
Reimagining the PhD - imartin2k
https://nadiaeghbal.com/phd
======
parsimo2010
As a PhD candidate right now, after having spent seven years with an M.S. and
doing "independent learning" and thinking that it was giving me the same
growth- I can tell you right now that it isn't the same. This may vary for
different fields of study, and it may vary for different people, but I think
my experience will hold true for most people.

Spending time doing independent learning, even if you have given yourself some
structure, misses some of the important things you get in a PhD program. Your
advisor guides you, but they also challenge you. They hold you accountable.
Some people may be able to challenge themselves, but most people don't have
the necessary experience to know the difference between a "cool hack" and
novel research. Your advisor has more experience and can tell you what is
worth pursuing. Plus, to complete a PhD you have to do _all_ the requirements-
even the stuff you don't like. A self-structured independent study program is
probably going to be light on the stuff that you don't find fun.

There are a lot of downsides to doing a PhD, and I'm not saying that it's for
everyone. Independent study is fine. But I'm going to look skeptically at
anyone who thinks their own independent study program is the equivalent of a
PhD. I would probably be less skeptical if their independent study resulted in
publishing a few peer-reviewed journal articles. The title of PhD doesn't just
signal that you are capable of learning, it's also a signal that you can work
within the current research environment, have your work accepted by other
experts in the field, and in general just do a bunch of "intangibles" that
aren't signaled by you working on your own.

~~~
poplarstand
You seem to have had a very successful PhD experience. You write approvingly
of your advisor, acknowledge the ways in which the program benefited you, and
have respect for peer-reviewed literature.

That being said, I'm not sure that your experiences are typical. HN regularly
has commenters and posters that have been disappointed by their forays in
academia. One recent example was posted only two days ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21740833](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21740833)

I imagine that a good PhD program is, by definition, likely to be beneficial.
Probably above "independent learning" by leagues. However, it's worth
considering what an average-case or worst-case PhD program looks like. Those
may not compare as favorably to "independent learning".

~~~
theamk
The other link is about "philosophy PhD". This seems to be the big difference
-- when I talk to non-CS PhD students, they often seem to have much harder
time and worse conditions that CS ones.

My theory is because of all the opportunities. At least in CS, there is no
problem in finding the job with "incomplete phd", and such jobs usually have a
much higher salary than PhD stipend. This means that if you don't like PhD,
you just leave -- and income increase associated with such action makes it
really simple.

From what I understand, this is not the case for non-CS PhD specialties.

------
knzhou
It's funny how experiences can differ so much -- academia really varies a lot.
There's all this talk about what a PhD really means as a credential, while
I've never thought about it that way.

In my corner of physics, a PhD just doesn't work as a credential: it cannot be
used to impress anybody in industry because my field has no near-term
applications. What matters is the PhD _process_ , a period of relatively
stable funding where you can focus on learning and research without
interruption. Some people even fight their advisors to get their PhD _degree_
later, because it marks the end of that stable period and the start of the rat
race for postdoc and faculty positions.

In other words, the value of the PhD is entirely in the space it gives you to
think about something you love. Bickering over who deserves the title of PhD
seems to miss the point.

~~~
mnky9800n
even this can lead to problems. i entered my phd after working in the field
for several years as a research scientist. because of my experience i have
been put in charge of internships, advising many masters students, organizing
workshops, etc. all on top of the research im supposed to spend my time doing.
this is all okay i suppose, because i've been able to be a very productive phd
in addition to everything else ive done. but my phd compatriots have a lot
more time in their days to pursue their interests in comparison to me. i hate
it when people say a person is "too old" to do a phd, but I think there is a
place where you may be too experienced and it would be better to do a phd in
another field you find fascinating but have no experience in.

------
thomasahle
Cambridge awarded Aubrey de Grey a PhD in biology based on his book on the
mitochondrial theory of aging.

Both Cambridge and Oxford will consider works of their former undergraduates
for PhD's, and arrange formal defences.

This seems like an entirely fair system. Some people end up doing real
research without having participated in a PhD program, and it seems natural to
then let them defend that as a thesis.

~~~
kwhitefoot
As far as I can tell a European, and more specifically UK, PhD is a rather
different animal than a US PhD. Much shorter elapsed time for a start.

I suspect that most people commenting are assuming that the system they are
most familiar with is universal, including the author of the article.

