

Goodbye to academic research - rsaarelm
http://blog.devicerandom.org/2011/02/18/getting-a-life/

======
chime
Reading this article makes me realize I certainly picked the road not taken.
Last year I quit my job as the Director of IT at a small pharma, dropped out
of a company-paid MBA program, drastically reduced my expenses, and started
doing independent research. A lot of people around me thought I was crazy
especially since I wasn't going the PhD or startup route either. In my mind
though, it seems pretty logical - I want to do real computer science research
without all the BS that goes on with academia or corporate research lab.

I'm more productive when working solo than in teams. And I already have a
specific research project in mind. All I needed was to plan my life so I'd
have 50-60hr/week free after my bills were paid. For the past two months, I've
been working on my research project diligently and without any external
delays. I know I won't get a degree out of this and I doubt I can get
published but since that's not my end-goal, it doesn't matter. I am looking
for a hardware hacker if anyone is interested - it is a very fun/rewarding
project: <http://ktype.net>

~~~
NY_USA_Hacker
You wrote:

"I know I won't get a degree out of this and I doubt I can get published"

Sorry to disagree! :-)!

For getting published, try some journal on human-computer interaction. Since
you know much more about your field than I do, look for other journal
'varieties' as well.

For what you are doing, that is, a lot of independent, call it, R&D, if you
get results anything like what you want, then it would be surprising if you
didn't have something publishable. If this argument is not enough, then look
at much of what does get published and conclude that much of it is not very
high quality stuff!

Uh, one way to improve your paper a notch or two over what is common is just
to write well, say, well organized, clear, including writing good English with
good spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

Once you are published at least once, better, say, three times, sorry, but you
should be able to get a Ph.D.! :-)! Maybe this is a big disappointment, but
it's true!

How then to get a Ph.D? Four points:

(1) At at least some of the best US research universities, there is no
coursework requirement for a Ph.D.

(2) The requirement for a dissertation is, say, "an original contribution to
knowledge worthy of publication". Since you've already been there, done that,
got the T-shirt, there's no question. Big, huge advantage.

(3) One more requirement would likely be the qualifying exams. These exams are
to show that you are 'qualified' to move on to research and do research. But,
uh, did I mention that you've already been there, done that, got the T-shirt?
The difficulty of the qualifying exams varies widely, but generally the
'polish on your halo' can be important in deciding who passes.

So, it can be good to have some high quality halo polish; here are three: (A)
Some of the best halo polish is published papers, the more papers, more highly
regarded, the better the polish. (B) More halo polish is when it looks like
you might be a successful entrepreneur who gets good publicity for the
university and, maybe later on, is, uh, 'thankful and generous'! (C) More good
polish is that you actually did this work, conceived it, took it on, got it
done, independently, which means you are promising as a good researcher for
the future bringing more good publicity to the university.

(4) There may be a requirement for 'residency' for a year. This can mean that
maybe you show up on campus some day in September and again in the spring to
defend your dissertation which you submit by taking a stack of your published
papers and putting a big staple in the UL corner.

For more:

You should pick the university and department carefully. You might try, say,
the bio-engineering program at Johns Hopkins. I would focus on such higher end
engineering programs with 'biology' contact. Of course try MIT and Cal Tech.
Don't settle for Southern Sawgrass U.

You may be able to get a research grant, before, during, or after your Ph.D.
program: At your university, ask the people who know about grant sources.
Maybe the US DoD VA would give you a grant. A research grant is the 'magic
bullet' to rapid progress in academics because you are bringing money to the
university! You will understand better when you see what fraction of the money
the university keeps for 'overhead'! Did I hear someone say, "Money talks."?

Uh, one way to pick a department and prof: Pick your journal carefully! That
is, if you want to get into program A with full prof P editor of relevant
journal X, then submit your paper to journal X and, if it is accepted, then,
uh, take 'advantage' of this contact you made with prof P to get your Ph.D.
Note: It can be possible for prof P to 'direct' your dissertation at a school
not his.

Uh, once your paper is accepted, prof P may invite you to present your paper
at his conference on Computer-Human Interaction or some such. Likely accept!
Then that's two bullets on your CV.

Note: When you submit your paper, likely you do not have to give any
significant biographical information at all. So, you don't need a high school
transcript! In particular, it doesn't have to be clear if you have a Ph.D. or
