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I have a horrid memory of interviewing "a kid" for an entry level engineering job during on-campus recruitment. The "kid" had just finished his PhD in chemistry

I have a horrid memory of interviewing "a kid" for an entry level engineering job during on-campus recruitment. The "kid" had just finished his PhD in chemistry following a master's and bachelor's in the same field. He was now closer to 30 to than to 20, was interviewing for the same job that a BS-grad can go after, and wasn't competitive compared to them. I asked him why he had spent so much time in chemistry just to pivot and he just literally didn't know. It was hard to look at his graduate education as anything other than a wasted decade that actually has set him back career wise. One interesting question is how does someone do that to themselves? Another interesting question is - what is the value of a PhD when someone uninterested in the field and not-that-thought-out about it can get one? We think of PhD designating that someone has committed to the field and pushed a little edge of the frontier forward through sheer motivation and brillians and it was just hard to imagine this being true for this guy.

cucumber3732842 2mo ago
>One interesting question is how does someone do that to themselves? Because the system arounds you encourages it.
fifilura 2mo ago
You must be blessed. To always know why you do stuff?
- xyzelement 2mo ago
  Umm yes, what I did for 10 years and why is a reasonable question especially of someone on PhD level.
  - fifilura 2mo ago
    This whole chain of consequences probably started around "why did you start studying chemistry when you were 19 years old?". Maybe bit sad. Very common. And also a life.
    - xyzelement 2mo ago
      Agreed. It's like a sad state in my mind more than anything. But also an interesting prompt for reflection - if something sad happened to you due to your own decisiona, do you reflect on those decisions and learn?
      - fifilura 2mo ago
        Not as much learn, but - are you able to pull yourself out from a local optimum? It is not the learning but the action that is missing here.
voakbasda 2mo ago
Graduate school is not about passion and pushing frontiers. It is about training new researchers. It is it not a place that I would recommend to anyone who has real passion or brilliance in any field.
- mym1990 2mo ago
  Most graduate school students don’t do research and don’t go on to do a PhD though? And what’s wrong with having more researchers?
  - bluGill 2mo ago
    > what’s wrong with having more researchers? Nothing wrong with it. However what is right about it? The world needs research, and that means researchers. However for every person in research the world needs a very large number of people in non research. The guy who works at the local sewer plant isn't doing research, but the world would fall apart if nobody did that job, while the world would still continue with nobody in research (I wouldn't want to live in either world, but the world of no more research is better than the world of no more sewer systems)
- epihelix 2mo ago
  You think that researchers lack passion and cannot push frontiers?? Research and passion are not dichotomous, they are (or at least should be) synonymous. (I am genuinely sorry for whatever bad experience that's led to this bitterness, though.)
  - voakbasda 2mo ago
    I think that graduate schools do not filter on passion and ability. They filter on people that can play the game, where such things can be a liability. Edit: “research” in academia now revolves around grant writing and publishing. That is an anti-filter for individuals that do not want to play that game and would rather spend that time doing actual research.
benfortuna 2mo ago
Academia is not a waste of time just because it doesn't translate into "productivity" and wealth. Some people enjoy the pursuit of knowledge, and find great meaning in it. Increasingly the arts are being defunded based on a similar argument, and humanity as a whole is worse off because of it.
- xyzelement 2mo ago
  He did not seem to enjoy it or find meaning in it. Something could be valuable despite being "useless" but not in this case.
- ydat 2mo ago
  Why do we need artists anymore? I can just ChatGPT to draw me pretty pictures if I want.
- bluGill 2mo ago
  There is a real conflict here. People are getting loans for their education. A loan is an investment, and should only be taken if it will pay off. If you are getting education because you are interested in the topic but won't get a job in it: I fully support this. However you should not take a loan out to get this education: there are too many other things to do in life that you also will want to do. Worse the loan means you cannot change your mind later if you are wrong (or you can, but you will still have to pay for the mistake instead of whatever you are interested in today). There is one other reason for education: to become a better citizen (don't fall for bad politics). However that should be to everybody and I haven't seen much evidence that higher education really helps much.
  - keiferski 2mo ago
    It's very rare and extremely un-recommended to get a loan for a PhD. For most people, at worst, you're losing money by opportunity cost.
  - snaking0776 2mo ago