------
salty_biscuits
My favorite story about researchers getting by without phds is about Lars
Onsager, quoted from his Wikipedia article

At Yale, an embarrassing situation occurred: he had been hired as a
postdoctoral fellow, but it was discovered that he had never received a Ph.D.
While he had submitted an outline of his work in reciprocal relations to the
Norwegian Institute of Technology, they had decided it was too incomplete to
qualify as a doctoral dissertation. He was told that he could submit one of
his published papers to the Yale faculty as a dissertation, but insisted on
doing a new research project instead. His dissertation, entitled, "Solutions
of the Mathieu equation of period 4 pi and certain related functions", was
beyond the comprehension of the chemistry and physics faculty, and only when
some members of the mathematics department, including the chairman, insisted
that the work was good enough that they would grant the doctorate if the
chemistry department would not, was he granted a Ph.D. in chemistry in 1935.

------
graycat
At least one famous research university states that (1) a Ph.D. requires the
student to write a dissertation; (2) a _dissertation_ is an original
contribution to knowledge worthy of publication; (3) the dissertation will be
judged by a committee with the chair and the majority outside of the student's
department; (4) there is no coursework requirement for a Ph.D. Individual
departments may have additional requirements, e.g., qualifying exams.

More generally a common statement of work being worthy of publication is that
it be "new, correct, and significant".

Good research universities insist that their new assistant professors be
actively publishing. Since not all of those professors have much success
publishing, there do tend to be openings.

In some fields, people with good publication records can find jobs.

Some of what helps for a career as a professor: (i) Have teaching well enough
organized that can do well teaching large, popular sections -- this teaching
_productivity_ helps the finances of the university. (ii) Be able to get
research grants -- this also helps the finances of the university. (iii) Get a
reputation as a leader in a popular field and, thus, contribute to the
reputation of the university, which helps the university get gifts and, thus,
also helps the finances of the university. (iv) Be successful at producing
Ph.D. students that get good jobs. (v) Do well serving on committees. (vi)
Don't be mean to students. (vii) Avoid politics and _hanky panky_.

For the OP, she (a) is finishing a book and (b) has been successful getting
research grants. If the book can be judged to have content that is "new,
correct, and significant", then she will have met the requirement "an original
contribution to knowledge worthy of publication". In that case she may be well
on her way to a Ph.D. in some good research universities.

There is an example: In the field of computational complexity in computer
science, an algorithm that has polynomial time complexity is regarded as a
_good_ algorithm. This definition was from J. Edmonds. IIRC he had been a
graduate student at the University of Maryland, left for a job, and published
his research on network flows. The story is that, then, some of his former
professors at the University of Maryland approached him and suggested,
essentially, that if he took his papers, put them in a stack, and put a staple
in the upper left corner, then they would accept that stack as his
dissertation and grant him a Ph.D.

So, the story in the OP is not a fully new or strange as a way to get a Ph.D.

Colleges and universities like their professors to have Ph.D. degrees if only
because that helps with accreditation.

~~~
physicsyogi
> if he took his papers, put them in a stack, and put a staple in the upper
> left corner, then they would accept that stack as his dissertation

When I was finishing my PhD, my advisor pulled out his dissertation to show me
what it looked like. It was literally his papers sandwiched between the
covers.

(Edit: formatting)

~~~
trentlott
Yeah, that's kinda how it works.

If you're lucky you publish 2 - 3 papers in your PhD career along a similar
topic. Stick those in and coheretize them with an introduction and a
conclusion.

Those whose fields are less productive or who are in groups which don't
publish very much will have a harder time getting their final bit
written...but it isn't exactly supposed to be easy.

------
jillesvangurp
A PhD. simply is recognition from an accredited institution for research work
you have done. It used to be quite common for people to get one towards the
end of their careers: you'd work your entire life as e.g. a teacher and then
write a dissertation on your learnings.

Albert Einstein was not even working for a university when he developed his
general theory of relativity. That only happened after he published some
ground breaking papers while working as a patent examiner (1905). The
university where he studied a few years earlier wasted no time awarding him a
Ph. D. for that.

The point is that a Ph. D. does not have to be a prep school for wannabe
researchers where after a few years some committee decides that you've done at
least the bare minimum but an acknowledgement that somebody is a researcher by
their peers for work they've done. Many universities have honory doctorates
for this but focus too much on nurturing their own students to a PhD. instead
of reaching out to their former students and looking at what they have done.

E.g John Carmack dropped out of college but his work in 3D algorithms and
moving that field forward technically is undeniable and I can't really think
of many people more capable of speaking on that topic authoritatively. I could
imagine that being worthy of a PhD. Likewise there are many others that busy
themselves with OSS work, standardization, ground breaking algorithms, etc.
that are producing lots of written work, patents, standards, etc. that are
recognized authorities in their fields that don't have PhDs.

