
Computer Science PhD trends - gandalfgeek
http://blog.vivekhaldar.com/post/42007984829/computer-science-phd-trends
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michael_miller
It's always good to keep things in perspective. Many of my friends in the
liberal arts are doing PhDs with the same (or less) 7% tenure track position
rate. The difference is that they don't have the choice to go into industry
afterward. Our "worst case scenario" of going to work for Google for
$150k-$200k is a dream for most PhD candidates.

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galactus
I'm pretty sure working for google for 200K is NOT the worst case scenario for
a computer science PhD.

~~~
tjr
<http://philip.greenspun.com/humor/mcdonalds-joke>

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siculars
Hear, hear on point 3. The fact that our immigration policy is so screwed that
we actively disuade PhD candidates from staying here in the USA is an absolute
disgrace. Taking into account that in most cases those PhD candidates are
fully funded by taxpayer dollars, one might think policymakers are actively
taking money from foreign nations to maintain the status quo.

~~~
eshvk
I am not convinced it is incredibly hard for a tech PhD student who has done
quality research from a good school to stay in the U.S. There are two options
currently:

1\. EB-1: A visa given to an alien of extraordinary ability. The requirements
for this are complex but a person with a decent lawyer should be able to
navigate them provided the person has access to enough people in academia and
industry who vouch that this person is of extraordinary ability.

2\. EB-2: Employment sponsorship. Both academic institutions and industry have
a standard practice of sponsoring people who have done any form of grad.
school to a path that involves a green card.

Now, sure, 1) has overly bizarre documentation requirements (like for example
requiring that one print out every paper that one has written and send it to
USCIS) and 2) takes way too long for people born in India and China. This of
course requires reform in a fair manner that takes into account other
constraints like making sure that immigration doesn't become top heavy from
two nations.

The sequoia capital article talks about foreign born students getting ejected.
Do we have any quantitative data on how many of them are really being ejected?
( Acquiring a H1B visa to work in the United States is not hard. When, I (a
foreign born student) graduated and applied for an H1B visa, it took ten days
for it to get approved. ) Have there been surveys done on people who have
voluntarily left for personal reasons vs. people who left because of this
issue?

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seanmcdirmid
I have never known an international grad student, even if they do not finish
the program, to be forced back after. Actually, I don't know anyone that
actually did went back without getting a green card first.

~~~
eshvk
I know people from two groups:

1) People who have non C.S. degrees even from good schools. Once you have
finished your degree, you have three months to find a job. Some people don't
find a job within those three months and are forced to leave. Honestly, I am
not sure what the solution to that is? Stapling a green card on their
applications post graduation seems good to help an indefinite stay but what if
you can't find a job in 6 months? 9 months?

2) People who don't want to stay here. Their objective is to go back home.

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efnysien
As a Junior at University right now, this article speaks quite positively
about the benefits of doing a PhD.

1) Even if you get a PhD and aren't shining at your field (read gulped into
tenure track positions at a top 10 CS program) you're not confined to becoming
a professor at a state school. This is a legitimate fear, and one of the
things that has always made me frightened of pursuing a PhD.

2) Even if I end up outside of Academia, I'll likely bear little to no fiscal
loss. The work will most probably be more interesting than the work I'd be
doing had I not done a PhD. The job-ceiling will also be significantly higher,
or non-existant.

As a semi-related question - does anyone with a background in the area know if
it's easier to get accepted into a top-10 CS program having been born and
raised in the States? GPA, research experience and my school's 'ranking' is a
non-issue - I'm just curious if residency in the United States ever affects
PhD committees in regards to admission.

~~~
rm999
>this article speaks quite positively about the benefits of doing a PhD.

That's not at all what I got out of it. I read that phds provide no material
advantage and that they're really tough (in every way, including from a
psychological standpoint).

>you're not confined to becoming a professor at a state school. This is a
legitimate fear, and one of the things that has always made me frightened of
pursuing a PhD.

Confined? Most people don't have this choice. Fear? This a dream of a large %
of phd graduates. I'd add one thing that the article doesn't mention: graduate
school is far less of a meritocracy than people outside realize. There are so
many levels of luck involved, including finding a good advisor, department
politics, finding a good project, not having your research 'scooped', funding,
etc. These things are correlated with intelligence/ability, but a large number
of smart people fail grad school for reasons beyond their control, and a
significant % of the people who succeed were blessed with amazing luck. It's
the smart and accomplished undergrads (which I take it you are) who have the
most to lose.

>I'll likely bear little to no fiscal loss.

Consider the opportunity cost. Here are some reasonable numbers: a masters
costs 25K, a phd pays out 150K over six years, and in the five years of
working the masters makes 500K. By the time the phd is out of school the
masters student is 325K ahead of the phd student, and his work
experience/career is probably further (meaning his salary will probably be at
least as high). Also, the masters student lived more comfortably in those five
years.

> The work will most probably be more interesting than the work I'd be doing
> had I not done a PhD.

I have seen very few industry jobs that require a phd, and I work in a field
dominated by phds. The exception is industry research, which is great but
isn't open to most phds. Most phds don't be doing anything resembling their
research two years out of grad school.