    While it would be insane to get a PhD if you had to pay for it, at least in the US you are paid a stipend (if not a good one) so you can generally avoid any debt. There is definitely an opportunity cost though.
swader999 2mo ago
At the age of 17 or 18 how do you actually know? My kids are going through this now. He's like I don't even know if I want to be an engineer, people just tell me I'd be good at it.
- ydat 2mo ago
  One thing I always hated about university education is how it’s entirely designed nowadays as a sort of “coming of age experience” for teenagers coming out of high school. I don’t have any higher education. I was stupid and arrogant and thought it would be a waste of time and money. However even if I did attend at 17/18, I almost certainly would have squandered it. I wouldn’t have been mature or aware enough to understand how and where to focus my time and energy in such a setting. By about my mid-late 20s I felt like I had a better idea of what I could or could not get out of such an experience, but by that point I had a life and bills to pay and a job to attend to allow for any of that. There’s barely any time or money for education now. I’ve thought about trying to go back for the last decade, but it just becomes less realistic every year.
  - hklgny 2mo ago
    I think that gap you described of not ready but able vs ready but not able is exactly what the college experience is for. I also don’t think everyone needs to bridge that gap by going to college. For me personally, I had a ton of fun squandering my college years taking a wide variety of classes that could have become a passion but ended up not. I would not have been able to do that outside of a structured environment that gave each subject a pass/fail opportunity in my life that cost only a semester.
    - cindyllm 2mo ago
      [dead]
  - ahahs 2mo ago
    College really isn't that hard or complex. All that's required is you attend classes, study, and pass tests. Where's this narrative coming from that one has to "be mature and aware enough to focus my time and energy in such a setting"? what setting? class? the same concept we've all participated in since kindergarten? online school, commuting, and part time school are all valid options that result in a college degree.
charlieyu1 2mo ago
Many would dream to be top scholars of their field, to the point it feels like a personal mission. The reality kicks in for the first time when you can’t progress through the system anymore, be it 25 or 30.
bluGill 2mo ago
A PhD demonstrates the ability to think deeply about something. It thus isn't useless for any good job. However there are often better trainings for that job.
- throwaway98797 2mo ago
  most jobs don’t require deep thought. in LLM terms low to no reasoning is better than ultra.
- mcv 2mo ago
  I think it mostly proves how much you're willing to submit yourself to hard, complex, frustrating and unrewarding work. You don't get the PhD just for the thinking.
skrebbel 2mo ago
A friend of mine did a PhD in computer science solely and specifically so he could prove to himself that he could do a sustained, multi-year solo project and complete it. He then got a job he totally would've gotten 4 years earlier as well, with just the MSc. When asked (eg by recruiters/interviewers), he always said "because I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it" and personally I find that a very satisfying answer. All I'm saying is, not everyone doing a PhD and then leaving academia was accidentally climbing up the wrong ladder. Some did it on purpose, just to admire the view.
- xyzelement 2mo ago
  That's a good answer. Not the answer I got in the story.
  - teiferer 2mo ago
    "I don't know" is not a very strange answer if you are talking to somebody at a carreer fair who is introverted. I know lots of folks who would answer like that. Once you get to know them and talk to them in a quiet non-stressful environment where they can think a little, they often open up about their real motivations. Nobody is going to tell you the story of their grandmother with whom they shared a chemistry hobby and in whose memory they wanted to acquire deep knowledge of the field before getting a well-paying job in a different field if they are introvert and you give them the vibe of being judgemental of their life choices.
    - throwaway_7274 2mo ago
      I so appreciate the compassion in this comment. It’s rare on the internet.
kayo_20211030 2mo ago
I would have interviewed him too. I would have felt that he was at least technically savvy; and, beyond that, he might have the spark of one of the best qualities of a future colleague i.e. interesting-ness - one can't underestimate that. On the other hand > he just literally didn't know That would have been disappointing to hear.
stickfigure 2mo ago
At least chemistry is objectively useful knowledge. Even if he would rather work in software engineering, there are a lot of places where domain expertise like that is very valuable. Plenty of software in the sciences.
throwaway_7274 2mo ago