I happen to have done a PhD. the more conventional way (i.e. straight after my
Msc.). Since getting my PhD. 16 years ago, I've gradually moved away from
doing research. At this point, I've not published anything in ten years and
would definitely not call myself a researcher. I can't deny a certain level of
impostors syndrome. I'm certainly no Albert Einstein.

------
playing_colours
Is there a way to get PhD in Mathematics for a working individual, without
leaving the job?

Suppose, I have a solid dedication, can allocate time for studying at home
(20-30 hrs / week), have passion and brains for research.

1\. Are there any universities that support distance PhD in Pure Maths? Also,
I can visit a university regularly (a few times a year).

2\. Or is there a way to do research somehow independently from a university
(for my maths I do not need Hadron Collider), but have a mentor, reviewer (I
can pay for their service)? Or work collaboratively within a group? Can such
research, if it is on the level of PhD, allow some institution (Cambridge?)
give me a PhD degree, as a rule not an exceptional case?

~~~
stared
And what is your motivation?

If you want to learn mathematics, you don't need to have PhD. If you want to
go through the academic career line, you need to dedicate much more than part-
time-job equivalent.

~~~
playing_colours
1\. I want to work in industry in research departments and deep tech products.
For most positions, having deep knowledge will not be enough and PhD grade is
expected: to pass the filter.

2\. I want to explore some topics in depth, contribute, and get regular
feedback, mentorship - basically, have an advisor.

I do not want to stay in university, fight for places there, I do not need
grants - I want accredited expertise that can open some doors.

It seems like there are quite a lot of people in similar situations, and
despite all the progress in online education, increasing academic requirements
from many employees, requirements for life long learning our advanced
education system cannot support different paths to accredited degrees and
research.

~~~
stared
1\. If you goal is to work in industry, don't do pure mathematics PhD. What
works, and is doable in 20-30h/week is doing an applied PhD in an area related
to your work. I know quite a few people who did it with great success. (Quite
a few friends, and some accomplished people like
[https://ruder.io/.](https://ruder.io/.))

Also, as a person with PhD - spending 4-7 years in an irrelevant field is
going to seriously hurt your industry career. (I speak as someone with PhD.)
Yes, PhD is worth something - but it won't come in the place of experience.

2\. For the second, you need time. On their side, even if they don't need to
provide funding, they invest their time. Talk to people at a local department.
You may impress them enough that they are going to work with you unofficially
- but the bar may be high.

For later - what is the exact area you are most interested in?

~~~
playing_colours
Thank you for your answer and advice!

In pure mathematics - I found most interesting topics around algebraic
topology. Next year, I plan to look into homology. These fields also have
computational aspect and some applicability outside of pure maths:
computational homology and Topological Data Analysis.

This autumn, I finally looked a bit into category theory (applied) using this
good book: [https://www.amazon.com/Invitation-Applied-Category-Theory-
Co...](https://www.amazon.com/Invitation-Applied-Category-Theory-
Compositionality/dp/1108711820), and, unsurprisingly, found it exciting.

Regarding PhD in an applied area: I tend to agree with you, and also keep
thinking about focusing more on computational / applied mathematics so that my
studies could be somehow related to my work. My tech focus at work is around
data processing: with interest in distributed databases and computations.

Heh, I see that distributed systems, algebra, topology, and categories are
similar in mental representation in my head, they cause same kind of
excitement when I study them: visualising, analysing, and playing with the
systems of structures, connections, defined rules and operations :)

------
abdullahkhalids
I have a PhD. A PhD is just a certification that you have depth and breadth
around a topic at an expert level. An expert of a topic is someone who has the
skills and knowledge to evaluate someone else's work on the topic, and who can
themselves do novel work on that topic or nearby.

As with all certifications from dog-training to fighter jet pilot, PhD
certifications have both false positives and false negatives. Meaning, it is
entirely possible to get expert levels on a topic without getting the PhD
certificate. But the reason people insist that you get a PhD is because they
don't want to get into the whole argument of whether you really are an expert.
Otherwise, there is no reason to get a PhD. If you can convince people that
you are indeed an expert without the PhD certificate, good for you. If not,
sucks to be you.

~~~
ronilan
_If you can convince people that you are indeed an expert without the PhD
certificate, good for you. If not, sucks to be you._

Dude, chill, you can just be an expert on a subject without giving a damn
about what other people think. It’s an option. Give it a try _

~~~
pm90
It really sucks to be an expert but then not be able to get others to take
your expertise seriously. We can do a lot of things on our own, but we're all
social beings who do need to interact with others around us.

It does really suck to be an expert but then be ignored or shunned by the
people you consider your peers.

