
Ask HN: How do you moonlight (and career advice)? - tmoot
Actually, any sort of career advice.<p>I&#x27;m a 28 year old 4th graduate student at the terminal end of my PhD (at a top 10 in the US if that matters) in a computational physics subfield (less than a year left). I have a few startup ideas I&#x27;d like to try and pursue but the problem is at the end of day I&#x27;m completely wiped energy-wise. I am taking a two courses (a grad course in machine learning and time series analysis) which may be a part of the problem but those are two things I&#x27;ve always wanted to learn.<p>I&#x27;m completely dispassionate about my research which I&#x27;m really just cranking papers out using well established methods and not focusing on a single problem. I publish a paper and move on to the next thing since we promise different things to different funding agencies.<p>I&#x27;ve though about leaving my program because I&#x27;m so dispassionate about the work. I really just want to build something cool, interesting and useful.<p>I&#x27;m curious if anyone else has been in the a similar situation.
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pcmaffey
Finding the time for experimenting while doing ____ exhausting, responsible
thing, is incredibly hard. It really has to be a matter of life and death for
your soul.

But here's the thing, finish your PHD. You'll be in the same situation in the
"real world", when you have to work a job you don't really, really care about,
and find time to explore other things you do. So start learning how to balance
that now, while you've got the 'cranking papers out' down.

A few practical tips:

If you're wiped at the end of the day, get up an hour earlier and use that
time instead.

Weekends.

Set very small, meaningful goals / questions / experiments you can hit. When
you have to make time, it's all about momentum. If you get bogged down /
unmotivated on your side projects, you don't stand a chance.

Good luck. Persevere.

~~~
tostitos1979
I agree with this comment. If you are near the end, just finish and get done
with the PhD. Also .. take it from someone who is more than a decade into
their professional career in CS research. Things change. I used to be able to
crank out papers easily. Then, I got older and so did the field. All the easy
stuff was gone. It is much harder to publish in my particular sub-field now. I
tried expanding to include other related areas but it is also tough. I kinda
wonder at what point to throw in the towel.

~~~
tmoot
Thanks for the response. One of the main reasons I'm unhappy with my work is I
do the bare minimum to publish and submit. So far I've published 3 first
author papers and somehow they've gotten into decent journals for my field.

I'd much rather have only published 1 paper with a more expansive coverage of
that topic. I feel intellectually dishonest because I know the end game is
adding an extra line to the grant application/progress report.

~~~
tostitos1979
Haha .. that has a name: MVP - minimal viable publication. I wouldn't feel bad
about it. The main suggestion I'd give my younger self is to build expertise
on a challenging topic. Hinton is a good example btw. He worked on Neural
networks when it was a pariah topic. Look at him now. Of course, you can pick
the wrong topic and get screwed (like the majority of folks) :-p

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pgbovine
If you're cranking out papers, then you should have enough papers to finish
soon; in that case, just finish your Ph.D. and move on. Tell your advisor that
you want to graduate within the next year, and that you have the papers to do
so. Like it or not, the credential can open up doors for you in the future in
unexpected ways, and you're so close to it already. (If you were, say, a 2nd-
year student and felt this way, then leaving would be a much more feasible
option.)

~~~
pgbovine
btw this may shed some light on your situation ... tl;dr unicorn jobs don't
exist (for long) [http://pgbovine.net/unicorn-
jobs.htm](http://pgbovine.net/unicorn-jobs.htm)

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godot
I didn't go to grad school and can't relate to your situation, but sounds like
your best bet right now is: 1) Find the path to finish your degree asap (you
already spent a number of years on it, shouldn't throw it away), then 2) land
a job in a place like Google and make some good money.

It sounds shallow, but having a lot of money rolling in to your bank account
on a regular basis for the first time of your life will do a lot to you on a
psychological level. You'll need that boost in both the emotional and
materialistic sides. After a year or so of that, you have more options and can
think about life or building cool stuff a little more.