Oh hey that’s me! Not literally me. Probably I was a little better off. But I was recently in a similar position, and feel like my PhD was a lost decade in some ways. The answer, as I’m sure many already know, is idealism and a certain kind of naïvité. It’s not an absolute naïvité, but it is some kind of belief in the value of doing something that isn’t “mere” careerism. You think it’s noble to contribute to science. And you do contribute, a teeny eensy weensy bit. You also find out that it’s not everything you imagined it would be. And then you’re 30 and one day you unblind yourself. You look at the job market, and how much money various jobs actually pay. More importantly, you realize quite suddenly that money can actually make your life better, and that, whatever damage it might have wrought on your soul to pursue it, it would at least have enabled you to own a home one day. Maybe have kids. Shit. And the fresh grads who went straight into tech and finance making $300k (hold on, you can make $300k? Wait a second, that’s not a senior executive salary? That’s a normal-ish bourgeois white-collar HCoL salary that people make fresh out of school? Hold on, that’s basically a starting salary in that world? WHAT?)… just naturally understood. Then you try to explain this on a message board or something. You don’t want pity (after all, your life is very good in the scheme of things), you just want some connection, or maybe even a, “that’s ok, that’s how we learn, life is a twisty path.” But half the people call you a class traitor. The other half call you a mediocre sucker.
- ydat 2mo ago
  > it would at least have enabled you to own a home one day. Maybe have kids. Shit. ding ding ding. This is the real kicker. This is why it’s a waste of time to pursue. Want a PhD? A home? A family? Pick one or two. With the amount of time and effort it takes to achieve those these days, you won’t get to have them all. So you have to pick one. At 17/18 it’s easy to see the coming decade as longer than it really is, and opportunity cost will catch up to you quick.
- pjc50 2mo ago
  > That’s a normal-ish bourgeois white-collar HCoL salary that people make fresh out of school? Hold on, that’s basically a starting salary in that world? WHAT? Some people. That's very field-specific and won't last forever. Basically FAANG programmers and finance bros.
gh0stcat 2mo ago
As another poster mentioned, I also wanted to add that this attitude is why there is so much stress and pressure on kids these days to figure out everything in their lives by the time they're 22. It's pretty amazing to me that anyone can look at a PhD in Chemistry and say that was a wasted decade. Why was he not competitive? What skills were you looking for? In what way are you already biasing candidates based on your preconceived notions about what makes someone helpful, useful, intelligent, etc. I know broad generalizations aren't too useful, maybe this specific person had real significant shortcomings compared to the other 22 year olds you interviewed, but I encourage you to consider why we are doing "all of this" anyway (is it money? productivity? prestige? big houses?) and why someone might prioritize going so far in a field to actually CONTRIBUTE something new to the field (as one does through a PhD). Maybe consider why someone might not slot perfectly into your idea of the perfect economic pawn, though nevertheless have chosen an absolutely fine way to spend ones life (or ten years of it).
- logtrees 2mo ago
  I agree with you. So many variables at play and every 7-10 year cycle stacks and compounds knowledge and skills if one does it right. A stint as a PhD in Chemistry is extremely valuable substrate to build upon, especially if the person was interested in it and understands it deeply. I think if that time was spent productively, it's not a loss at all. With AI the coming iterations will favor different kinds of combinations of perspectives and experiences towards identifying esoteric solutions. Or otherwise stated, people who are deep learners will find that they are able to deeply learn faster and at a larger breadth now too and this will produce new kinds of solutions to problems that in some cases haven't even been defined yet. I think this will be a critical thing in the near timeline that Elon and others predicted, when more things can be automated. There will still be a lot of increasing demand for thought workers and researchers and engineers including those who started out in other thought-based disciplines. I believe tokenization of financial instruments or for development of new ones means an additional productive substrate layer to the economy and that is why big/smart money are flowing into it. Those + AI will be a big driver in growing the power of that new layer and driving wages for those people/teams pushing the envelope further there. We have a lot of control over this kind of thing these days...meaning we can be productive in creating such incentives and possibilities because the yield is far greater. It produces and will produce way more knowledge and products/services in the future. I think people are severely underestimating the potential of the American system to produce 0 to 1 innovation in literally everything at huge scale with the right incentives/environment set up for people. Productivity here is not the issue, the problem is legacy notions on what is valuable and how to fund it. Legacy meaning no longer functionally or logically sound due to the advanced possibilities afforded by decades of compounded gains since WW2 or the Industrial Revolution or the Printing Press.
hklgny 2mo ago
Your needlessly condescending description of the event coupled with the power imbalance of the situation suggest to me that you got the answers you expected to get simply because that’s what you were looking for
- xyzelement 2mo ago