------
Gatsky
This isn’t reimaganing, this is about increasing the number of people with
PhDs, which is surely a step in the wrong direction. PhDs are an incredibly
wasteful endeavour, consuming huge amounts of time and human spirit for
unclear benefits, under circumstances that invite exploitation.

In case you can’t tell, I’m currently trying to finish my dissertation.

------
stared
I think this thing is the key:

> "As an independent researcher, you don’t have those constraints, so you can
> focus on creating whatever artifacts you think will best reach your target
> audience (which might also mean academic papers, by the way!). I was mildly
> afraid of GitHub when I started, but I learned that open source developers
> use GitHub repositories for discussions, so I published some of my work that
> way. (A few other examples I like: Nicky Case publishes her ideas as games,
> and Michael Nielsen and Andy Matuschak are writing about quantum computing
> in an interactive readable format designed to improve retention.)"

We can redefine progress. Current academia is conservative, at least when it
comes to what counts as work and progress, what as a distraction (sadly,
almost all didactics and outreach counts as "distraction" for researchers).

Personally, after (kind of) leaving academia, I can focus much more on various
media that wouldn't be recognized.

------
Athas
A PhD is not required to do research, nor does research necessarily lead to a
PhD. A PhD is ultimately like any other degree: a school programme where, at
the end, some instituting is staking part of its reputation on giving the
world a promise that you have some minimum competence in some field. Anything
you learn in school, you can in principle learn on your own. (I have a PhD
myself and I encourage everyone who has the opportunity to undergo formal
schooling, but I'm well aware that not everybody wants to.)

There is one part of the article that is a bit confusing:

> I was also told by one professor that it’d be “expected” for me to join
> faculty full-time after getting a PhD, which made me uncomfortable, because
> I knew I didn’t want to work in academia long-term.

Maybe some context is missing, but I'm a bit incredulous that anyone would
believe this statement. A professor may train dozens of PhDs over his career,
and if all were expected to join faculty, then the resulting exponential
growth would cause the working population to be pretty much entirely
university faculty.

~~~
keithwhor
Maybe some context on my end is missing — but isn’t the last paragraph
basically describing the current problem with academia? That’s exactly what
people are being trained for, there is just not enough demand for PIs /
Professors so bright-eyed optimistic researchers end up getting left up sh*t
creek without a paddle after four to six years.

~~~
Athas
Can't speak for everyone, but for my PhD I was trained for doing research.
What else would it be? That kind of research is (presumably) also useful in
R&D positions in industry, and I certainly see most of the PhD graduates here
eagerly hired by companies with advanced products. Actually, what I was _not_
directly trained for is exactly what you need only in academia: writing
grants, managing small teams, supervising students, and so on.

~~~
arethuza
The thing that killed the appeal of academic research for me was that I found
I was playing the "publish or perish" game too well an it was actually making
me (as someone observed at the time) "hyper cynical".

I like building stuff that people use, not writing papers about about how to
build things that people will almost certainly never use.

~~~
Rerarom
What about working on stuff that no one will care about in the immediate
future for various reasons, but that you definitely consider important to
study?

~~~
arethuza
Don't get me wrong - I _loved_ the area I worked in, I think I just saw a bit
too much of how the sausage is made in "big science" projects and I got rather
disillusioned by the approach that seemed to be required to succeed at a
"management" level in academia and decided that as a long term career goal it
didn't interest me at all.

NB It probably didn't help that I spent 6 years working on symbolic AI at the
start of the 90's at it was becoming increasingly apparent to me (correctly as
it turned out) that this fundamental approach didn't really work no matter how
fascinating it was.

~~~
Rerarom
I get what you're saying. Pure math is much more palatable. Less "big science"
and more individual/small-team work.

------
huherto
It seems to me that there was a time that a lot of the Software Engineering
work was contributed by Universities. Operating Systems, Databases, Compilers,
Networks, etc. Examples that come to my mind are UCSD Pascal, Unix Berkley,
Ingres at Berkley, Kermit Project at Columbia. I don't see that any more. You
should be able to get a PHD by designing and implementing a state of the art
piece of software. Even google was started as part of a research project I
think.

------
moralestapia
I know the author is well intended and in the end it's her opinion after all.
But many of the points she raises are naive when viewed from the point of view
of someone who is inside academia. Someone going through a PhD could write a
wildly different opinion. In the end it's opinions all the way down, but if
you want to "re-imagine" this whole thing you need to start with a much
broader vision.

------
bohorqne
This article reminds me of the book "How to get a PhD" by E. Phillips and D.
Pugh.