not. So, before your Ph.D., you are fully 'qualified' to submit a paper.

Note: Commonly a journal plays pocket pool with your paper for a year before
sending you results of reviews. So, two rejections and one acceptance would
take three years. Bummer.

So, to speed up the process, go online, find maybe 50 appropriate journals, to
the editor in chief of each, via e-mail or on paper, write a nice, one page
letter outlining your paper and asking "might your journal be interested?",
enclose a copy of your paper, and, then, only from the responses make a
'formal submission'.

Uh, the research universities make a big, huge deal out of 'research' both for
the faculty and for at least the Ph.D. students. Else they'd have to know
something about the real world and teach it, right? Horrors!

Uh, the research universities long since concluded that by a wide margin the
most difficult part of a Ph.D. and the usual point of failure is just the
research for the dissertation. For some students, that work is hard enough to
threaten their life (literally). For others, it's put their feet up for an
afternoon, think up some good stuff, write it up, send it in, get it accepted
for publication, and shout "Done!".

In my opinion, you've already passed the main obstacle: You've decided to do
some independent work.

For more, you've picked a problem, have some productive lines of attack, and
are making progress.

For more, if you get the research results you have in mind, then you will have
something "new, correct, and significant": "New"? No doubt what you are
working on does not yet exist. "Correct"? It works! "Significant"? Ask Hawking
or many people and/or groups working with the handicapped. E.g., ask the US
DoD VA.

You can do something cute here: You satisfy "significant" because you solve a
practical problem and not because you have a theorem or counterexample that
settles some old conjecture about differential cohomology that only six people
in the world know about. Readers listen up: This example makes a useful,
general point!

Presto: "New, correct, and significant" are the usual criteria for
publication!

That is, you've already given up on taking a problem from a prof, pleasing a
prof, caring mostly about what will please a prof, looking for praise,
approval, status, prestige, guidance, 'mentoring' from a prof, etc.

But, but, but, your work would never get venture funding, right? Wrong! One of
the 'themes' Brad Feld likes to pursue is human-computer interaction,
especially without a traditional keyboard! Uh, if you had Hawking, the DoD VA,
and some organization for the handicapped on your side, had some beta testers,
..., then you might get a venture capital check -- it's not hopeless.

Sorry to disagree with your:

"I know I won't get a degree out of this and I doubt I can get published".
:-)!

There's an old quote: "Be wise; generalize.".

Okay: How I got a Ph.D.: I started with a practical problem I'd identified and
worked on before grad school. I saw a solution intuitively. In my first year
in grad school, I took some advanced math that let me turn my intuitive stuff
into some solid theorems and proofs for a solution, and in my first summer
independently I did that. That work was all but the software and typing for my
dissertation.

For some interim 'halo polish', I saw a problem, thought for a few evenings,
roughly saw a solution, and then signed up for a 'reading course' on that
problem. I worked for a few more days and saw a much nicer solution, wrote it
up, turned it in, and was done with the reading course in two weeks. The work
looked publishable and was -- I published it later. So, in two weeks I'd
created "an original contribution to knowledge worthy of publication", that
is, satisfied the requirement for a dissertation. Good halo polish.

A student who does such independent work is "difficult", but on this point
read the recent Fred Wilson blog at his AVC.COM.

You will not be the first to do some independent work and later get a Ph.D.
for it. Uh, one of the biggest topics now in computer science is a 'good'
algorithm as in the set of algorithms P as in the question P versus NP. Well,
likely and apparently the formulator of a 'good' algorithm was Jack Edmonds.
Can get a start on him at

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Edmonds>

Yes, he also won a von Neumann prize, etc. Little things like that!

As at Wikipedia, he was at University of Maryland (UM). Uh, as I heard the
story, he was not a happy Ph.D. student at UM so left to the National Bureau
of Standards (NBS) about 40 miles away. Then he published some good work in
graph theory. Finally some of the math faculty at UM, feeling a little guilty,
drove to NBS, smoked a peace pipe, and said essentially "Put a staple in the
UL corner of your papers and we'll be pleased to call it a Ph.D. dissertation
in our department.".

Final point: Of course, D. Knuth knows about academics. Well buried in 'The
TeXBook' is:

"The traditional way is to put off all creative aspects until the last part of
graduate school. For seventeen or more years, a student is taught
'examsmanship', then suddenly after passing enough exams in graduate school
he's told to do something original."

Yes, there very much is a conflict here: The approach to getting into grad
school can strongly conflict with the approach to writing a dissertation.

