You are not expected to do career defining work as a PhD student, and indeed that is unlikely. Your relationship with your advisor is very important. It seems like you already have that sorted out. Most successful PhDs (in CS) involve tackling a relatlively small and easy project, usually suggested by your advisor, early on, and then expanding and iterating on this. Once you make some progress on a topic you'll easily find more directions to take it. Working with other people is one of the easiest ways to increase your productivity. All the great groups I saw had a lot of collaboration. Don't fall into the "lone scholar locked in the library" stereotype. Avoid bad people. Avoid getting stuck in your own head. Realize a PhD is a project like many others. It doesn't define you. You start it, you work consistently on it, you finish it. Doing a research Masters is usually a waste of time. Doing a taught Masters is a lot of fun, but something quite different to a PhD.
- InkCanon 2y ago
  Thanks for the reply! >A PhD is an apprenticeship to become a researcher That's a good way to look at it. I suspect one of the biggest possible benefits of a PhD is that you're put in an environment structured to and pressuring you to develop something new, which is the opposite of most other human work. >Start a relatively small and easy project and collaborate Sound advice, it's the general approach I've taken for my undergrad thesis. >A research masters is a waste of time, a coursework masters isn't Really? It looks the opposite to me. A research masters let's you collaborate with different people and work on new things. A coursework masters is taking advanced classes.
  - noelwelsh 2y ago
    At least in the UK, a PhD takes one year more than a MRes and it lets you become a university lecturer. It also should be funded, whilst you might have to pay your own way for an MRes. Hence I don't see the point of doing an MRes when you can stay an extra year and have more opportunities afterwards. MRes are usually a consolation prize for people who drop out of their PhD, IME.
    - 2y ago
EvgeniyZh 2y ago
> Hear a lot of bad things about the academic rat race, pressure to public even at masters/PhD level Strongly depends on the advisor and your goals. If you want to stay in academia, some amount of publications is required. Your advisor, especially if he pays your salary, may also push you to publish. If both are not an issue, I guess you can even finish without publications. > I could probably hack out some paper into journals but whether I could have any real impact "on demand" (versus say spontaneously coming up with something) is a big question mark, especially within the deadlines given in the program Nobody comes up with good ideas on demand. As you progress in your academic career the rate of ideas (theoretically) grows. That's why you need the advisor: he can come up with ideas at rate sufficient for his students
- InkCanon 2y ago
  >advisor might push to publish That's fair. I'm just cautiously eyeing the likelihood of coming up with something publishable that's not a going through the motions kind of thing.
sega_sai 2y ago
As a professor many years after the PhD my advice is to do the PhD only if you are genuinely excited / cannot stop yourself from doing research. Only then it will outweigh the negatives of difficulties of getting the jobs, somewhat low pay etc. At least from my point of view I always tried to work on what was interesting to me and what I was good at/or it was interesting to learn vs optimising what is more high profile/sexy. I don't think it is a universal advice but at least I always enjoyed what I did
- InkCanon 2y ago
  What do you mean by cannot stop doing research? I certainly haven't discovered anything new, but I love learning new things, reading about ideas, coming up with them.
  - lordnacho 2y ago
    Why not just study a bunch of different things to Master's level then? Learning something genuinely new seems like it has a much lower return to effort.
    - InkCanon 2y ago
      Good question. IMO 1) There's a kind of "hard" learning you're learning a fixed, structured way from a textbook. 2) There's a kind of "soft" learning which is transmission of knowledge, which happens a lot more face to face when you're working together. 3) Then there's a kind of research learning, where you're doing something new, usually with collaborators. The second and third are really best done in certain environments like research or good companies
  - enum 2y ago
    You'll do great. This will eventually turn into new discoveries if you keep at it.
    - InkCanon 2y ago
      That is the hope!
nikolayasdf123 2y ago
> And after that I could get a job, become a professor, turn my research into a startup etc. chances of getting professor-ship, tenure, or even a post-doc is close to nil, due to extreme competition and limited seats. academia is the most slowly moving enterprise, some folks in their 80s still around, when young grads kicked out. getting a job after PhD may also be very hard. you would be very over-qualified, likely huge ego, and very narrow skillset in your domain, that is likely lagging behind industry. managerial (or even just "work at corporate") skills will be lacking. unemployment of PhDs is wildly high, even higher than if you did not do PhD. turning research into startup may be much harder than you would expect. milking government funding for years (and surviving jungle of academic politics to get its cut) is very different from market outside of it (i.e. venture capital, startups, tech, etc.), at the time you would want to make startup you would have to learn all from scratch, or even un-learn, as many would be detrimental. then there is toxic academic culture (funding, publishing, power dynamics). and in recent years academia become pit of wild woke left agenda, even more oil on fire. tbh, if you want to do something special, academia as we have it today is not the best place. if you still want to do it, guess best strategy is to "do it quick and get out". some smart people I know doing exactly that. doing accelerated PhD asap and getting the hell out of academia. (but then, it depends all on your professor power dynamics. in some places they would not let you graduate unless they wish so.)
- andrepd 2y ago
  > changes of getting professor-ship, tenure, or even a post-doc is close to nil What an extreme exaggeration. Yes academia is competitive, yes tenure is hard to get (obviously). But the chance is not "close to nil" for that at all, and it's certainly not "close to nil" for a postdoc lol. > getting a job after PhD may also be very hard. you would be very over-qualified, likely huge ego, and very narrow skillset in your domain, that is likely lagging behind industry. managerial (or even just "work at corporate") skills will be lacking. unemployment of PhDs is wildly high, even higher than if you did not do PhD. This is just not true x) There are no numbers where PhDs have worse unemployment than grads. Conversely, it does open a lot of doors for industry jobs (think ML, quant finance, to name a few)
- InkCanon 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

