8 ms·

Am I an academic?

27 points by hack_edu 17y ago

livgiv 17y ago
The entire world is full of academic that have been sedated by failing school systems.
livgiv 17y ago
It must have been interesting to work for the biggest tech company's research division.
mmt 17y ago
This article seems more compelling in its criticism of academia than in its defense of industry as a setting for pure research.
- diN0bot 17y ago
  well noted by David Berry in the comments: """ >It is interesting to note that regardless of your claims to be in a 'better' or 'similar' position to an academic you continue to use academia as the anchor point of a frame of reference. I don't see any need to make that claim - the work in a corporate R & D environment is just different - it is based largely around performativity (here I am thinking of Lyotard). A conceptual framework that I think you might find helpful..<elided for brevity>... I personally think that there are important differences between universities and corporations linked to their respective knowledge domain and notion of contribution (e.g. to the public good vs private gain). To miss this is to collapse all of social life into the market. """
lionhearted 17y ago
> At other times, there's a hint of condescension, as though the question is actually: "Couldn't make it in academia, eh? Stuck in industry, eh?" Wow. Just wow. If you're in academia, and you don't do original research, you've got to be an amazing lecturer/teacher to make yourself worth a damn to society. Most of American education from middle school on is credentialing based on your ability to follow instructions carefully. You could say it "shows how well you'll fit in at a job" if you're being charitable; you could call it "obedience school" if you're being less charitable. Without fail, all of the wealthiest people I know didn't graduate college and half of them didn't graduate high school. Engineering and programs that follow a curriculum similar to engineering do okay. But most of the rest is junk unless your goal is to be a moderately salaried reasonably secure employee. High school and college never have and can't teach you what you need to be perform on the highest levels. Mark Twain said it pretty well: "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."
- hughprime 17y ago
  If you're in academia, and you don't do original research, you've got to be an amazing lecturer/teacher to make yourself worth a damn to society. The vast majority of folks in academia are doing original research, that's why they're there. Most of 'em see teaching as a somewhat annoying obligation which they have to go through in order to be allowed to do research. Without fail, all of the wealthiest people I know didn't graduate college and half of them didn't graduate high school. This is, of course, a quirk of the particular people whom you happen to know, and not reflective of society as a whole. The wealthiest people I know have beards.
  - lionhearted 17y ago
    > The vast majority of folks in academia are doing original research, that's why they're there. In the hard sciences, many of them do. Vast majority? Maybe. Outside of the hard sciences? No. > Most of 'em see teaching as a somewhat annoying obligation which they have to go through in order to be allowed to do research. Yes. Those research professors actually tend to be the best, because they're producing new and interesting results. My professor of project management used to run a defense company, making advanced weapons for the U.S. military. When he got older, he started doing supply and manufacturing research. He joked that he just taught so that he could do research, but he was one of the best professors I had. Yet, most American undergraduate degrees require some form of "general requirements", often taught by professors who are doing something other than original research and don't do a particularly good job. > This is, of course, a quirk of the particular people whom you happen to know, and not reflective of society as a whole. I should phrase that differently. Medicine and law have upper-bounds on what you'll earn normally, unless you work in medical devices or open a hospital or law firm. Yet, university doesn't prepare doctors and lawyers to open shops - that's just old school business right there. As for business school, it could be better called "consultant training" - I know, I studied business. 10-20% of the program is incredibly valuable, the other 80-90% is useless theoretical nonsense. All the MBAs I know make decent to good coin. But nothing compared to the entrepreneurs, businessmen, hustler types. I know lots of people with degrees and without degrees. Putting the time into working for yourself is much more likely to make you wealthy than getting the degree. The only exception is if you've got a passion or knack for one of the few fields that higher education does a halfway decent job with. > The wealthiest people I know have beards. Funny you joke that - same here. But maybe there's something more to that - office dress codes in formal areas typically require clean shaven people. People who work for themselves or in small companies usually have less strict appearances. A mentor of mine in Dubai makes $200k/month roughly. He dresses semi-casual most of the time. He calls putting on a formal suit and tie, "Dressing up and playing business." (Incidentally, he grew up in the ghettos of London and didn't graduate middle school. But that's a tangent) The beard thing? Yeah, there might be something to do that. Wealth creators are more concerned with creating wealth than looking respectable. Mainstream American education? More concerned with credentialing than learning. By a landslide.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
dspeyer 17y ago
A defining characteristic of academia is publication. Everything an academic discovers should be revealed to the public as soon as possible, and genuine questions should be answered thoroughly. This ideal isn't 100% lived up to, but it is the socially acknowledged goal and practice generally comes pretty close. This is where MSR is something different. Work there is published if and only if it is in Microsoft's interest to do so. Often a bare outline is published: enough to impress people but not enough for an outsider to duplicate the work. This isn't academia. Xerox PARC and Bell Labs back in their respective days did function like academia.
- neilc 17y ago
  Work there is published if and only if it is in Microsoft's interest to do so. Do you have any evidence for that claim? Often a bare outline is published: enough to impress people but not enough for an outsider to duplicate the work. This isn't academia. Actually, there are plenty of research papers that describe a system in some detail, but not nearly enough detail to allow an "outsider to duplicate the work". Both academics and industrial researchers sometimes accompany a research paper with a working prototype; in both cases, they often do not.
- anamax 17y ago
  > A defining characteristic of academia is publication. Another is students and admissions. Hiring some students who are already in a PhD program doesn't count.
shalmanese 17y ago
As a completely biased view of someone who's no longer in either academia or industry, industrial research, at least in HCI, is a funny place. Sometimes, I get the feeling that the major academic research labs try too hard to be universities to their own detriment. There's a pretty steady flow between universities and research labs, moreso than between product groups and research labs. I feel like the industry researchers I meet seem more concerned about impressing their academic peers than their bosses. It seems like research in other fields of computer science are tied more closely to practical applications: Systems, Compilers, Distributed Computation etc. but it's rare to find that kind of work in HCI.
johnnybgoode 17y ago
Let me summarize: The author works at MSR and is annoyed that he or she is seen as being inferior to "real" academics in the university system. The author points out that he or she is as much of a scholar as any professor, but I'd argue this could (and should) be extended even to people who are not called researchers. The general problem here concerning a group of people with special state-granted privileges is not new.
- jonah 17y ago
  danah is a woman FWIW.
  - johnnybgoode 17y ago
    Thanks, that's what I thought but I wasn't 100% sure.