~~~
lazyjeff
This is a very interesting comment. It reads a bit like "phd hacking". Did you
try this? The work done by the OP is indeed has potential to be published. The
above comment, while written in an encouraging tone, has some caveats that
might be worth pointing out.

"(1) At at least some of the best US research universities, there is no
coursework requirement for a Ph.D."

* I find that to be untrue. In my case, I had a M.S. before applying, and still had to take nearly 2 years of required coursework. It depends on the program, but I have not heard of any U.S. program that will accept a B.S. and not have required classes.

"(2) The requirement for a dissertation is, say, "an original contribution to
knowledge worthy of publication". Since you've already been there, done that,
got the T-shirt, there's no question. Big, huge advantage."

* Most students accepted to the best PhD programs (computer science) will already have top-tier publications before entering. It is definitely a good thing to have a publication, but rather than being finished, you will have just begun.

"(3) One more requirement would likely be the qualifying exams. These exams
are to show that you are 'qualified' to move on to research and do research.
But, uh, did I mention that you've already been there, done that, got the
T-shirt?"

* Quals will still require reading deeply from the literature. You will be expected to know all the fundamentals in your computer science area to pass. Having published is irrelevant here.

"Maybe the US DoD VA would give you a grant."

* Often only professors can apply for the big grants, and writing a grant is actually non-trivial. They need to see a fantastic track record, a solid proven team, and often nods to diversity and educating the public. Some students will help their advisors write the grant, but in the end it's the advisor who doles out the money and is the PI.

I feel the attitude of professors/academia being so easy to fool to be
somewhat overstated here. I won't go into the "ease of publishing" comments,
but my first top-tier publication took 3 years with many rejections, when I
was an a non-student doing research. I also did a lot of research that was
rejected and went into the "paper graveyard". After doing it a few times,
publishing is significantly easier since you will better know the methodology,
literature, and how to write academically. I'm not trying to be discouraging,
but I find the above comment to be optimistic but a bit exaggerated.

~~~
NY_USA_Hacker
Part I

Sorry you had problems. Many people have had problems, even very serious ones.
I've seen it happen too often that a Ph.D. program causes stress, for years,
and that is well known to cause depression, clinical depression, and even
suicide. I've seen really good, talented, dedicated, fantastic students have
their lives and themselves be ruined.

For all my points you question, my claims are rock solid.

You wrote:

"Did you try this?".

Yes, as I indicated, I did "try this", and it did work. I hold a Ph.D. in
Engineering from one of the best research universities in the world. The work
I did was really some applied math with theorems and proofs. I did the work as
'operations research', but it could as well be called 'computer science' or
even 'electrical engineering'. The work might also fit some
'interdisciplinary' applied math programs. The Chairman of the committee that
approved the work was from outside my department and a Member, US National
Academy of Engineering and Editor in Chief of one of the world's best relevant
journals. One of the world's best profs in operations research chided me for
not publishing: I didn't want to publish it and, instead, wanted to sell it. I
certainly didn't just want to give it away. I do not now nor have I ever had
any academic career aspirations at all. So, I have had no desire to build a
record of academic publications.

"It reads a bit like 'phd hacking'."

I don't call it 'hacking'. But, it is a play on several points. I mention two:

(1) Universities want the big deal to be research. Okay, take advantage of
that or at least go along with it. Then one way to know if have some
'research' is just to publish it. In the end, once out of school, the first
criterion for 'research' is that it's published.

Commonly publication is also the last criterion since, say, short of lots of
citations or an actual prestigious prize, it's tough to do more evaluation.
It's tough enough for the field just to review the paper; asking for
department chairs, school deans, and promotion committees to do much more with
the paper is a bit much.

In school, some profs try to ask for more than just 'publishable' in ways that
are often cruel, irrelevant, exploitative, destructive, domineering,
demeaning, insulting, sadistic, etc. So, a way, in part or in total, around
such nonsense is just to publish.

(2) Another point is in engineering, if work solves an important practical
problem, then that fact can be used to meet the requirement for "significant".
Otherwise "significant" can be in the eye of the beholder and tough to be
objective about.

With this 'hack', can work around the usual, 'expected' slog through courses,
qualifying exams as a 'filter', advanced courses as more 'filters',
demonstrations of 'academic devotion', sacrifice, and shedding of blood,
sweat, and tears, slave labor for profs on their research projects, begging a
prof for a 'dissertation topic', hoping, praying that the prof likes the work,
pleasing all profs on a committee of five, etc. Good way to ruin a life. "Have
to be smart to get a Ph.D.", and one way to use such smarts is to avoid
slogging through that long, muddy swamp. I outlined a way.

You quoted my:

"(1) At at least some of the best US research universities, there is no
coursework requirement for a Ph.D."

and wrote

"I find that to be untrue."

You can't find my statement to be "untrue"! Maybe it wasn't true at the school
you went to, but that is not relevant to my claim: I didn't say that no
coursework holds at every school.

To make my claim true, I need find only two schools where my coursework remark
holds. Well, at one time, I knew of three top research universities in the US
NE, two in the Ivy League, where official statements of the universities
and/or selected departments flatly stated that there was no coursework
requirement for a Ph.D. Neither was there a Master's requirement.

The part about "the best US research universities" is important: At Siawash
State U., the faculty is so insecure that they will drag students through no
end of hell. They can ask for over 100 credit hours of courses. It can appear
they want the student two show up at the qualifying exams carrying all of the
QA section of the library between their ears. The faculty research sucks, and
they believe that a Ph.D. is about 'acquiring knowledge'. BS: At the top
schools, a Ph.D. is about the research. Trying to carry the library around
between two ears is for fools.

At the top schools, the 'coursework' a student should know is to cover basic
material in the field, say, enough to teach ugrad courses. The rest of
'coursework' is to get ready for doing research. If the student has already
done the research and published it, then they have proven that they are ready
to do research.

Indeed, one Ivy League research university, in a department likely the best in
its field in the world, has flatly stated that graduate students are expected
to learn the basic material on their own, that no courses are offered for such
material, and that the graduate courses are introductions to research in
fields by experts in those fields. They also stated that grad students are
expected to have some research underway in their first year. And they also
want grad students out in three years.

A secret: At such universities, commonly graduate courses are not really
'graded'. Again, the purpose is the 'research', not the courses, credits,
grades, or learning.

Did I mention that the main point was just the research?

Then how the heck to evaluate the research? There is a way, in academics
essentially only one very good way: Publish it. Better? Okay, publish in a
'high quality' journal. For more? Win a prize. Maybe get asked by the NSF to
be a grant reviewer. Maybe become a journal reviewer, editor, or editor in
chief. Usually conference proceedings are less highly regarded. But basically,
especially for grad students, just publish, and asking for additional criteria
is a fool's errand for all concerned. Schools that don't realize such things
should be avoided.

To be more clear, for the 'standards' of what is good research, do not look to
the fantasy dreams of some dissertation committees and, instead, look at
what's in the better journals.

There is more: Going back decades there are far too many horror stories about
sadistic abuse of grad students. So some good universities just set up some
good criteria that strongly cut out the sadistic abuse: E.g., the requirement
for a dissertation can be, as I said, "an original contribution to knowledge
worthy of publication". Implicit but very clear is, if the student and his
advisors cannot agree, then the student can just PUBLISH the stuff. Then the
faculty committee members essentially have to back down and sign off on his
dissertation.

There's more: The student may have whatever 'relations' with his dissertation
advisors and department. So, make the process so that the dissertation is to
be approved by a committee with majority from outside the student's department
and Chairman from outside the student's department. So, the student gets a
fresh, maybe more objective, collection of 'reviewers'.

And, if you were a dean, what other standards and processes would you set up
that could be executed effectively?

You wrote:

"Most students accepted to the best PhD programs (computer science) will
already have top-tier publications before entering. It is definitely a good
thing to have a publication, but rather than being finished, you will have
just begun."

Maybe some such holds, but this process can't work well. It's doomed to
failure. As I outlined, there just is not any chance of reasonable criteria
for research quality for students other than publication in a decently good
journal.

So, for a program such as you outlined, the whole thing is a fool's errand for
both a student and the faculty: Bluntly, a student with "top-tier
publications" has proven that they have gotten nearly everything important
from a Ph.D. degree program that they could hope to get. The faculty has no
more to give them. Indeed, "top-tied publications" are in practice mostly the
only thing the faculty members can hope for for themselves in their own
careers. Thus the student's formal education is over, done with, completed. If
the school doesn't know that, then the student should go to a different
school.

