4 ms·

Too many people stay in academia out of inertia and being comfortable with the "school" mode of existence and are afraid of the broad wide world and the decisio

Too many people stay in academia out of inertia and being comfortable with the "school" mode of existence and are afraid of the broad wide world and the decisions involved. They finish their masters and liked the classes and the thesis topic and so they stay. But as you said, a PhD is quite different than all schooling before that. And that's good. A PhD is supposed to signify that you contributed new scientific value as judged by the expert international community, not just your teacher. Of course there are many wrinkles on this story like sloppy knee-jerk reviews etc. But anything in life where you "just show up" and fulfill some explicit assignments tends not to be very valuable. If just showing up and doing what someone else decided for you is enough for a thing, that thing will lose value very soon. Similarly if you make sure almost everyone can do it, it won't have value, but will become a participation trophy. But nothing in real life work like that. School is fake. You don't get a job just by showing up or having a diploma. Nobody will fall in love and start a relationship/family with you for showing up and fulfilling some list of criteria. Nobody will fund your startup or strike a business deal with your company because you showed up and did some assigned tasks. In almost all aspects of life being proactive and exercising agency will get you much further than the teacher's pet mindset that school instills. And unfortunately rather than selecting for it, the PhD selects against such agency again because it's the safe option and people who are ready for an adventure usually dislike the academic environment. Not all of couse, I obviously don't mean every single person fits this. But in my experience this explains part of the mismatch in expectations and reality for the "I was a good student so a PhD felt natural" people. Not those come into the PhD with a well thought out plan, and knowing exactly why they want to pursue it, the upsides and downsides etc.

throw0101c 8mo ago
> But anything in life where you "just show up" and fulfill some explicit assignments tends not to be very valuable. Including paramedic or trauma surgeon, where the explicit assignment is to stabilize the human being in front of you? Or how about plumber, to stop water where it shouldn't be, making it come out faucets and go down drains where it should? Had furnace issues when we switched it on in October, the HVAC technicians made the magic box generate warm air: his explicit assignment was 'make the house warm' and he showed up and did that.
- bonoboTP 8mo ago
  Depends on your goals. Even as a plumber you have to think about what's worth what, how you specialize, and what the price is. Even as a doctor you may be under appreciated and the explicit goal is not so explicit all the time and sometimes curing the patient requires inventiveness and not only following a script or a textbook. The patients survival is often not purely a cookie cutter application of rules as it works in school. And in some sense we can make the PhD requirements explicit too: prove that you are able to provide valuable and novel contributions to the scientific community as recognized by them. But it's not box ticking. But so is becoming an especially appreciated and respected doctor in your city. It's not just don't kill too many patients and you're golden. If you want a mediocre run of the mill PhD it's not super hard. It is hard, but not super hard if you have academic aptitude. You can do something incremental and follow the trends, and eventually some venue will publish it. Not many will read it though and you won't become a leading voice though. There are many incremental paper that help many average PhD students get their degrees. There are plenty of other non academic fields where you have to work hard and long hours, such as finance or law firms. You can choose less demanding alternatives too but they are less prestigious. Of course finance pays better. I think the problem is that people want to treat a scientific career as both a regular job and also as something of a pop star personal brand type of thing, and they only want the upside of both. There are many problems with academia, power balance etc of course. It's not unlike problems for aspiring movie stars or in other somewhat isolated bubbles within society like in sports or the theater scene, or how kitchens work in high end restaurants etc etc. If you want to become an acclaimed top expert in a subfield, it's not easy. And humans are going to do their human things around such opportunities for status advancements.
aleph_minus_one 8mo ago
> Nobody will fall in love and start a relationship/family with you for showing up and fulfilling some list of criteria. The "date-me doc" community might disagree: * https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/02/style/date-me-docs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/02/style/date-me-docs.html * https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/in-defense-of-describable-dating https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/in-defense-of-describable-d... * https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-dating https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/highlights-from-the-comment...
- washadjeffmad 8mo ago
  I recently dated a DMA in her 30s, and while incredibly talented and respected within her field, she had no experience sharing a life with someone else. As selfish and unfair as she said she felt, she wasn't wasn't ever willing to compromise. I'm not new to dating educated professionals, and it seems to be an unfortunate recurrence balancing being torn between wanting a partner and family and worrying that any misstep could jeopardize their career or cost them opportunity.
  - aleph_minus_one 8mo ago
    > I'm not new to dating educated professionals, and it seems to be an unfortunate recurrence balancing being torn between wanting a partner and family and worrying that any misstep could jeopardize their career or cost them opportunity. There exist a large number of very smart people who are not that career-obsessed (the traits that you need for a fast career are rather different from "highly smart"). I consider it to be likely that you value character traits that made the partner predestinied for a successful career, but don't like the fact that because of this, they are often obsessed about their career.
washadjeffmad 8mo ago
>A PhD is supposed to signify that you contributed new scientific value You forgot about the humanities, but it's hard to blame you. So do most grant offices.
- bonoboTP 8mo ago
  That's way too far from the article in question and I don't think it helps to discuss them together. Now if you propose that sciences and humanities should be brought more into conversation I can get on board but it's not easy because both sides approach it from a high horse attitude. In practice these PhDs use the same label but have diverged a long time ago and their cultures, expectations and problems are quite different. As a STEM person, I also don't exactly understand what gets you a humanities PhD. I assume something like coming up with a new interpretation of a text, event or intellectual movement, connecting dots together in new ways that appears insightful to other scholars. But it's probably different in history, literature or other branches of the humanities as well. As I understand novelty is always part of it, as is significance in some way. You need to defend some kind of novel thought of yours, in a thesis.

