
The missing piece to changing the university culture - shanac
http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v31/n10/full/nbt.2706.html
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ChuckMcM
Ok, so I don't have a Phd, originally I was thinking about getting one but I
started working and that just sort of fell by the wayside. But I never wanted
to teach. I've always been interested in things and going deeply into a
subject is (for me) its own reward. And that was my impression of the Phd
folks I met, not that they were wanted to teach but that they really wanted to
understand something completely. Was I completely wrong about the motivation
there?

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GuiA
It widely varies (I was in a PhD program for 2 years, left it for startups, am
planning to go back at some point in the next 18-36 months because I miss
research A LOT and teaching just as much, if not more).

I personally love teaching as much as research (teaching as in lecturing, but
also as in advising students working on a senior project, training
undergraduate researchers, first year grad students, etc), and I see the two
as inseparable. There are others who would rather teach than research
(although they are a minority in my experience); but yes, the majority of
people prefer research to teaching, and see teaching as a chore which only
wastes their precious brain time (I could not disagree more with such a
position). I wouldn't say it's 99.99% though - maybe closer to 60-70%. I
wonder if there have been studies about that.

To those who think teaching is a waste of time that would be better spent on
research, and that a "real" researcher is too good for teaching - I always
point to this writing by RPF:
[http://www.pitt.edu/~druzdzel/feynman.html](http://www.pitt.edu/~druzdzel/feynman.html)

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PeterisP
I believe that teaching and research should be treated as two different career
paths - they require different skill sets and motivation, and it would be
great if people could choose to proceed in one or another or both if they
want. The only thing that would have to change is how the universities make
their job offers; make two distinct positions and recruit for both.

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kazagistar
Such things exist... successful researchers can get buyouts from most of their
classes at some universities. The problem is, there is way more teaching that
needs to be done then research that needs to be paid for.

Also, in many places, the professors teach the grad students, who teach the
undergrads in kind, like a big pyramid, but it requires active research to
keep the professors relevant to the grad students.

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alexholehouse
As a grad student at Wash U, there's certainly feels like a lot of interaction
and connection with the start-up scene here in St Louis, although I've not got
involved myself. Just yesterday, there was an elevator pitch competition
organized by a _different_ entrepreneurship organization.

These are the kinds of things which aren't measured when graduate programs are
evaluated, but are super important for people who don't plan to plough into
academia, and maybe even more so for those who do!

There's a definitely a lot of opportunity to get non academic career path
advice and experience here. A grad student in my lab did a couple of
internships at Google during his PhD, which clearly is not something every
program/supervisor would be cool with.

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jamesaguilar
Cool, I graduated from there in '07, but at that time none of the incubation
stuff had even been started. Would you happen to know Albert?

~~~
alexholehouse
Haha yes! That's who I'm talking about! Small world.

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triplesec
I haven't finished my Phs (and am unlikely to, due to a terribly narrow and
unsupportive culture at my faculty) but I'm a much damn better epistemologist
for having done all that work. I'm looking for ways to provide the in-depth
analytical skills which are mostly only available at doctoral level in a
cheaper and more affordable format. This will benefit all.

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dnautics
Pardon my crass cynicism, but exactly how is moving PhDs from one bubble
(academic) to another (startups) going to help? We are going to have the same
PhDs who, by the admission of the paper might be "unequipped for a nonacademic
career" moving into companies. If they're unequipped for some reason or
another that is about cultural knowledge of the academic vs. industrial
process and folkways, then that might be fine. But what if they're unequipped
because the PhD process has merely used them as interchangeable labor and not
fundamentally instilled in them critical reasoning or thinking skills? How are
these startups, then, going to have any chance of succeeding? Shouldn't we be
worried, then that the unequipped PhDs will flood the market and drag down the
people who are trying to do startups which have a shot of succeeding?

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claystu
In reality, we're moving them from academia into the commercial world.

As for being unequipped, while in the short term they might lack the
experience, over the long run, we're betting that educational depth will
operate as leverage, which is why we have education in the first place--so
that people can stand on the shoulders of prior giants.

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dnautics
that's ideally why we have education, yes, and 10-20 years ago I would have
applauded your efforts.

However, this has become severely distorted as countries have gone on a major
[insert perjorative anatomy] measuring contest to create PhDs, and have pumped
effort and money into increasing STEM for its own sake.

IF indeed that is true (I may be being overly cynical), then the "reason why
we have education" has shifted from "so people can stand on the shoulders of
prior giants" to "because it makes our country look good". How does that
affect your analysis?

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claystu
Short answer: it doesn't impact my analysis at all.

Long answer: Even if it's true that countries are funding PhD programs for
national status, that doesn't imply that the programs, themselves, are
compromised. The programs should still produce educated individuals.