  This is so interesting as a response. I feel like any description of a problem state can be described as "condescending" or "unempathetic" or what have you, which prevents our ability to talk about and solve problems. The bottom line of the story is this man had invested a decade in a field in what I could at best describe autopilot - it didn't seem like he had and lost passion or was simply making a finance-driven decision. At the end of the day this is pretty much what happened and to dress it up would hurt our ability to connect to the problem and think about it.
  - hklgny 2mo ago
    Happy to engage. referring to him multiple times as a "kid" in quotes from a "horrid memory" is not useful context. It sets the tone in a judgmental not open to interpretation way. An alternative view of someone choosing to change career paths later in life is that you gain access to a different background than the other candidates in your pool. that may not be valuable in your case, but often it is. At the very least he's recognized a sunk cost and cut ties, which can be hard to do.
    - xyzelement 2mo ago
      I appreciate what you are saying, I really do -- and I think there are scenarios where your second paragraph is completely applicable and true (I hired plenty other PhDs for these kinds of jobs so it's not an inherent bias) -- but in this case the hour I had spent interviewing him led much closer to the picture I painted in my first comment even if I phrased it unkindly. But I do think there's communication value at describing things sharply. "John has been affected by alcoholism" and "John has fucked up his life by drinking - his wife left and took the kids" can refer to the same event, and while the first phrasing is more pleasant and respectful - it is the second phrasing that drives home the severity of what's actually happening.
epihelix 2mo ago
> Another interesting question is - what is the value of a PhD when someone uninterested in the field and not-that-thought-out about it can get one? The value of a PhD is what it brings to you. It will cost vast amounts of unpaid toil and tears, and it will not give you a well-paid job afterwards. But if you love the idea of discovering something genuinely new about this world, having the sheer freedom to dive into a research question without fear or restraint can be exhilarating. And sure, you can also get a PhD by doing the minimum and letting your supervisor carry you through. But why would you throw years away on something you didn't care about, with nothing but a subsistence living allowance as a reward? You're only cheating yourself at that point.
- pjc50 2mo ago
  > The value of a PhD is what it brings to you. It will cost vast amounts of unpaid toil and tears, and it will not give you a well-paid job afterwards. This should probably be legally mandated to be printed on the application forms, like a Prop 65 warning.
GPerson 2mo ago
In my situation I started my PhD in a time before AI, and now that AI solves the problems I’m grappling with whether or not I should continue in this profession.
deleted 2mo ago
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snarf21 2mo ago
I think some people get on this train and they don't really know where to get off or what to do whenever they do get off. So inertia keeps them riding along, doing something that is comfortable (even if they don't enjoy it) to postpone figuring out what to do next. Eventually the train gets to the end of the line and they have to get off and figure something out. I think this is part of the tragedy of our parents generation pushing college at all costs. It is very hard to know what you want to do for the rest of your life as an 18 yo. Even worse to take on all the debt in the world for something you don't end up loving or without a good path to repayment. In previous generations, some of these people would have done a stint in the service or taken a gap year but now there is too much pressure to know "now".
- ydat 2mo ago
  > I think this is part of the tragedy of our parents generation pushing college at all costs. I can’t blame em, they seem to have lucked out and been around just at the right time. I currently live in a smaller blown out rust belt shithole city. It used to be a fairly sized industrial center even through the decline of the region. I meet a lot of middle aged and older people here who will opine on about their father the chemist who invented some everyday, but notable item for [chemical conglomerate] in the 80s/90s. Some people here have established a fair bit a wealth for their family through their patents even. Even here on HN I keep nothing commenters talking about their father the physicist or their mother the biologist. Nowadays those people seem to be struggling to figure out where if anywhere they can afford to start a family (or just giving up on the prospects)
- sillywabbit 2mo ago
  Some of us find it very hard to know what you want to do for the rest of your life at twice that age. There are a lot of trains.
teiferer 2mo ago
> It was hard to look at his graduate education as anything other than a wasted decade that actually has set him back career wise. > One interesting question is how does someone do that to themselves? Some people pursue knowledge because they are interested in it and not because it maximizes their income potential. I find that admirable. Even more, I find the opposite pretty sad.

