
Grad School and Public Health - luu
https://www.benkuhn.net/grad
======
majos
I wonder if there's a good way to think about the relevant counterfactual: how
happy would PhD students if they did not pursue a PhD? The post assumes that
depression and anxiety rates would be very different absent the PhD, but I'm
not so sure.

It would be interesting to see response data for the same people during both
their undergraduate and PhD programs. But even this is compounded by the
quarter-life-crisis issues that are common at PhD ages anyway. Plus, the pool
of PhD students consists entirely of people who said "yes, working in relative
isolation, for years, with little pay, on a topic most people don't care
about, sign me up!". As one of the people in that pool, I'm not so sure we'd
be way happier in the other pool. There is a consumption value to doing a PhD
and taking the path that interested you. And there is consumption value to not
having a normal office job.

To be clear: I think we (professors and current graduate students) should make
sure applicants understand what a PhD is like and best practices for
minimizing the probability of a bad PhD. Even after controlling for
intelligence and ability to work hard, it is definitely not for everybody. But
likening it to a public health crisis on par with HIV, acknowledged clickbait
or not, is a bit much.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
>I wonder if there's a good way to think about the relevant counterfactual:
how happy would PhD students if they did not pursue a PhD?

I would be damned miserable.

>Plus, the pool of PhD students consists entirely of people who said "yes,
working in relative isolation, for years, with little pay, on a topic most
people don't care about, sign me up!".

Look. I've done both industry and academia. Money is great. I would be happy
to get more money in academia. However, working in tech _in a crowded cubical
farm in a massive company, for years, on a topic most people don 't care
about_, is not _so_ different from academia as we typically believe.

~~~
defen
> However, working in tech in a crowded cubical farm in a massive company, for
> years, on a topic most people don't care about

That's not the only way to have a tech career, though. Maybe that's the
highest-paying option for most people, but you can also do remote work, work
for a small company, work less than full time (if you're good enough) etc.
Basically there are ways for regular people to have not-super-stressful tech
careers. It doesn't sound like there's a way to do that for PhD's unless
you're already independently wealthy.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
I dunno. Most people I know who've tried to have more laid-back tech careers
eventually got laid off and had to hit the interview circuit pitching
themselves as more ambitious.

And I really don't think they were underperformers. I think the industry is
just structured so if you stay in one job long enough, trying to avoid
stressing yourself out over "moving up", your company goes under.

------
FineTralfazz
I think the structure of school in general is pretty bad for mental health. I
finished my CS BS degree earlier this year, and the quality of life
improvement from not being in school anymore has been huge. Instead of
constantly worrying about homework, not being able to predict my schedule (due
to different homework assignments taking different amounts of time, etc.), and
sacrificing sleep on a regular basis, I go to work for 8 hours and then then
don't have to worry about it for the rest of the day. It's not a job I want to
have forever, or one that I find particularly interesting, but it's still way
better than being in school. I stopped taking antidepressants after relying on
them to live for about six years, and I'm doing fine.

School sucks. I don't know what the solution to that is. Maybe there isn't
one. But I didn't truly realize just how bad it was until I was done with it.
I can only assume it's worse when you're in a graduate program, particularly
in a field like philosophy where your post-graduation prospects are so low.

~~~
lazyasciiart
I didn't have the same experience at all.

~~~
oneepic
This depends on how hard your BS program was / how much time and effort you
put in.

~~~
lazyasciiart
Not so much, it mostly depends on how much organization you did of the time
and effort. I worked two jobs and double majored with honors. I knew exactly
what my schedule was going to be.

------
bransonf
As someone currently contemplating pursuing a PhD and working in the Public
Health space, I don’t like this author’s take.

Sure, many PhD students report a high burden of stress, but comparing this to
the general population is a poor assumption.

The prerequisites for getting into a PhD program (the least of which is an
undergrad degree) already says something about the difference in the
population.

I think you could very easily reverse the causation. High stress people tend
to seek PhDs rather than PhDs produce high stress people.

And making the comparison to STDs as a health burden is naive. In the
populations I’ve studied, the burden of STDs as a health issue falls almost
exclusively on those with less education and lower opportunity.

A PhD is a choice made by educated persons, STDs arise out of something that
isn’t a choice made by educated persons.

The stresses of grad school exist because the environment is deathly
competitive. More people want to think for a living than there are positions
to do so.