sashank_1509 2y ago

Ask yourself this, has there been any useful Programming Language that has come out of PL research/ Academia in the last 20 years? The only example I can think of is Julia, and it only seems to be used by other academics. If you’re looking to be impactful, you are much better off joining a job and working in your free time, than doing a PhD. A PhD is a program to compete for academic prestige. Grad students want to publish papers that get them noticed at conferences, invited to talks at prestigious universities etc, those are the incentives, always has been in academia. The brightest minds join academia because they care more about prestige than money (as they should, anyone can earn money, few can win a Nobel prize). In a healthy academic system, prestige is linked to real world societal impact. That is still somewhat true in fields like Machine Learning, in some fields it seems to be completely dis-aligned from any real world impact whatsoever (which seems to be PL research). Our academic system unfortunately is a rotten carcass. You could still, advisor willing, do research that interests you and not care at all whether you get noticed by conferences/ journals, your peers etc. But that takes a certain level of anti-social behavior that very few humans possess and so I say join a job. Plenty of companies are still building programming languages, like Google, Apple etc which are being used by engineers worldwide and if you finagle your way into a job at those teams, you will have a meaningful, impactful job, which is also well paying as a side bonus.

bdangubic 2y ago
Ask yourself this, has there been any useful Programming Language that has come out of PL research/ Academia in the last 20 years? Scala
noelwelsh 2y ago
> has there been any useful Programming Language that has come out of PL research/ Academia in the last 20 years? The goal of PL research is not, usually, to produce languages that see commercial adoption but to produce ideas that industry adopts. You cannot say a language like Rust is not influenced by PL research.
- sashank_1509 2y ago
  No, I can very strongly claim that I doubt any of the modern languages like Rust, Go etc have been influenced by the trainwreck, that is programming language research. PL research today is actually the study of something called “type theory,” whose relation to the act of building programming languages is the same relation a math PhD has to a carpenter. You will be a great mathematician if you do PL research but I would prefer if you do it in the maths department and not con us into believing it has something to do with programming languages. This is apparently what undergrads are taught in a compilers course: https://x.com/deedydas/status/1846366712616403366 https://x.com/deedydas/status/1846366712616403366 I rest my case. (imagine the grad course syllabus) On the fringes, you might find research groups who are doing interesting useful stuff in programming languages, but that is an exception to the rule. Which is probably why, you never hear any of the new language developers ever cite programming language research.
  - yodsanklai 2y ago
    There is much more to PL research than "type theory". Look for instance at POPL 2024 program [1]. Also Rust has been influenced by type theory. Rust first compiler was written in OCaml and the influence of OCaml/Haskell (and many other languages [2]) is pretty clear. Goal of PL research isn't to design programming languages but academic research has a lot of influence on programming languages. [1] https://popl24.sigplan.org/program/program-POPL-2024/ https://popl24.sigplan.org/program/program-POPL-2024/ [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34704772 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34704772) Edit: regarding https://x.com/deedydas/status/1846366712616403366?mx=2 https://x.com/deedydas/status/1846366712616403366?mx=2 these are just the formal specs of a type checker. Nothing magic or very complicated there, it's just a notation. Anyone who can understand and implement a type checker should be able to understand this notation as well.