cucumber3732842 2mo ago

>One interesting question is how does someone do that to themselves? Because the system arounds you encourages it.

fifilura 2mo ago

You must be blessed. To always know why you do stuff?

xyzelement 2mo ago
Umm yes, what I did for 10 years and why is a reasonable question especially of someone on PhD level.
- fifilura 2mo ago
  This whole chain of consequences probably started around "why did you start studying chemistry when you were 19 years old?". Maybe bit sad. Very common. And also a life.
  - xyzelement 2mo ago
    Agreed. It's like a sad state in my mind more than anything. But also an interesting prompt for reflection - if something sad happened to you due to your own decisiona, do you reflect on those decisions and learn?
    - fifilura 2mo ago
      Not as much learn, but - are you able to pull yourself out from a local optimum? It is not the learning but the action that is missing here.

voakbasda 2mo ago

Graduate school is not about passion and pushing frontiers. It is about training new researchers. It is it not a place that I would recommend to anyone who has real passion or brilliance in any field.

mym1990 2mo ago
Most graduate school students don’t do research and don’t go on to do a PhD though? And what’s wrong with having more researchers?
- bluGill 2mo ago
  > what’s wrong with having more researchers? Nothing wrong with it. However what is right about it? The world needs research, and that means researchers. However for every person in research the world needs a very large number of people in non research. The guy who works at the local sewer plant isn't doing research, but the world would fall apart if nobody did that job, while the world would still continue with nobody in research (I wouldn't want to live in either world, but the world of no more research is better than the world of no more sewer systems)
epihelix 2mo ago
You think that researchers lack passion and cannot push frontiers?? Research and passion are not dichotomous, they are (or at least should be) synonymous. (I am genuinely sorry for whatever bad experience that's led to this bitterness, though.)
- voakbasda 2mo ago
  I think that graduate schools do not filter on passion and ability. They filter on people that can play the game, where such things can be a liability. Edit: “research” in academia now revolves around grant writing and publishing. That is an anti-filter for individuals that do not want to play that game and would rather spend that time doing actual research.

benfortuna 2mo ago

Academia is not a waste of time just because it doesn't translate into "productivity" and wealth. Some people enjoy the pursuit of knowledge, and find great meaning in it. Increasingly the arts are being defunded based on a similar argument, and humanity as a whole is worse off because of it.

xyzelement 2mo ago
He did not seem to enjoy it or find meaning in it. Something could be valuable despite being "useless" but not in this case.
ydat 2mo ago
Why do we need artists anymore? I can just ChatGPT to draw me pretty pictures if I want.
bluGill 2mo ago
There is a real conflict here. People are getting loans for their education. A loan is an investment, and should only be taken if it will pay off. If you are getting education because you are interested in the topic but won't get a job in it: I fully support this. However you should not take a loan out to get this education: there are too many other things to do in life that you also will want to do. Worse the loan means you cannot change your mind later if you are wrong (or you can, but you will still have to pay for the mistake instead of whatever you are interested in today). There is one other reason for education: to become a better citizen (don't fall for bad politics). However that should be to everybody and I haven't seen much evidence that higher education really helps much.
- keiferski 2mo ago
  It's very rare and extremely un-recommended to get a loan for a PhD. For most people, at worst, you're losing money by opportunity cost.
- snaking0776 2mo ago
  While it would be insane to get a PhD if you had to pay for it, at least in the US you are paid a stipend (if not a good one) so you can generally avoid any debt. There is definitely an opportunity cost though.

swader999 2mo ago

At the age of 17 or 18 how do you actually know? My kids are going through this now. He's like I don't even know if I want to be an engineer, people just tell me I'd be good at it.