~~~
ylem
Just a small comment--Princeton used to not require coursework--only quals.
but it is rare to see this in current universities.

------
RiderOfGiraffes
You're only getting one side of this, and before you find yourself in complete
agreement ask yourself this: Are you agreeing because it confirms your bias
and opinion of the academic system?

I got a PhD from Cambridge. Everyone I worked with was helpful to a fault.
Everyone shared credit when it was due, and declined offers of credit when
they felt they hadn't contributed enough.

I got my PhD, got a 3 year post-doc, changed fields into another 3 year post-
doc, then got head-hunted into industry.

My experience of academia couldn't be more different from the one described
here.

There's a story told of an elderly gentleman sitting sunning himself outside
the city gates when a traveller came by. "What are people like here?" asked
the traveller. "What were they like where you came from?" asked the elderly
gentleman. Then no matter what the answer, he'd always say: "You'll find
people here pretty much the same."

I'm not saying that this individual didn't have bad experiences, I'm not
saying he deserved them, I'm not saying academia is all roses, and I'm not
saying manipulative sociopaths don't exist. They do.

But my personal experience is different.

~~~
crocowhile
If I remember correctly you studied math, didn't you? Competition for a job in
math is way lower than it is for biological sciences. The reason is that the
current model of a successful biology lab is that of a PI leading a number of
students and postdocs anywhere from 5 to 20. There is NO WAY that all of them
are going to find a job in academia. Germany alone produces in one year the
same number of PhDs as there are professors in the country. Ratios are not
very different in UK and US. Most of the competition happens in the biological
sciences: you can run math or CS research by yourself. Difficult to do the
same in biology.

I've written about it here: [http://gilest.ro/2010/what-has-changed-in-
science-and-what-m...](http://gilest.ro/2010/what-has-changed-in-science-and-
what-must-change/)

~~~
gaurav_v
"Competition for a job in math is way lower than it is for biological
sciences."

Actually, the opposite is true, at least in the United States. Many more
Biological Science PhDs are granted relative to mathematics, but there is also
a lot more funding in the life sciences relative to mathematics.

The mathematics job market is more similar to the notorious humanities market
than to the life sciences.

~~~
crocowhile
You hardly have postdoctoral positions in math, physics and social sciences.
Lots of people still manage to get an assistant professor position after PhD.
Postdocs emerged only recently and they are a _buffer_ for those who cannot
get a TT job after PhD. In biology it is absolutely normaly, in fact
necessary, to go through ~5 yrs of postdoc before dreaming of applying. The
estimates I know about math is that 1/5 of graduated get a job in academia. In
biology is about order of magnitude more difficult (some less backed up
estimates even claim is 1/300).

~~~
gaurav_v
"You hardly have postdoctoral positions in math, physics and social sciences."

I don't know anything about the social sciences. In physics, I know that
postdocs are absolutely necessary and expected, to the same degree that they
are in the life sciences.