I’m resolved to the fact that I would never pursue a PhD for the sole fact of
getting a tenure track position, but rather because I want to challenge
myself. If I do pursue a PhD, I’ll probably be another member of the
population reporting elevated stress, but not because I didn’t choose that
path. At the same time, I wonder if I won’t be just as stressed to pass on the
opportunity.

~~~
Dumblydorr
You need to talk to a lot more PhD students before you pursue this. I dropped
out of a PhD in public health because my advisor was terrible and didn't care
about my progress, lied to me about how long it'd take, and eventually dropped
me like a fried laptop when she needed more time. Every one of her students
dreaded the hour meetings with her more than any other activity. I got a
massive rush of relief and happiness every time I left her office.
Furthermore, after all of this, she handed my research to a post doc for him
to be first author.

If you want a challenge, climb a mountain. If you want a terrible time, join a
PhD program.

~~~
majos
Sounds like a bad advisor. One question though, did you get a sense of this
from current students before accepting the offer?

I’m not suggesting the situation is your fault for not knowing. But part of my
advice to potential grad students is to talk to several current students of
the advisor you’re considering. Reasonable advisors will not be offended by
this, and if done in an informal off-the-record way (e.g. in person), I think
most grad students will be honest about a bad advisor. Or at least impart some
feeling for how their experience has been. For example, I personally know of
cases where current students explicitly warned against working with an advisor
during the admitted phd student visit day.

Not trying to argue that you should have avoided the situation, but I am
curious about cases where the talk-to-current-students advice breaks down.

------
knzhou
As a grad student, I feel compelled to repeat my usual spiel: it's just supply
and demand.

All problems of grad school are caused by a massive oversupply of potential
grad students, tens to hundreds of times more than necessary to fill all
permanent faculty positions, and the fact that we willingly participate
despite long hours, low wages, or, as the author complains, depressing
architecture.

As long as this holds, it cannot be stopped by any economic reform or social
pressure. It's part of the deal when you sign up.

~~~
ssivark
Completely agreed with the fundamental point that it's all about the _"
funnel"_ from ~100 (arbitrary number) grad school hopefuls to ~1 tenured role.
Unless the number of hopefuls changes, the only design choices correspond to a
bunch of "selection events" where the group could be winnowed: grad school
admission, qualifiers, granting degree, offer postdoc1 after degree, offer
postdoc2 after postdoc1, offer tenure track after postdoc2, offer tenure after
tenure review.

The "shape" of the funnel will reflect the design choices we make, based on
which groups to be "kind" towards, and which groups to be "brutal" towards. I
think prevalent mindset is that it's acceptable to be most brutal in grad
school admissions, or after granting PhDs -- because then people have a degree
to take away and get to leave with a sense of closure, without much sunk cost
worry.

The system of each faculty member graduating significantly more than one
student is fundamentally unsustainable, and will lead to all kinds of
problems. They can only be shuffled around and partially hidden, but never
fully solved. It's amazing how many otherwise smart people _don 't want to
understand this_.

~~~
knzhou
Absolutely. I helped to write a series of tests that _had_ to create a 200:1
funnel. There was some debate over whether it was less brutal to cut, say,
20:1 and then 10:1, or 10:1 and then 20:1, or perhaps add another stage and
cut 10:1, 5:1, 4:1. For every argument for early cuts there was an equal and
opposite argument for late cuts. But I think every cut was still equally
cruel, since multiplication is commutative.

------
scythe
>they’ve been convinced to tie up their entire identity in being one of the
lucky 10%3 that lands a tenure-track research job,

For context, this is a philosophy program!

STEM PhDs have a good enough job outlook that I don’t need to explain it.
Humanities like sociology and history can often be parleyed into a career in
social work, politics or law. This isn’t always the best career path, but it’s
still a good bet for being the most interesting.

But philosophy is unique. It’s supposed to be central; philosophy is that
field which justifies _itself_ while work in other fields is demanded by some
external force. Philosophy is humanity’s attempt to say things which are not
contingent on other things, assuming that’s even possible.

So who could possibly tell a philosophy PhD that they’re on the wrong track?
Shouldn’t philosophy, itself, provide that argument? And shouldn’t dealing
with the questions of life itself, at the highest level, be at least a little
stressful? Wouldn’t it be a little strange if becoming a _philosopher_ follows
a generally unremarkable educational trajectory?

~~~
HelloSalt
Unfortunately that is not true, and I speak from experience.

4 years doing a physics PhD in the UK, almost all my experiments failed (in
the building managers cranked up the heating/air con so the temperature was
fluctuating +-5 degrees throughout the day and all carefully aligned optical
components couldn't be kept aligned, etc way rather than the expected effect
is weak), 30 mins with a supervisor once every other month, only person in
group other than supervisor, etc.

Physics is definitely STEM, and I found it horrendous to find a job after
graduating. It took in excess to 500 tailored applications and 6 months to get
anything at all. I was only a few weeks away from depending on welfare to
avoid homelessness when I finally got an interview.

STEM skills shortage is an outright lie, all I see is an entire order of
magnitude oversupply for STEM educated people.

Overall Grad School is an absolutely horrible experience, and I would
completely defund public purse support of any university that engages in PhD
"research" or "teaching" if it were in my power to do so.