Am I an academic?

27 points by hack_edu 17y ago

livgiv 17y ago

The entire world is full of academic that have been sedated by failing school systems.

livgiv 17y ago

It must have been interesting to work for the biggest tech company's research division.

mmt 17y ago

This article seems more compelling in its criticism of academia than in its defense of industry as a setting for pure research.

diN0bot 17y ago
well noted by David Berry in the comments: """ >It is interesting to note that regardless of your claims to be in a 'better' or 'similar' position to an academic you continue to use academia as the anchor point of a frame of reference. I don't see any need to make that claim - the work in a corporate R & D environment is just different - it is based largely around performativity (here I am thinking of Lyotard). A conceptual framework that I think you might find helpful..<elided for brevity>... I personally think that there are important differences between universities and corporations linked to their respective knowledge domain and notion of contribution (e.g. to the public good vs private gain). To miss this is to collapse all of social life into the market. """

lionhearted 17y ago

> At other times, there's a hint of condescension, as though the question is actually: "Couldn't make it in academia, eh? Stuck in industry, eh?" Wow. Just wow. If you're in academia, and you don't do original research, you've got to be an amazing lecturer/teacher to make yourself worth a damn to society. Most of American education from middle school on is credentialing based on your ability to follow instructions carefully. You could say it "shows how well you'll fit in at a job" if you're being charitable; you could call it "obedience school" if you're being less charitable. Without fail, all of the wealthiest people I know didn't graduate college and half of them didn't graduate high school. Engineering and programs that follow a curriculum similar to engineering do okay. But most of the rest is junk unless your goal is to be a moderately salaried reasonably secure employee. High school and college never have and can't teach you what you need to be perform on the highest levels. Mark Twain said it pretty well: "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."