Mathematics is a little different. There are a _very_ small minority of
prodigy-types that go right from graduate school to the tenure track. However,
post-doc's are still the norm, although they don't go by the name 'postdoc.'
Usually they are pronounced 'visiting assistant professor' or 'instructor.'

Here's an example of a 'postdoc' in mathematics. All of the big universities
have them:

<http://www.mathjobs.org/jobs/jobs/1815>

------
jtbigwoo
This is how many, many professions work. Musicians, writers, inventors,
athletes, research scientists, pilots, and even small business owners all have
the same career path. A few really driven, really lucky ones win the lottery
and get to be household names. A small minority (maybe 1 - 5%) make an upper
middle class living. The other 99% work for poor wages until they give up or
get used up. It sucks, but it's hardly unique to science. If you're in a
profession with a massive oversupply of labor, you can pretty much be
guaranteed to see this kind of structure.

I also spent half the article thinking that the author's struggles with
vocabulary and grammar might explain his/her struggles to get ahead. Perhaps
he/she is a non-native speaker and that's adding to the trouble?

~~~
msluyter
As an ex-classical musician, I can attest to your first point. However, the
science Ph.D. glut seems to be generating more angst these days than it used
to. I attribute this in part to rising tuition costs and greater student debt
loads and an ever increasing disparity between supply and demand. I believe
this Economist article was recently referenced on HN:

<http://www.economist.com/node/17723223?story_id=17723223>

 _Indeed, the production of PhDs has far outstripped demand for university
lecturers. In a recent book, Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus, an academic
and a journalist, report that America produced more than 100,000 doctoral
degrees between 2005 and 2009. In the same period there were just 16,000 new
professorships. Using PhD students to do much of the undergraduate teaching
cuts the number of full-time jobs._

------
amh
Having spent some time in the academia sausage factory, I think this guy is
fairly close to the mark. A lot of time and effort is consumed simply writing
grants and genuflecting for government money. A perpetual stream of cheap
labor (postdocs) is necessary to keep the cash spigot flowing, even though
many of them have zero chance for a real career in their chosen field. I've
seen incredibly petty behavior over attribution and credit on papers.

I think most scientific progress happens in spite of the academic system, and
not because of it. In some ways the old system of patronage was superior --
you had a direct connection between a king or wealthy merchant who had an
interest in something, and the scientists who needed funding to investigate
it, instead of a vast bureaucracy that probably consumes more than the total
amount it exists to allocate.

------
duncanj
My current theory for success in academia (and I'm not an academic so take it
with a grain of salt) is a sort of synthesis of Dick Hamming's thoughts and
other things I've read.

1\. The purpose of a Ph.D. is to become a pre-eminent expert in a field. It's
not to get a piece of paper. If you're not working on a career that will make
you an expert, you'll be disappointed with your options after you have
achieved your doctorate.

2\. Find the interesting problems that people are afraid to work on and work
on them very hard.

3\. Use lots of techniques and approach your problems from many sides. Often
something cool will shake out of the mix, and it won't have been in your
research proposal.

4\. If you aren't self-motivated, it's not right for you. If you don't enjoy
the work, take your masters and go do something you enjoy.

5\. Prepare your life for long hours and low pay with lots of frustration.
Research doesn't proceed easily from point to point and it's all about being
around when you accidentally make a breakthrough.

I'm sure I'm about 90% wrong, but perhaps less wrong than the naive, "Ph.D. is
a way to stay in school and not have to face the real world" point of view.

~~~
yogsototh
My vision:

A rabbit is writing into a forest.

A fox see him:

Fox: "What are you writing?"

Rabbit: "How rabbit eat Foxes"

Fox: "It is completely wrong! You deserve I eat you now!"

Rabbit: "Please, just go see my supervisor before. He's in this cave."

The Fox enter into the cave and never go out. The rabbit continue to write.

The same occurs with a wolf. And a bit latter with a bear. Except the bear
cannot enter into the cave. Then a Lion go out and kill the bear.

Conclusion. No matter if you are good or not. No matter the subject of your
thesis. Only matter who's your supervisor.

~~~
gort
A nice parable, though bears would destroy lions in combat if they met. :)

------
arjunnarayan
I'm going to have to disagree with the article for many reasons: First, I'm a
Ph.D student and thus obviously biased. But second, while Ph.Ds can be unwise
life decisions for many, it really depends on your field, and the most
relevant field to this demographic is computer science. It really doesn't work
that way in CS because such a high volume of computer scientists leave
academia post-Ph.D into industry. CS industry (and the finance industry) has
an insatiable thirst for deeply knowledgeable qualified Ph.Ds. I don't know
what the cost benefit is (of spending 4 years in academia vs getting paid high
industry salaries) and I'm sure you could make more money going straight into
a tech job; but I'm going to assume here that we are maximizing more than just
$\sum_{life} income$ here.

PG has a Ph.D; he did fine (yay anecdote). In my various internships around
tech companies, there were plenty of senior coders who had Ph.Ds. And if you
have a Ph.D in a relevant niche, you're probably going to be headhunted and
well sought after. Where else does Wall Street or Google hire top machine
learning specialists?

Now a Ph.D in sociology on the other hand... where do you go from there?