ydat 2mo ago
One thing I always hated about university education is how it’s entirely designed nowadays as a sort of “coming of age experience” for teenagers coming out of high school. I don’t have any higher education. I was stupid and arrogant and thought it would be a waste of time and money. However even if I did attend at 17/18, I almost certainly would have squandered it. I wouldn’t have been mature or aware enough to understand how and where to focus my time and energy in such a setting. By about my mid-late 20s I felt like I had a better idea of what I could or could not get out of such an experience, but by that point I had a life and bills to pay and a job to attend to allow for any of that. There’s barely any time or money for education now. I’ve thought about trying to go back for the last decade, but it just becomes less realistic every year.
- hklgny 2mo ago
  I think that gap you described of not ready but able vs ready but not able is exactly what the college experience is for. I also don’t think everyone needs to bridge that gap by going to college. For me personally, I had a ton of fun squandering my college years taking a wide variety of classes that could have become a passion but ended up not. I would not have been able to do that outside of a structured environment that gave each subject a pass/fail opportunity in my life that cost only a semester.
  - cindyllm 2mo ago
    [dead]
- ahahs 2mo ago
  College really isn't that hard or complex. All that's required is you attend classes, study, and pass tests. Where's this narrative coming from that one has to "be mature and aware enough to focus my time and energy in such a setting"? what setting? class? the same concept we've all participated in since kindergarten? online school, commuting, and part time school are all valid options that result in a college degree.

charlieyu1 2mo ago

Many would dream to be top scholars of their field, to the point it feels like a personal mission. The reality kicks in for the first time when you can’t progress through the system anymore, be it 25 or 30.

bluGill 2mo ago

A PhD demonstrates the ability to think deeply about something. It thus isn't useless for any good job. However there are often better trainings for that job.

throwaway98797 2mo ago
most jobs don’t require deep thought. in LLM terms low to no reasoning is better than ultra.
mcv 2mo ago
I think it mostly proves how much you're willing to submit yourself to hard, complex, frustrating and unrewarding work. You don't get the PhD just for the thinking.

skrebbel 2mo ago

A friend of mine did a PhD in computer science solely and specifically so he could prove to himself that he could do a sustained, multi-year solo project and complete it. He then got a job he totally would've gotten 4 years earlier as well, with just the MSc. When asked (eg by recruiters/interviewers), he always said "because I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it" and personally I find that a very satisfying answer. All I'm saying is, not everyone doing a PhD and then leaving academia was accidentally climbing up the wrong ladder. Some did it on purpose, just to admire the view.

xyzelement 2mo ago
That's a good answer. Not the answer I got in the story.
- teiferer 2mo ago
  "I don't know" is not a very strange answer if you are talking to somebody at a carreer fair who is introverted. I know lots of folks who would answer like that. Once you get to know them and talk to them in a quiet non-stressful environment where they can think a little, they often open up about their real motivations. Nobody is going to tell you the story of their grandmother with whom they shared a chemistry hobby and in whose memory they wanted to acquire deep knowledge of the field before getting a well-paying job in a different field if they are introvert and you give them the vibe of being judgemental of their life choices.
  - throwaway_7274 2mo ago
    I so appreciate the compassion in this comment. It’s rare on the internet.

kayo_20211030 2mo ago

I would have interviewed him too. I would have felt that he was at least technically savvy; and, beyond that, he might have the spark of one of the best qualities of a future colleague i.e. interesting-ness - one can't underestimate that. On the other hand > he just literally didn't know That would have been disappointing to hear.

stickfigure 2mo ago

At least chemistry is objectively useful knowledge. Even if he would rather work in software engineering, there are a lot of places where domain expertise like that is very valuable. Plenty of software in the sciences.