I don't mean to make a phd sound totally crappy. There's a lot you can get out
of it, it teaches you how to think and organize projects in a way that's hard
to find outside grad school. You'll meet smart, motivated people. You'll be
able to interact with professors as almost-peers. But consider a research-
oriented masters, it's what I did and I consider it a happy medium.

~~~
javert
To give a counterpoint, as a current CS PhD student...

If you measure how much money someone will make in the next 10 years from the
point they decide whether to pursue a PhD or not, yes, you are correct, the
ones who do not pursue one will have lots more money.

However, you can live a middle class lifestyle while gettings a PhD (OK, maybe
"lower middle class" here, but still very comfortably, if you don't have
dependents to support) and also after getting a PhD, which is the same result
as if you didn't pursue the PhD.

To me, that is more relevant than a raw amount of money.

I care what class I'm in, i.e., (a) starving; (b) poor; (c) middle class; (d)
rich. I don't really care _within_ those categories.

As a sidenote, I think getting a PhD increases your likelihood of getting an
otherwise unlikely outcome in the sense of career success/advancement, getting
rich, etc. (unless you choose academia). I mean, over the course of your
career, you could really leverage your PhD, or you could not. In theory (and
probably in practice most of the time), it won't hurt to have one, career-
wise.

~~~
eshvk
> As a sidenote, I think getting a PhD increases your likelihood of getting an
> otherwise unlikely outcome in the sense of career success/advancement,
> getting rich, etc. (unless you choose academia). I mean, over the course of
> your career, you could really leverage your PhD, or you could not. In theory
> (and probably in practice most of the time), it won't hurt to have one,
> career-wise.

To give you another counterpoint, as a person who dropped out of a C.S. PhD
and went to industry. Sure, it won't hurt to get a PhD. Getting rich
unfortunately is only weakly correlated with technical ability beyond a
certain point. 1) You are not going to get rich purely as a salary (wo)man
unless you are lucky enough to be an early stage employee (which I don't see
how the PhD or otherwise helps you that much. ). 2) To found your own company
and leverage your PhD skills seems tempting but rarely if ever do PhD's have
research that can be converted into successful industry products. Boston
Dynamics is one of those rare examples. However, these opportunities are not
closed to off to people who while they may not have done research in the field
and know every other implication of certain strategies but have great contacts
and know how to get things done.

~~~
_dark_matter_
I'm currently an undergrad senior getting degrees in CS and Physics. I just
finished applying to CS PhD grad programs, but I've really been leaning
towards dropping out after completing my masters and going to work in
industry.

I'm just interested in your experience of doing just that. I've found very
little reference material on it, except some comments by professors and people
currently working in industry that people are courted by companies once they
finish their qualifying exams.

This may be off topic, but what's your experience with this? Were you courted
before you decided to leave? How far did you get? What affected your decision?
What was the salary difference? What do you do now? Was it worth it to even go
for a little?

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javert
I'm not the person you're asking this question of, but rather, the person who
faced the same decision and decided to stay in grad school.

I couldn't let my advisor down. After sticking with me for two years, I would
have felt horrible if I had left him after my masters. I did not _expect_ this
going in, and I planned to have "leaving after my masters" as a real option.

To be clear, I still would have left if I had had a good reason. Ultimately, I
wanted to stay. But if it had been borderline, I would have still stayed. And
"borderline" for grad school may very well be "I'm tired of killing myself
with overwork, I don't really feel like doing this shit for a few more years.
But I could just suck it up and keep going, since I'm already like half way
there." Grad school can be pretty crappy.

I definitely could have turned summer internships during grad school into
full-time work, though, and gotten a well-paying engineering job.

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willpearse
Points 2 and 3 make no reference to previous years' data, so aren't really
talking about trends. Point 1 ignores the (trend that they state) that there
are more post-doc positions.

Post-docs are safer jobs, because you know what will happen at the end of them
(you get kicked out and find another job). Fewer people going straight into
tenure-track means fewer people spending years at an institution, not getting
a job (because they lost the race) and starting elsewhere. Sounds very healthy
to me!

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phalina
What do the other 46% do?

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mmc
The source material is pretty accessible - mostly just tables of data:
[http://cra.org/uploads/documents/resources/taulbee/CRA_Taulb...](http://cra.org/uploads/documents/resources/taulbee/CRA_Taulbee_2011-2012_Results.pdf)

So 23.9% are in other parts of academic computer science, mostly Postdocs.
another 3.6% go to positions (unspecified) in other academic departments.

His 47% is "North American, Non-Academic, Industry". It doesn't break down
research vs. development jobs, which is probably smart.

Another interesting thing is that it's broken down (Table D4) by specialty -
so for instance, two PhDs in HCI left the US from the 2010-2011 class, and the
specialties with the highest percentage leaving the country after graduating
were "Information Systems" and "Networks".

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SagelyGuru
Darn, those aliens have so many PhDs, no wonder they fly them saucers so well.
UFO = Untyped+Functional+Objective

~~~
mailshanx
Hahahaha! That has to be one of the wittiest comments i've read on HN. Thanks
for making me laugh aloud!???

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rodolphoarruda
Does anyone know about similar content on Business PhD trends?

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dbecker
For econ PhDs, there is
[http://cber.uark.edu/2011-12_New_PhD_Labor_Market_Survey_Rep...](http://cber.uark.edu/2011-12_New_PhD_Labor_Market_Survey_Report.pdf)