~~~
NY_USA_Hacker
Sociology Ph.D.? The better sociology programs try hard to be mathematical, in
particular, good with non-parametic statistics, all of multivariate
statistics, and log-linear.

Also actually doing science in sociology is tough because have to be so
careful about problem formulation, controls, spurious correlations, sampling,
measures (reliability and validity).

So, for any solid quantitative work on marketing, ad targeting, public
relations, public opinion polling, social program design and evaluation,
organizational design and evaluation (i.e., high end HR) a good sociology
background is about the best.

As I recall, P&G knows this, but I don't know how many others know it!

------
ylem
I am a researcher who's fortunate enough to have found a permanent position at
a place that I love doing work that I enjoy. I've served on program committees
of conferences, organized workshops, etc. However, I must admit that some of
the OPs thoughts are correct.

There is definitely a problem with an oversupply of PhDs relative to the job
market for physics (and likely biology). For a position at say Berkeley for a
biology faculty position there used to be approx. 600 applicants per position.
For physics at first tier or second tier institutions the number may drop to
200. Even if we are cruel and suggest that half of those are unqualified, that
still leaves a large pool of extraordinarily qualified people competing for a
rather small pool of jobs. I see this regularly when there are young postdocs
with good publication records (Nature, PRL, etc.) who are having trouble
finding permanent positions after their postdocs. Part of this may be related
to decreased state funding and hiring freezes (in several states, there have
been furloughs). Even for postdocs who have decided that they would prefer to
work at an undergraduate institution and teach, the competition is fierce.
Oddly, even for those that want to teach at a public high school, it's hard
because of the education requirements (you can run a facility, teach freshmen
at an elite college--but teaching high school seniors....). Things are so
fierce that it's rather hard to have much selectivity about geography. This
can wreak havoc with relationships and in physics is known as the two body
problem--where a couple in science has difficulty finding positions in the
same zipcode. As one colleague told me, she'd be happy to just have the same
timezone....

For my subfield, industrial research positions have been gradually drying up
(at least for doing physics rather than engineering). A number of companies in
the past were able to use monopoly profits to drive research (think of AT&T
Bell Labs which is now but a shadow of it's former self--when I was there as
an intern, it was amazing....). However, many have scaled back. Thus, I have
seen a number of people pursuing various exit strategies.

During the internet boom (where I had decided to drop computer engineering as
a major because physics was more fun), a number of people who could code
dropped out an joined startups. Later, people from Ivy institutions joined
consulting firms such as McKinsey (with a "mini-MBA"). Later, a number joined
in the gold rush of financial engineering. While that continues, many go
through a brief masters first to get their foot in the door. A few turn to
more engineering related work. So, while the unemployment rate for physics
PhDs is low--not so many are actually still doing physics research.

For myself, I'll take on undergraduate and high school interns. No graduate
students. I really respect String Theorists who for years intentionally
limited the number of students they would accept due to the paucity of
permanent positions. For years, I'd been reluctant to take on a postdoc due to
the current situation. Now, I've taken on my first postdoc and will do my best
by him--but I have to be honest about the job market and I'm having him learn
some programming as a plan B. Plan C is that I'm very confident that he'll be
able to get a position in his home country afterwards.

I've seen some people who are bitter (think of the opportunity costs!) when
they leave. But, I've seen some who are mellow--"At least I got to work with
something beautiful for awhile....".Part of the difficulty is that for
scientists, you don't go into it for the money (at least I hope you don't!),
you go into it for love. So, doing science becomes not just a job, but rather
a calling and a way of life. So, someone's sense of self may often become tied
to being a scientist--and that's hard to leave behind...

So to summarize, while all fields of science are not cutthroat, given the
level of competition, it is very hard to find a job. Also, given the level,
then people have to work extremely hard and it takes a toll on people's
personal lives (it's hard to have one when average work weeks extend to 60-80
hrs for a number of experimentalists--my solution has been to sleep less, but
I'm told that's unhealthy...).

------
narkee
I've observed that success in an academic environment requires more than
simply scientific acumen. It also requires relentless self-promotion,
networking and a passion not only for science, but for winning the academic
game.