throwaway_7274 2mo ago

Oh hey that’s me! Not literally me. Probably I was a little better off. But I was recently in a similar position, and feel like my PhD was a lost decade in some ways. The answer, as I’m sure many already know, is idealism and a certain kind of naïvité. It’s not an absolute naïvité, but it is some kind of belief in the value of doing something that isn’t “mere” careerism. You think it’s noble to contribute to science. And you do contribute, a teeny eensy weensy bit. You also find out that it’s not everything you imagined it would be. And then you’re 30 and one day you unblind yourself. You look at the job market, and how much money various jobs actually pay. More importantly, you realize quite suddenly that money can actually make your life better, and that, whatever damage it might have wrought on your soul to pursue it, it would at least have enabled you to own a home one day. Maybe have kids. Shit. And the fresh grads who went straight into tech and finance making $300k (hold on, you can make $300k? Wait a second, that’s not a senior executive salary? That’s a normal-ish bourgeois white-collar HCoL salary that people make fresh out of school? Hold on, that’s basically a starting salary in that world? WHAT?)… just naturally understood. Then you try to explain this on a message board or something. You don’t want pity (after all, your life is very good in the scheme of things), you just want some connection, or maybe even a, “that’s ok, that’s how we learn, life is a twisty path.” But half the people call you a class traitor. The other half call you a mediocre sucker.

ydat 2mo ago
> it would at least have enabled you to own a home one day. Maybe have kids. Shit. ding ding ding. This is the real kicker. This is why it’s a waste of time to pursue. Want a PhD? A home? A family? Pick one or two. With the amount of time and effort it takes to achieve those these days, you won’t get to have them all. So you have to pick one. At 17/18 it’s easy to see the coming decade as longer than it really is, and opportunity cost will catch up to you quick.
pjc50 2mo ago
> That’s a normal-ish bourgeois white-collar HCoL salary that people make fresh out of school? Hold on, that’s basically a starting salary in that world? WHAT? Some people. That's very field-specific and won't last forever. Basically FAANG programmers and finance bros.

gh0stcat 2mo ago

As another poster mentioned, I also wanted to add that this attitude is why there is so much stress and pressure on kids these days to figure out everything in their lives by the time they're 22. It's pretty amazing to me that anyone can look at a PhD in Chemistry and say that was a wasted decade. Why was he not competitive? What skills were you looking for? In what way are you already biasing candidates based on your preconceived notions about what makes someone helpful, useful, intelligent, etc. I know broad generalizations aren't too useful, maybe this specific person had real significant shortcomings compared to the other 22 year olds you interviewed, but I encourage you to consider why we are doing "all of this" anyway (is it money? productivity? prestige? big houses?) and why someone might prioritize going so far in a field to actually CONTRIBUTE something new to the field (as one does through a PhD). Maybe consider why someone might not slot perfectly into your idea of the perfect economic pawn, though nevertheless have chosen an absolutely fine way to spend ones life (or ten years of it).

logtrees 2mo ago
I agree with you. So many variables at play and every 7-10 year cycle stacks and compounds knowledge and skills if one does it right. A stint as a PhD in Chemistry is extremely valuable substrate to build upon, especially if the person was interested in it and understands it deeply. I think if that time was spent productively, it's not a loss at all. With AI the coming iterations will favor different kinds of combinations of perspectives and experiences towards identifying esoteric solutions. Or otherwise stated, people who are deep learners will find that they are able to deeply learn faster and at a larger breadth now too and this will produce new kinds of solutions to problems that in some cases haven't even been defined yet. I think this will be a critical thing in the near timeline that Elon and others predicted, when more things can be automated. There will still be a lot of increasing demand for thought workers and researchers and engineers including those who started out in other thought-based disciplines. I believe tokenization of financial instruments or for development of new ones means an additional productive substrate layer to the economy and that is why big/smart money are flowing into it. Those + AI will be a big driver in growing the power of that new layer and driving wages for those people/teams pushing the envelope further there. We have a lot of control over this kind of thing these days...meaning we can be productive in creating such incentives and possibilities because the yield is far greater. It produces and will produce way more knowledge and products/services in the future. I think people are severely underestimating the potential of the American system to produce 0 to 1 innovation in literally everything at huge scale with the right incentives/environment set up for people. Productivity here is not the issue, the problem is legacy notions on what is valuable and how to fund it. Legacy meaning no longer functionally or logically sound due to the advanced possibilities afforded by decades of compounded gains since WW2 or the Industrial Revolution or the Printing Press.