A PhD program is a training process on how to become and independent
researcher. * Just like the word "theory", the word "research" has different
meanings in academic and non-academic settings. A research work in academia is
an original contribution to a specific field that meets certain criteria of:
writing and technical rigor, objectivity and completeness. It is the community
of that field who judges your work on these criteria. * What constitutes a
research question is a hard problem (you need to compute your cost of
opportunity: time, complexity, resources and impact) that only comes with
experience. Choose badly and you might end up empty-handed after many years of
work. At the beginning you rely on your advisor for guidance on this but with
time you begin to smell the low hanging fruits and proceed with certain
"independence".

Regarding the article, it is not clear whether the OP made a comprehensive
review on the relevant and related literature. Without that, no research
question can even begin to be formulated. No research is completely isolated
from what has been already done and it is the job of the student to identify
where it "fits". If it is really a completely novel subject then I would
strongly discourage the OP from working on it if she were to do it in the
context of a PhD program, for her own good and sanity.

Of course, this is not to say that her work has no value (it might have even
more value that what she could have done in academia) but that is not the
point. It does not mean either that academics are the only people who can do
research. It means that you cannot obtain a PhD without the guidance of
someone who has gone through the process of obtaining a PhD and has many years
of independent research experience.

------
k__
Isn't it also a bit more strictly defined in angelo saxon countries?

I had the impression, in Germany it's "research some stuff" and you are
basically left on your own. Other countries had a real program, that was like
a master program just more research related.

~~~
bonoboTP
Exactly. In Germany there is no "grad school" or "grad students". You get
hired directly by a prof to work in their department as a researcher/research
assistant ("scientific employee/colleague") and indeed "research some stuff",
work on industry collaboration projects, supervise student theses and so on.
If you can publish a few papers about that stuff at relevant places, you can
write it up and defend your thesis.

There's no "program" to speak of, no bureaucratic application procedure, no
handholding.

But the differences start even earlier: in Germany even bachelor and master
students are supposed to be rather responsible individual adults, than in
Anglo countries. For example it's largely up to students to attend lectures or
not, there's little homework, little to do during the semester. You can decide
to take or drop courses deep into the semester, then take exams. If you prefer
to work during most of the semester and cram everything into the exam period,
it's up to you. The opposite is called "verschult" ("schoolized") and has
pejorative connotations.

------
egyptiankarim
A PhD is intended to demonstrate that a person is capable of pursuing a course
of research within a field of study, and has a mastery of the existing
knowledge and pertinent skills/methodologies.

Unfortunately, in some fields, the PhD has sadly become a form of lazy
gatekeeping, and reimagining the PhD in those cases may just be a matter of
waiting for the old guard to step down.

In some other fields, the PhD is probably ripe for reimagining, but
"independence" might not be the right lens through which to think about it.
For example, it would be exceedingly difficult for a would-be physicist to
independently build a large hadron collider to do their research with. The
institutions that make those sorts of resources even possible are inherently
large/complex, and in those cases the PhD is a less sad and lazy form of
gatekeeping (i.e., you need to do a set of progressively more complex stuff
under the tutelage of someone more experienced before we let you touch all of
our big expensive things).

In yet some other fields, which may be younger, have less of an established
orthodoxy, and lower overhead to participate in (e.g., the
economic/anthropological open source software type work the author does), it
seems totally reasonable that a person could develop and demonstrate their
knowledge, skills, and abilities on their own and without a formal course of
study. In such fields, the concept of the PhD doesn't seem as ready for
reimagining as it does retirement.

~~~
anticensor
Yes, a Doctorate of Arts in Software Development would be more appropriate.

------
turk73
Love the citations at the end of the blog article.

Getting a PhD was a waste for me, but I loved it anyways. It's been a
liability for my career and it cost me ~5 years of income. I am older than my
managers, and just a misfit overall.

Why did I leave academia? Well, there was this recession you see...but that
was just the first part of the problem. A huge issue was how long it takes to
get hired anywhere unless you're some top notch Harvard guy, it sucks,
especially when you're broke. Then there was the realization that I could
immediately see 2X the income just being a software engineer with evenings and
weekends to myself pretty much.

Once I did the math, my academic career was immediately over. Broke, mentally
exhausted, five years behind in income, not politically aligned with typical
far left policies, sick of the campus lifestyle (beer, no parking, broken
glass, property crime).

For me, it was called "growing up" to leave academia. I loved writing papers
and articles and was getting into books, but it just didn't pencil out as a
career goes. I think only independently wealthy or perhaps the really elite
Ivy League types should even bother.

------
TheYellowKing
I tried getting a PHD but it was just too much, the lecturers weren't
friendly, there was little return value. Of course, I went for PhD of
contemporary philosophy, but I expected way more. Philosophers just hate each
other because they're close minded and believe only in themselves.