There are a lot of good science minded people, and there are a lot of good,
driven self-promoters. Most successful scientists you encounter (apart from
the odd genius) belong in the intersection between groups.

~~~
jeffdavis
Well, some amount of self-promotion is necessary for success almost anywhere.

Sure, if you come up with something miraculous, then it markets itself. But
otherwise you have to make sure that the right group of people knows about it
or your idea will just fade away.

------
argv_empty
I keep getting 503 on the site. Here's a coral cache:
[http://blog.devicerandom.org.nyud.net/2011/02/18/getting-
a-l...](http://blog.devicerandom.org.nyud.net/2011/02/18/getting-a-life/)

------
snippyhollow
It is a matter of finding balance: finding the right advisor, keeping some
time for your other life (your girlfriend, your friends) even if you will have
deadline rushes and think about your problem under the shower. This is a
common problem to all passionate people more than only "scientists". It just
seems that you find a lot of passionate scientist in academia.

This writing seems about right (except that I didn't experience that much bad
collaboration/competition though, even if I know it exists) to me, a second
year Ph.D student in AI applied to RTS games. I don't really like that you
have to work 24/7 to not be left behind, and I don't work that much indeed.
Life is too short to have yours dictated by the actions of others. If you want
to stop at 50hours/week while doing research, just try and make it so (focus
your topic and focus on your advantages). But I'm happy pursuing a Ph.D. I
don't have a fixed mindset/idea of what I would like to do next though: a
startup? Working at a big firm? Seeking tenure? All options will be
considered, but right now: I enjoy being paid (not much, particularly compared
to my Masters prom comrades) to work on interesting topics and sometimes teach
guys at the University about one of my passions (CS), with a great advisor (I
picked him socially great and scientifically sharp, the mid-low h-index and
the beard are byproducts), and so much intelligent people all around.

~~~
rflrob
> This is a common problem to all passionate people more than only
> "scientists". It just seems that you find a lot of passionate scientist in
> academia.

The reason you find a lot of passionate people in academia, I think, has a
large part to do with the PhD process. The monetary compensation isn't great
for highly skilled labor, so the only way you'll be able to get through 5+
years of it is if you think it's the most fun thing you can be doing (or at
least you think that for some large-ish fraction of the process).

------
beetmik
Just to put it in perspective, I'm sure it's a real curse to have to spend the
rest of your life doing something you purportedly absolutely love to do in a
hell-hole like Pisa, Italy. That said, my heart absolutely goes out to this
person who is apparently really depressed. Hope he can find his happiness in
life.

~~~
yummyfajitas
According to someone I know who got a job there, Pisa is a very boring town.
Some scenery plus a few tourist traps, low standard of living compared to the
US [1], very little to do. Sounds fun before you go, much less fun after
you've been there a few months.

[1] For hard numbers, I found this site, suggesting a professor in Italy has a
real income about 2/3 that of a US professor:
<http://www.worldsalaries.org/professor.shtml>

~~~
Panoramix
Pisa is a nice (but tiny) town, which will be boring if you are young and are
use to the big city life. That being said I don't agree that the standard of
living is low compared to the US; the standard of living really depends on
what you look for. For me the salary is a poor indicator of quality of life.
I'd rather earn less and have more holidays, live in a place with great food,
art & culture, slower rhythm of life, less pollution, health care, and nice
landscapes.

------
achompas
_There is a second option, which is bare survival._

What about the third option: get your PhD and work in industry? I keep coming
across statistics and CS PhDs who now work for Twitter, the New York Times,
and industry research labs (AT&T, Microsoft). Why isn't an industry job a
viable option?

~~~
timr
_"I keep coming across statistics and CS PhDs who now work for Twitter, the
New York Times, and industry research labs (AT &T, Microsoft). Why isn't an
industry job a viable option?"_

Because (speaking as one of those people), a PhD is total overkill for nearly
all industry jobs, and it costs a lot more to get one. It also probably works
against you in most parts of the tech industry, where there's a surprising
amount of blind opposition to anyone with a doctorate.

Finally, remember people with PhDs who work in industry have made a difficult,
conscious decision to abandon the academic life. It's _not_ the expected
outcome, and there's an intense cultural pressure not to leave the ivory
tower.

~~~
bd
_"It also probably works against you in most parts of the tech industry, where
there's a surprising amount of blind opposition to anyone with a doctorate."_

I didn't encounter any doctorate-opposition per se. I think it's more
opportunity cost issue.

Tech industry is quite meritocratic. Problem for many people with PhDs is that
this is the only thing they can show after many years spent hidden in
academia, working on esoteric things.

If you keep up your real world skills during graduate school, I believe nobody
is going to hold your degree against you.

At least that was my experience (and experience of my classmates from graduate
school).

We did a lot of nitty-gritty software engineering during graduate school
(ideas from our papers had to be implemented and integrated into bigger
projects, that's how funding pipeline worked).

Also it helps not to act smug about your degree - industry is full of very
smart people who didn't even go to university.

~~~
timr
Let's be clear: I'm not complaining, nor am I talking about _personal_
experiences of discrimination -- I don't know if my resume has ever been
circular-filed because of my degree. But since I left academia I have been
surprised by the number of people who have _explicitly_ told me that they
consider a PhD to be a black mark on a resume. I think a lot of people have
had one or two bad experiences interviewing/hiring PhDs, and they associate
the degree with the incompetence because it's so rare to interview someone
with a doctorate.

For what it's worth, I don't find the tech industry to be more or less
meritocratic than any other -- we certainly like to _pretend_ that our hiring
methods are hyper-objective, but I've seen lots of hiring decisions that just
boil down to opinion and intuition. Non-meritocratic things like pedigree and
'who you know' matter a lot, even amongst engineers.

~~~
bd
I meant no offense.

Fully agree with what you said - there is a lot of sampling bias because of
relative rarity of PhDs (few bad apples can completely color expectations).