hklgny 2mo ago

Your needlessly condescending description of the event coupled with the power imbalance of the situation suggest to me that you got the answers you expected to get simply because that’s what you were looking for

xyzelement 2mo ago
This is so interesting as a response. I feel like any description of a problem state can be described as "condescending" or "unempathetic" or what have you, which prevents our ability to talk about and solve problems. The bottom line of the story is this man had invested a decade in a field in what I could at best describe autopilot - it didn't seem like he had and lost passion or was simply making a finance-driven decision. At the end of the day this is pretty much what happened and to dress it up would hurt our ability to connect to the problem and think about it.
- hklgny 2mo ago
  Happy to engage. referring to him multiple times as a "kid" in quotes from a "horrid memory" is not useful context. It sets the tone in a judgmental not open to interpretation way. An alternative view of someone choosing to change career paths later in life is that you gain access to a different background than the other candidates in your pool. that may not be valuable in your case, but often it is. At the very least he's recognized a sunk cost and cut ties, which can be hard to do.
  - xyzelement 2mo ago
    I appreciate what you are saying, I really do -- and I think there are scenarios where your second paragraph is completely applicable and true (I hired plenty other PhDs for these kinds of jobs so it's not an inherent bias) -- but in this case the hour I had spent interviewing him led much closer to the picture I painted in my first comment even if I phrased it unkindly. But I do think there's communication value at describing things sharply. "John has been affected by alcoholism" and "John has fucked up his life by drinking - his wife left and took the kids" can refer to the same event, and while the first phrasing is more pleasant and respectful - it is the second phrasing that drives home the severity of what's actually happening.

epihelix 2mo ago

> Another interesting question is - what is the value of a PhD when someone uninterested in the field and not-that-thought-out about it can get one? The value of a PhD is what it brings to you. It will cost vast amounts of unpaid toil and tears, and it will not give you a well-paid job afterwards. But if you love the idea of discovering something genuinely new about this world, having the sheer freedom to dive into a research question without fear or restraint can be exhilarating. And sure, you can also get a PhD by doing the minimum and letting your supervisor carry you through. But why would you throw years away on something you didn't care about, with nothing but a subsistence living allowance as a reward? You're only cheating yourself at that point.

pjc50 2mo ago
> The value of a PhD is what it brings to you. It will cost vast amounts of unpaid toil and tears, and it will not give you a well-paid job afterwards. This should probably be legally mandated to be printed on the application forms, like a Prop 65 warning.

GPerson 2mo ago

In my situation I started my PhD in a time before AI, and now that AI solves the problems I’m grappling with whether or not I should continue in this profession.

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snarf21 2mo ago

I think some people get on this train and they don't really know where to get off or what to do whenever they do get off. So inertia keeps them riding along, doing something that is comfortable (even if they don't enjoy it) to postpone figuring out what to do next. Eventually the train gets to the end of the line and they have to get off and figure something out. I think this is part of the tragedy of our parents generation pushing college at all costs. It is very hard to know what you want to do for the rest of your life as an 18 yo. Even worse to take on all the debt in the world for something you don't end up loving or without a good path to repayment. In previous generations, some of these people would have done a stint in the service or taken a gap year but now there is too much pressure to know "now".

ydat 2mo ago
> I think this is part of the tragedy of our parents generation pushing college at all costs. I can’t blame em, they seem to have lucked out and been around just at the right time. I currently live in a smaller blown out rust belt shithole city. It used to be a fairly sized industrial center even through the decline of the region. I meet a lot of middle aged and older people here who will opine on about their father the chemist who invented some everyday, but notable item for [chemical conglomerate] in the 80s/90s. Some people here have established a fair bit a wealth for their family through their patents even. Even here on HN I keep nothing commenters talking about their father the physicist or their mother the biologist. Nowadays those people seem to be struggling to figure out where if anywhere they can afford to start a family (or just giving up on the prospects)
sillywabbit 2mo ago
Some of us find it very hard to know what you want to do for the rest of your life at twice that age. There are a lot of trains.

teiferer 2mo ago

> It was hard to look at his graduate education as anything other than a wasted decade that actually has set him back career wise. > One interesting question is how does someone do that to themselves? Some people pursue knowledge because they are interested in it and not because it maximizes their income potential. I find that admirable. Even more, I find the opposite pretty sad.