hughprime 17y ago
If you're in academia, and you don't do original research, you've got to be an amazing lecturer/teacher to make yourself worth a damn to society. The vast majority of folks in academia are doing original research, that's why they're there. Most of 'em see teaching as a somewhat annoying obligation which they have to go through in order to be allowed to do research. Without fail, all of the wealthiest people I know didn't graduate college and half of them didn't graduate high school. This is, of course, a quirk of the particular people whom you happen to know, and not reflective of society as a whole. The wealthiest people I know have beards.
- lionhearted 17y ago
  > The vast majority of folks in academia are doing original research, that's why they're there. In the hard sciences, many of them do. Vast majority? Maybe. Outside of the hard sciences? No. > Most of 'em see teaching as a somewhat annoying obligation which they have to go through in order to be allowed to do research. Yes. Those research professors actually tend to be the best, because they're producing new and interesting results. My professor of project management used to run a defense company, making advanced weapons for the U.S. military. When he got older, he started doing supply and manufacturing research. He joked that he just taught so that he could do research, but he was one of the best professors I had. Yet, most American undergraduate degrees require some form of "general requirements", often taught by professors who are doing something other than original research and don't do a particularly good job. > This is, of course, a quirk of the particular people whom you happen to know, and not reflective of society as a whole. I should phrase that differently. Medicine and law have upper-bounds on what you'll earn normally, unless you work in medical devices or open a hospital or law firm. Yet, university doesn't prepare doctors and lawyers to open shops - that's just old school business right there. As for business school, it could be better called "consultant training" - I know, I studied business. 10-20% of the program is incredibly valuable, the other 80-90% is useless theoretical nonsense. All the MBAs I know make decent to good coin. But nothing compared to the entrepreneurs, businessmen, hustler types. I know lots of people with degrees and without degrees. Putting the time into working for yourself is much more likely to make you wealthy than getting the degree. The only exception is if you've got a passion or knack for one of the few fields that higher education does a halfway decent job with. > The wealthiest people I know have beards. Funny you joke that - same here. But maybe there's something more to that - office dress codes in formal areas typically require clean shaven people. People who work for themselves or in small companies usually have less strict appearances. A mentor of mine in Dubai makes $200k/month roughly. He dresses semi-casual most of the time. He calls putting on a formal suit and tie, "Dressing up and playing business." (Incidentally, he grew up in the ghettos of London and didn't graduate middle school. But that's a tangent) The beard thing? Yeah, there might be something to do that. Wealth creators are more concerned with creating wealth than looking respectable. Mainstream American education? More concerned with credentialing than learning. By a landslide.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

dspeyer 17y ago

A defining characteristic of academia is publication. Everything an academic discovers should be revealed to the public as soon as possible, and genuine questions should be answered thoroughly. This ideal isn't 100% lived up to, but it is the socially acknowledged goal and practice generally comes pretty close. This is where MSR is something different. Work there is published if and only if it is in Microsoft's interest to do so. Often a bare outline is published: enough to impress people but not enough for an outsider to duplicate the work. This isn't academia. Xerox PARC and Bell Labs back in their respective days did function like academia.

neilc 17y ago
Work there is published if and only if it is in Microsoft's interest to do so. Do you have any evidence for that claim? Often a bare outline is published: enough to impress people but not enough for an outsider to duplicate the work. This isn't academia. Actually, there are plenty of research papers that describe a system in some detail, but not nearly enough detail to allow an "outsider to duplicate the work". Both academics and industrial researchers sometimes accompany a research paper with a working prototype; in both cases, they often do not.
anamax 17y ago
> A defining characteristic of academia is publication. Another is students and admissions. Hiring some students who are already in a PhD program doesn't count.

shalmanese 17y ago

As a completely biased view of someone who's no longer in either academia or industry, industrial research, at least in HCI, is a funny place. Sometimes, I get the feeling that the major academic research labs try too hard to be universities to their own detriment. There's a pretty steady flow between universities and research labs, moreso than between product groups and research labs. I feel like the industry researchers I meet seem more concerned about impressing their academic peers than their bosses. It seems like research in other fields of computer science are tied more closely to practical applications: Systems, Compilers, Distributed Computation etc. but it's rare to find that kind of work in HCI.

johnnybgoode 17y ago

Let me summarize: The author works at MSR and is annoyed that he or she is seen as being inferior to "real" academics in the university system. The author points out that he or she is as much of a scholar as any professor, but I'd argue this could (and should) be extended even to people who are not called researchers. The general problem here concerning a group of people with special state-granted privileges is not new.

jonah 17y ago
danah is a woman FWIW.
- johnnybgoode 17y ago
  Thanks, that's what I thought but I wasn't 100% sure.