It was quite a surprise for me when doing a summer program at major US
corporation and everybody was going gaga because our group had many PhDs.

In academia, everybody has doctorate, so degree in itself doesn't really
confer any additional signal.

In industry, people take it as a signal even when it is not (person matters
more than degree, the same person would be hireable / not-hireable whether
having or not having degree).

But anyways, you wouldn't want to work at places / for people which can't /
don't take such things into account.

That's why I mentioned meritocracy - it's nicer to work at places where it
matters only if you can get the job done, not your degree / pedigree / who-
you-know.

But yeah, human nature, hard to fight against, we all like signaling (it's
useful heuristics after all).

------
retube
WELCOME TO LIFE. I've worked in academia, industry and finance. It's all a
pyramid. Play the game or you'll be passed over.

~~~
defilade
Exactly. Those of you who think the world is fair or based on merit need to
read "Power: Why Some People Have It - And Others Don't" by Jeffrey Pfeffer.

The world isn't fair. This is true whether you're in academia or industry, and
accepting this fact isn't a bad thing, nor does it mean you've given in to the
dark side. As retube points out, if you don't play the game you're conceding
before you even start.

------
pbiggar
While I sympathize with the author, I don't think we can generalize from his
experience all that much. For a balancing anecdote, here's my life progression
to date:

    
    
      Bachelors: 22
      Start PhD: 24
      Meet girl: 25
      Get engaged: 27
      Submit thesis: 27
      s/girlfriend/wife/: 28
      Get 6 figure salary working for Mozilla: 28
      Am now: 29
    

Yes, everything turned out better than expected (though I omitted the bit
where I started and folded a company in there), and it could have gone
horribly wrong. But you just can't generalize about doing a PhD, or anything
really, from his anecdote, or from mine.

------
marknutter
When I graduated with my degree in physics, I was introduced to something
called Ruby on Rails, and instead of go on to grad school I pivoted into the
life of a web developer. Best thing that ever happened to me.

~~~
mhartl
I did go to physics grad school, but eventually I came around. :-)
<http://railstutorial.org/book#author>

------
ryanjmo
So, I often have to justify the time I spent getting a PhD in computer science
(Cryptography), because I have a start-up that programs Facebook Apps now a
days.

The only reason I can, is because I really didn't spend that much time
actually working during the whole period and spent a lot of time learning to
surf and play tennis well.

I really feel like I learned a lot of valuable lessons from learning to play
tennis and to surf. I'm really glad my PhD afforded me time and money to make
that possible.

------
PaulHoule
I had a similar painful revelation, as do 95% of people who get science PhD's.
Fortunately it happened when I was a postdoc, so at least I got my honorable
discharge.

------
josgraha
Here's a link to that article on The Economist that states there are too many
people doing too much of _everything_ and life is hard in general. Oh wait,
that doesn't exist yet perhaps because that's reality. It sounds like he has
spent so much time doing everything but what he _should_ be doing which is
looking for something he actually _enjoys_ doing. Not that the article wasn't
insightful or lucid or anything but this article struck me in he clearly
enjoys complaining about his work life than doing it so there's a problem. I
don't love my job but I enjoy doing it most of the time and I have great
hobbies, a great partner in life and am happier and fitter than I have ever
been. Perhaps he should try doing different things and see how that works out
as when you are doing something you don't have any expectations. Why would you
say "I love science, I just don't love doing it?". I love Formula One cars but
don't know anything about driving them but I love riding motorcycles, and
riding bikes. He needs to find the action verb that defines his work life and
not impose any expectations from a noun he associates with "love."

------
mdink
Isn't the real problem here that we rely on "academia" to be the "experts"? I
know a number of very accomplished and intelligent folks that did not pursue
PhD and have done phenomenally well in their own research. But sadly many, for
credibility's sake, had to advertise themselves as think tanks. Why can't we
just put the damn degrees down and listen to the person to judge their
competency??

~~~
16s
Self taught mathematicians used to be very common (100 years ago).

------
rubidium
Thankfully this guy figured it out when he was only 30. He's still got lots of
time to figure out new ways to use and market the skills he has acquired.

New thought: academia isn't broken, there are just too many people who want to
be academics. What do people think?

~~~
achompas
_New thought: academia isn't broken, there are just too many people who want
to be academics. What do people think?_

Not too much of a new thought, the recent Economist article [0] on academic
made a similar assertion.

[0] <http://www.economist.com/node/17723223?story_id=17723223>

~~~
mhartl
Indeed, the OP cites the very same article.

------
tjmaxal
This is a good outline of a problem, with absolutely no insights into any
possible solutions. As far as I'm concerned this is a half finished post. It's
not enough to simply complain/outline the problem. You have to use that
personal experience to offer up some kind of personal redemption or possible
global solution to really keep the conversation moving.

~~~
mkr-hn
You don't have to find solutions to point out a problem. He might be so fried
by the experience that he doesn't have the presence of mind to come up with
solutions.

It seems like the goal might have been to put academia on notice so _it_ could
determine whether or not it cares about the problem enough to solve it.