hiAndrewQuinn 2y ago

>getting a standard corporate job tends to nullify all impact you could have It's very strange to me that you think other people would pay you millions or tens of millions of dollars over an average 30- or 40-year career, without you generating at least that amount of value back to the external world as a whole, and probably generating some huge multiple more, and yet all that counts as "no impact" to you. Especially when your comparison point isn't oncology or something, but doing research in PL theory of all things. But I thank you for giving me the opportunity to get a little riled up on a lazy Sunday morning, it's one of my favorite hobbies. My recommendation to you for "increasing [overall] impact" is to read https://80000hours.org/ https://80000hours.org/ and follow their advice, and for "increasing impact [in this niche I really care about]" is simply to be more bounded with your claims.

InkCanon 2y ago
>people would pay millions over a career without you generating at least that value back Some of it is empirical observation. I've seen many friends at big/elite tech firms get paid to do very little. Many claims online to that effect, although I weigh it lesser. And I think it's completely plausible. I think because of the exponential advancement of technology, huge accrual of capital and inability of human incentive structures to keep up, value does not universally equal money. IMO many examples. Many people are tech firms do things that are very loosely related to revenue generation - so you can almost double your headcount during COVID, fire tons of them and still function the same (a substantial amount of hiring and firing was tech companies FOMOing about each othe). Meta's VR division has burned through $50 billion, but it's people got paid incredible salaries. One in three Nvidia employees are now worth over 20 million. Many of them were working decent jobs making GPUs for video games and suddenly because of AI, their net worth went up 100x. Oncology is another possible example. By far the wealthy people today are all in computers, instead of curing cancer. I'm not saying these people are bad or anything like that. The other part of the equation, wealth as a signal, has become incredibly noisy. In some areas it is still a strong signal, typically smaller companies and startups where providing value is a lot more closely related to what you make. And conversely, I don't agree with money generated being a signal of impact in itself.

Eduard 2y ago

> The main reason being getting a standard corporate job tends to nullify all impact you could have (with a few rare exceptions). "Impact" is an ambiguous term, so it's quite vague what you mean. I assume "positive impact on the world and knowledge". While this mantra is indeed motivational, it can set you up for disappointment, both in corporate as well as research/PhD settings, at the moment you realize how many hurdles there can be (toxic colleagues, bureaucracy, ignorance, etc.). Also, for this interpretation of "impact", a corporate job can be very impactful as well.

InkCanon 2y ago
>impact is ambiguous This is the core of the issue (most replies usually involve some slightly different definitions). I take many definitions of impact, including societal use, contributing to knowledge, etc. But it's much clearer there are many things people do that are low impact, especially in places with a lot of bureaucracy, politics etc. A corporate job can, but it seems to me as a result of various incentives corporate jobs tend to be compartmentalized, low impact and repetitive. We're also at a down cycle where tech, the historical haven for impact in a job, is scaling back a ton of things to focus on stock prices. If you know of any corporate jobs that do have impact by some definition of it, I'd love to hear it. In my experience these have been mostly startups.

noelwelsh 2y ago

Understand that a PhD is an apprenticeship to become a researcher. You are not expected to do career defining work as a PhD student, and indeed that is unlikely. Your relationship with your advisor is very important. It seems like you already have that sorted out. Most successful PhDs (in CS) involve tackling a relatlively small and easy project, usually suggested by your advisor, early on, and then expanding and iterating on this. Once you make some progress on a topic you'll easily find more directions to take it. Working with other people is one of the easiest ways to increase your productivity. All the great groups I saw had a lot of collaboration. Don't fall into the "lone scholar locked in the library" stereotype. Avoid bad people. Avoid getting stuck in your own head. Realize a PhD is a project like many others. It doesn't define you. You start it, you work consistently on it, you finish it. Doing a research Masters is usually a waste of time. Doing a taught Masters is a lot of fun, but something quite different to a PhD.