~~~
scythe
> I found it horrendous to find a job after graduating. It took in excess to
> 500 tailored applications and 6 months to get anything at all.

Honestly, six months isn't that long. I've spent that long looking for a job.
But I found one. And furthermore, _getting a job in physics at all_ is the
whole point of grad school. If that isn't a success condition for you, of
course you shouldn't go to grad school. If you want money, be a chemical
engineer or write software.

And this doesn't make _you_ look good:

>4 years doing a physics PhD in the UK, almost all my experiments failed (in
the building managers cranked up the heating/air con so the temperature was
fluctuating +-5 degrees throughout the day and all carefully aligned optical
components couldn't be kept aligned, etc way rather than the expected effect
is weak), 30 mins with a supervisor once every other month, only person in
group other than supervisor, etc.

I've been in two grad programs and had close experience with another three.
Grad school is supposed to be self-directed. Unfortunately a lot of students
show up with no communication skills and aren't helped in building them. But
you can't self-direct without communicating. Especially not in science.

And everything about this paragraph points to a lack of effective and timely
communication from your end. No contact with advisor? Advisor is busier than
you are. You email first. Building manager stupid? Tell them off. No others in
group? Email someone at another university. No response? Try someone else. You
sit in a room and work alone, you lose.

Those are all things _I_ wish _I_ had done when I was in a PhD program, of
course.

------
btrettel
> Instead, they’re riddled with anxiety and depression because they’ve been
> convinced to tie up their entire identity in being one of the lucky 10% that
> lands a tenure-track research job, then hung out to dry by the gatekeepers
> they probably thought would help them.

I'd be interested in seeing a survey on how many people currently working on a
PhD believe it will lead to a tenure-track job. I'm a PhD student now and I'd
be skeptical if it were more than 25% of people in my department, for example.
(I myself have no interest in tenure-track jobs.) There does seem to be more
demand for the jobs than there are jobs, but I think in the STEM fields I am
familiar with, people are more realistic about what types of jobs they are
qualified for. It helps that STEM fields have more options than the
humanities, for example, too.

Also, my guess would be that many PhD students realize that they won't ever
get a research job, and they treat this as their opportunity to do research.

~~~
UncleMeat
CS is incredibly unique here since the "backup" plan is incredible and many
people prefer it. Go speak to people in fields like history and although most
people say "well at least I got to have fun in grad school for a while" the
truth is that they all want faculty positions and the number of applicants per
position is growing past 500:1.

~~~
Falcorian
As a Physics PhD, I certainly went into grad school wanting to get a faculty
position; is suspect most people did in my cohort.

Of course we're mostly data scientists now, because only 5% win the faculty
lottery.

Data science wasn't a path that existed when we started. I wonder if its
existence changes what people going into a Physics PhD expect.

~~~
musicale
> Of course we're mostly data scientists now, because only 5% win the faculty
> lottery.

This seems like a sad waste of physicists, even if the faculty pyramid scheme
is obviously unsustainable. I for one would like to see more actual advances
in physics.

~~~
knzhou
What can you do?

Suppose you magically double the number of faculty positions. Within one year
all of the new positions could be filled a hundred times over. Now you've back
to the exact same scenario, except that now you also have twice as many slots
for grad students, too.

~~~
alexgmcm
Create more national labs, research institutes etc. that widen out the end of
the funnel without widening the start.

/fellow physicist who went into DS

~~~
knzhou
Perhaps, but many of these labs are extensions of universities. I do research
at SLAC, a national lab which shares grad students with Stanford.

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cozzyd
Grad school is difficult and stressful, but doing novel things normally is.
Comfortable boring things make for not-so-good research topics.

Also a median time of 7.5 years for a PhD sounds unlikely... in my field
(physics) that's probably more like 90th percentile. Perhaps that length is
right for humanities, which do tend to be longer than the sciences, but there
are an order of magnitude more STEM PhDs than humanities PhDs and many STEM
PhDs are likely shorter than physics.

~~~
pmiller2
I agree. I couldn't find any statistics, but my impression is that in math,
4-5 years would be typical. At the school I went to, if you started without a
Master's degree, 8 years would be roughly (give or take a semester or 2) the
_maximum_ amount of time one could spend on a math PhD, so there's no way it
can be close to the median time.

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kevintb
I thought this was saying "public health grad programs are worse than STIs"
and I was so confused...

