
Ask HN: How does one find a research avenue? (retry) - vuxel
Hi all. I am trying to collect more responses by reposting this, as HN is a community I&#x27;d really appreciate some advice from. Previous posts: [1][2][3].<p>I am considering getting into research, and I&#x27;m trying to figure out how one goes about finding a problem to solve.<p>Backstory:<p>I completed my bachelors in &#x27;16 with some significant side&#x2F;hobby projects (kernel&#x2F;systems) and I&#x27;m now working as an engineer at one of the Major Ones :&#x2F;. Although it pays well for now, I am slowly losing motivation and creativity and it is replacing my &#x27;engineering for the fun of it&#x27; mindset with &#x27;do what you&#x27;re told to&#x27;.<p>I&#x27;ll need to adapt heavily to be able to thrive in this environment as a generic software engineer. I&#x27;m not learning, I&#x27;m not specializing, and I start to realize that I want to put in concentrated effort and work towards something for myself. Hence the idea of pursuing research, or working for&#x2F;on a startup.<p>My reason for going into academia to pursue a PhD would be, to be able to focus X years of independent research towards an idea I think can turn into a product later. But that depends on the idea&#x2F;domain, the supervisors I work with and how success is measured (number of publications v&#x2F;s real-world outcome, which may have a gap). Of course if I can&#x27;t turn it into a product later, I have specialized and can come back to the industry.<p>With all of this^, my intent is to be working on something relevant, and for myself.<p>Please correct me if my perspective is horribly wrong : ).<p>Thanks.<p>[1] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=17024792
[2] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=17027601
[3] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=17033664
======
ColinWright
_I 've written this comment several times in several forms - it's not exactly
what I want to say, nor exactly how I want to say it, but having written it
yet again I'll now leave it here, FWIW._

========

I answered you at length in an earlier comment[0], but you never replied, so I
don't know what your reaction is to it. Let me be more blunt.

Getting a PhD requires doing research that will get you a PhD. If your
objective is to do research to start a company or business, that is almost
certainly different, and almost certainly has little or no overlap.

If your objective is to do research to start a company or business, doing a
PhD is almost certainly not the way to go about it.

How would you fund your PhD?

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17027828](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17027828)

~~~
vuxel
Hi

> I answered you at length in an earlier comment[0], but you never replied, so
> I don't know what your reaction is to it. Let me be more blunt.

Not responding to your comment earlier didn't mean I didn't consider your
input valid, I appreciate it a lot and needed a bit more time to form
thoughts. With the reposts I am simply trying to gather more opinions.

As my post, the objective is to turn the research into a product. I realize
that it's very probabilistic to find such a research idea, although there have
been companies that started this way out of a thesis. In my limited view,
going for a PhD would give the freedom to work on a _valuable_ problem (==
current industry relevant engineering issue) (a big probability factor-in
here) rather than blurting out startup ideas and seeing what sticks.

And hence my focus was, _how_ to look for a tentative problem, or how to even
start thinking in that direction.

I understand that a PhD is not the only way (or maybe not at all?). And
research is tough investment. But it seems like one way to create something...