throw0101c 8mo ago

> But anything in life where you "just show up" and fulfill some explicit assignments tends not to be very valuable. Including paramedic or trauma surgeon, where the explicit assignment is to stabilize the human being in front of you? Or how about plumber, to stop water where it shouldn't be, making it come out faucets and go down drains where it should? Had furnace issues when we switched it on in October, the HVAC technicians made the magic box generate warm air: his explicit assignment was 'make the house warm' and he showed up and did that.

bonoboTP 8mo ago
Depends on your goals. Even as a plumber you have to think about what's worth what, how you specialize, and what the price is. Even as a doctor you may be under appreciated and the explicit goal is not so explicit all the time and sometimes curing the patient requires inventiveness and not only following a script or a textbook. The patients survival is often not purely a cookie cutter application of rules as it works in school. And in some sense we can make the PhD requirements explicit too: prove that you are able to provide valuable and novel contributions to the scientific community as recognized by them. But it's not box ticking. But so is becoming an especially appreciated and respected doctor in your city. It's not just don't kill too many patients and you're golden. If you want a mediocre run of the mill PhD it's not super hard. It is hard, but not super hard if you have academic aptitude. You can do something incremental and follow the trends, and eventually some venue will publish it. Not many will read it though and you won't become a leading voice though. There are many incremental paper that help many average PhD students get their degrees. There are plenty of other non academic fields where you have to work hard and long hours, such as finance or law firms. You can choose less demanding alternatives too but they are less prestigious. Of course finance pays better. I think the problem is that people want to treat a scientific career as both a regular job and also as something of a pop star personal brand type of thing, and they only want the upside of both. There are many problems with academia, power balance etc of course. It's not unlike problems for aspiring movie stars or in other somewhat isolated bubbles within society like in sports or the theater scene, or how kitchens work in high end restaurants etc etc. If you want to become an acclaimed top expert in a subfield, it's not easy. And humans are going to do their human things around such opportunities for status advancements.

aleph_minus_one 8mo ago

> Nobody will fall in love and start a relationship/family with you for showing up and fulfilling some list of criteria. The "date-me doc" community might disagree: * https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/02/style/date-me-docs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/02/style/date-me-docs.html * https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/in-defense-of-describable-dating https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/in-defense-of-describable-d... * https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-dating https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/highlights-from-the-comment...

washadjeffmad 8mo ago
I recently dated a DMA in her 30s, and while incredibly talented and respected within her field, she had no experience sharing a life with someone else. As selfish and unfair as she said she felt, she wasn't wasn't ever willing to compromise. I'm not new to dating educated professionals, and it seems to be an unfortunate recurrence balancing being torn between wanting a partner and family and worrying that any misstep could jeopardize their career or cost them opportunity.
- aleph_minus_one 8mo ago
  > I'm not new to dating educated professionals, and it seems to be an unfortunate recurrence balancing being torn between wanting a partner and family and worrying that any misstep could jeopardize their career or cost them opportunity. There exist a large number of very smart people who are not that career-obsessed (the traits that you need for a fast career are rather different from "highly smart"). I consider it to be likely that you value character traits that made the partner predestinied for a successful career, but don't like the fact that because of this, they are often obsessed about their career.

washadjeffmad 8mo ago

>A PhD is supposed to signify that you contributed new scientific value You forgot about the humanities, but it's hard to blame you. So do most grant offices.

bonoboTP 8mo ago
That's way too far from the article in question and I don't think it helps to discuss them together. Now if you propose that sciences and humanities should be brought more into conversation I can get on board but it's not easy because both sides approach it from a high horse attitude. In practice these PhDs use the same label but have diverged a long time ago and their cultures, expectations and problems are quite different. As a STEM person, I also don't exactly understand what gets you a humanities PhD. I assume something like coming up with a new interpretation of a text, event or intellectual movement, connecting dots together in new ways that appears insightful to other scholars. But it's probably different in history, literature or other branches of the humanities as well. As I understand novelty is always part of it, as is significance in some way. You need to defend some kind of novel thought of yours, in a thesis.