The one thing I _can_ relate to you on is feeling wiped at the end of the day.
I worked in a startup-turned-unicorn a number of years ago. The first couple
of years was extremely fun and exciting. A few years in, the company IPO'd,
and work gradually became incredibly draining and boring. The worst part is, I
had all these ideas about cool things I wanted to work on, but was too drained
to work on them. I left that company after a few years and have been through
founding a startup, failing and back to a regular employee developer since
then. Through these years I have never lost passion and energy since. I guess
the point of that anecdote is that I know how it feels being wiped at the end
of the day, but I had financial security to allow me to leave it and start
over. You'll want to get to financial security first.

~~~
tmoot
I feel totally undervalued financially and intellectually in acadamia.

I'm was considering calling this a sunk cost and moving on but based on the
comments here, I think I'll stick it out and try to develop on the side.

This is the first time I've really lost interest in my work. It's really hard
to work on something you don't care about.

And other career or life advice?

Thanks for the words.

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brudgers
Random remarks from the internet:

Not having the energy to pursue an idea is a useful filter. It means pursuing
the idea is theoretically exciting but not actually exciting enough to
actually pursue. That's most ideas for exceptional people and pretty much all
ideas for most people. Machine learning and time series analysis pass the
filter. Keep riding that bus for now.

Your day job of doing dull research is just a day job that advances your
career opportunities, and having a PhD statistically increases a person's
career opportunities. Grad school often ends with a 'death march' to just get
the damn thing done. The only thing that is guaranteed is that not finishing
means no PhD. Short of severe mental health issues, there's not much upside to
quitting with only a year left.

Good luck.

~~~
acangiano
Your insightful comment reminded me of PG's remarks on people wanting to be
novelists in principle. OP might enjoy reading that essay:
[http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html)

~~~
ux4
Thanks for sharing this, I feel a few steps closer to the answers I'm seeking.

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sjg007
Finish the PhD. Today anyone who discovers anything does so after their Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is just a work sample really. I regret not finishing, then again I
couldn't figure out a path to get there despite 4 papers. Then take a
vacation! After that there is a lot you can do you can get a job programming,
as a quant etc... I would work for a bit to see if you enjoy it. You can also
postdoc or do other academic things if you want to continue in research. You
can do applied research or R&D as well.

But first take that vacation! Sometime you have to get out of your situation
to get perspective.

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muzani
This guy created a very epic game while doing his PhD:
[http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/](http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/)

I imagine he must have gotten tired for similar reasons as you and just wanted
to build something.

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eli_gottlieb
>I've though about leaving my program because I'm so dispassionate about the
work. I really just want to build something cool, interesting and useful.

Suck it up. "Cool, interesting, and useful" comes after you've made enough
money to pursue passion projects, if you get lucky in academia, or if you get
lucky on the job market.

Sorry. You should finish your PhD because it sounds like you've done a good
number of good papers and _deserve_ the degree already. Beyond that, you need
to think about a market niche.

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tmaly
AI researchers are in high demand according to recent news stories. If you can
stick it out and really build your skills in AI and machine learning, you will
get the opportunity to work on all sorts of cool things in the private sector.

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NumberCruncher
Just flip a coin! If you like the outcome, go with it! If not, go with the
other one!

~~~
tmoot
Honestly, I've been way to risk averse in life. It's part of the reason I
stayed in academia.

~~~
hluska
The problem with letting an aversion to risk keep you from doing what you want
is you risk looking back with tremendous regret when it's too late to do
anything about it. You're 28, my friend, live!!

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markfer
I strongly believe that if you want it bad enough, you'll make time/effort for
it. If not, then it simply isn't important enough for you - and that's
perfectly ok.

~~~
nestorherre
This. Not that I'm a PhD graduate or so, but Most of the time we use the
excuse that we don't have time, we're too tired, but as soon as we have some
"free" time, what's the next thing that we do? Go and watch netflix, spend
time on social media, go out and waste our time in pretty much different
activities that don't contribute to our goal. This is a general answer, of
course you should analyze what are you spending your time in and if you're
willing to make the sacrifices needed.

I wish you the best, and as others said, don't leave your PhD UNLESS you have
something going on already. Make priorities and see if you're willing to give
up certain things in your life in order to meet your goals.

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oldboyFX
If you want to get out of academia, start learning how to actually build
things. I mean sure, get your PhD. But in the meantime start programming,
designing, and acquiring skills that can propel your career outside of
academia.

I wouldn't recommend starting a business before you have any marketable
skills.

It's never too late to switch fields. I know people who've done it in their
50's.

What would you like to do anyway?

~~~
tmoot
Good point. I'm lacking in the side projects area since I've dedicated most my
effort to my phd which really just amounts to data analysis scripts.

I did take quite a bit of cs courses (almost close to a second major) as a
undergrad but I'm years out of practice and I've forgotten most of the
material.

I'm toying with a few ideas related to the cannabis marketplace.

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auganov
Try spending the first few hours working on your idea if possible. Wake up
earlier if necessary. Want to test if tiredness really is the obstacle.