InkCanon 2y ago
Thanks for the reply! >A PhD is an apprenticeship to become a researcher That's a good way to look at it. I suspect one of the biggest possible benefits of a PhD is that you're put in an environment structured to and pressuring you to develop something new, which is the opposite of most other human work. >Start a relatively small and easy project and collaborate Sound advice, it's the general approach I've taken for my undergrad thesis. >A research masters is a waste of time, a coursework masters isn't Really? It looks the opposite to me. A research masters let's you collaborate with different people and work on new things. A coursework masters is taking advanced classes.
- noelwelsh 2y ago
  At least in the UK, a PhD takes one year more than a MRes and it lets you become a university lecturer. It also should be funded, whilst you might have to pay your own way for an MRes. Hence I don't see the point of doing an MRes when you can stay an extra year and have more opportunities afterwards. MRes are usually a consolation prize for people who drop out of their PhD, IME.
  - 2y ago

EvgeniyZh 2y ago

> Hear a lot of bad things about the academic rat race, pressure to public even at masters/PhD level Strongly depends on the advisor and your goals. If you want to stay in academia, some amount of publications is required. Your advisor, especially if he pays your salary, may also push you to publish. If both are not an issue, I guess you can even finish without publications. > I could probably hack out some paper into journals but whether I could have any real impact "on demand" (versus say spontaneously coming up with something) is a big question mark, especially within the deadlines given in the program Nobody comes up with good ideas on demand. As you progress in your academic career the rate of ideas (theoretically) grows. That's why you need the advisor: he can come up with ideas at rate sufficient for his students

InkCanon 2y ago
>advisor might push to publish That's fair. I'm just cautiously eyeing the likelihood of coming up with something publishable that's not a going through the motions kind of thing.

sega_sai 2y ago

As a professor many years after the PhD my advice is to do the PhD only if you are genuinely excited / cannot stop yourself from doing research. Only then it will outweigh the negatives of difficulties of getting the jobs, somewhat low pay etc. At least from my point of view I always tried to work on what was interesting to me and what I was good at/or it was interesting to learn vs optimising what is more high profile/sexy. I don't think it is a universal advice but at least I always enjoyed what I did

InkCanon 2y ago
What do you mean by cannot stop doing research? I certainly haven't discovered anything new, but I love learning new things, reading about ideas, coming up with them.
- lordnacho 2y ago
  Why not just study a bunch of different things to Master's level then? Learning something genuinely new seems like it has a much lower return to effort.
  - InkCanon 2y ago
    Good question. IMO 1) There's a kind of "hard" learning you're learning a fixed, structured way from a textbook. 2) There's a kind of "soft" learning which is transmission of knowledge, which happens a lot more face to face when you're working together. 3) Then there's a kind of research learning, where you're doing something new, usually with collaborators. The second and third are really best done in certain environments like research or good companies
- enum 2y ago
  You'll do great. This will eventually turn into new discoveries if you keep at it.
  - InkCanon 2y ago
    That is the hope!

nikolayasdf123 2y ago

> And after that I could get a job, become a professor, turn my research into a startup etc. chances of getting professor-ship, tenure, or even a post-doc is close to nil, due to extreme competition and limited seats. academia is the most slowly moving enterprise, some folks in their 80s still around, when young grads kicked out. getting a job after PhD may also be very hard. you would be very over-qualified, likely huge ego, and very narrow skillset in your domain, that is likely lagging behind industry. managerial (or even just "work at corporate") skills will be lacking. unemployment of PhDs is wildly high, even higher than if you did not do PhD. turning research into startup may be much harder than you would expect. milking government funding for years (and surviving jungle of academic politics to get its cut) is very different from market outside of it (i.e. venture capital, startups, tech, etc.), at the time you would want to make startup you would have to learn all from scratch, or even un-learn, as many would be detrimental. then there is toxic academic culture (funding, publishing, power dynamics). and in recent years academia become pit of wild woke left agenda, even more oil on fire. tbh, if you want to do something special, academia as we have it today is not the best place. if you still want to do it, guess best strategy is to "do it quick and get out". some smart people I know doing exactly that. doing accelerated PhD asap and getting the hell out of academia. (but then, it depends all on your professor power dynamics. in some places they would not let you graduate unless they wish so.)

andrepd 2y ago
> changes of getting professor-ship, tenure, or even a post-doc is close to nil What an extreme exaggeration. Yes academia is competitive, yes tenure is hard to get (obviously). But the chance is not "close to nil" for that at all, and it's certainly not "close to nil" for a postdoc lol. > getting a job after PhD may also be very hard. you would be very over-qualified, likely huge ego, and very narrow skillset in your domain, that is likely lagging behind industry. managerial (or even just "work at corporate") skills will be lacking. unemployment of PhDs is wildly high, even higher than if you did not do PhD. This is just not true x) There are no numbers where PhDs have worse unemployment than grads. Conversely, it does open a lot of doors for industry jobs (think ML, quant finance, to name a few)
InkCanon 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]