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Looking back, we only had two guys in our class that went for Ph.D - both ended up doing a Ph.D in ML, coming from electrical engineering. This was back when Im
by TrackerFF 1y ago
Looking back, we only had two guys in our class that went for Ph.D - both ended up doing a Ph.D in ML, coming from electrical engineering. This was back when ImageNet changed the scene. Both were extremely sharp. One of them ended up leaving for industry after 5 years postdoc, the other publishes like a machine, had stints at some really prestigious schools (Stanford, CMU) - but as far as I can find, still postdoc 10 years after getting his Ph.D
So while this is only N=2 sample size / anecdotal, it would seem to me that even in red hot fields like AI/ML you'd be better off finding some good company / private research group that matches your interest, and go for that. Probably going to get paid 5 times more, and not have to think about research grants and tenure track.
- contrarian1234 1y ago> still postdoc 10 years after getting his Ph.D I think this is just a matter of what position you want. A classmate of mine wrote one paper on machine learning (he basically barely know how to run the Python to train some ancient neural net), did a short 1 year postdoc with his advisor and got a job as a professor at some no-name university in Japan. I'm sure your classmate could get a professorship somewhere if he wanted. If his goal is to be a professor at Caltech then it's a different story
- phillipharris 1y agoWas he Japanese, or fluent in Japanese?
- contrarian1234 1y agono, not at all. in asia many many international professors and postdocs work 100% in English. Its the norm. Extremely rare to meet the exception. Many dont even have a conversational grasp of the local language Even if you aquire the local language, getting to a proficiency level where you can discuss scientific topics is nearly impossible (bc in the meantime youre doing all your work in english)