https://lemire.me/blog/2024/09/11/the-phd-paradox-a-journey-into-academias-upside-down-world/ Skip to content Daniel Lemire's blog Daniel Lemire is a computer science professor at the Data Science Laboratory of the Universite du Quebec (TELUQ) in Montreal. His research is focused on software performance. Menu and widgets * My home page * GitHub profile Support my work! I do not accept any advertisement. However, you can you can sponsor my open-source work on GitHub. Join over 12,500 email subscribers: [ ][Go!] You can follow this blog on telegram. You can find me on twitter as @lemire or on Mastodon. Search for: [ ] [Search] Recent Posts * The PhD Paradox: A Journey into Academia's Upside-Down World * Replace strings by views when you can * Compressing floating-point numbers quickly by converting them to brain floats * Parsing tiny and very large floating-point values: a programming-language comparison * Faster random integer generation with batching Recent Comments * Dr. Jochen L. Leidner, Professor of AI on The PhD Paradox: A Journey into Academia's Upside-Down World * Taras on A simple WebSocket benchmark in Python * Daniel Lemire on Computing the number of digits of an integer even faster * Daniel Lloyd on Computing the number of digits of an integer even faster * Daniel Lemire on Replace strings by views when you can Pages * A short history of technology * About me * Book recommendations * Cognitive biases * Interviews and talks * My bets * My favorite articles * My favorite quotes * My rules * Newsletter * Predictions * Privacy Policy * Recommended video games * Terms of use * Write good papers Archives Archives [Select Month ] Boring stuff * Log in * Entries feed * Comments feed * WordPress.org The PhD Paradox: A Journey into Academia's Upside-Down World Imagine a world where becoming a doctor isn't about years of rigorous study, but about showcasing your life's work. That's how doctorates used to roll. You'd write a book, make a groundbreaking discovery, and voila, a doctorate was yours. Fast forward to today, and we've flipped the script. Now, a PhD is less about what you've done and more about preparing you for a career in academia, often at a subsidized cost. Sounds great, right? Here's the catch: this system works like a charm as long as universities are expanding. But what happens when they hit the brakes? You guessed it - a PhD glut. With more PhDs than professorships, the job market turns into a gladiatorial arena where only the most politically savvy survive. This isn't just about competition; it's about who can navigate the labyrinthine politics of academia. Universities, with their pristine campuses and lofty ideals, market themselves as bastions of brilliance and nurturing. But peel back the curtain, and you might find a different story. Professors, often out of touch with the real world, teach subjects they've never truly experienced. Take entrepreneurship, for example. You'd think those teaching it would have started a business, right? Nope. Many haven't even stepped into a startup, let alone run one. Then there's the publishing game. Tenured professors, the supposed engines of new knowledge, might not even produce a paper a year when you account for co-authorships. And when they do publish, well, let's just say the quality can be...variable. Even at the pinnacle of academia, like Harvard, the standards can slip, as seen with its former president's less-than-stellar publication record. So why do we keep pushing our youth into this system? It's all about signaling. A degree, especially a PhD, is like a badge, a shiny sticker that says, "I'm educated." But here's the kicker - this badge might not make you more productive or happier. In fact, less time in school and more time in the real world could be the real recipe for success. Imagine if we recruited professors not just for their academic credentials but for their real-world achievements. People who've actually built things that work, could revolutionize how we teach software engineering or entrepreneurship. But we're not there yet. We're still caught in a system that values form over function, prestige over practicality. Our love affair with academia might be making us less productive and more miserable. Maybe it's time we rethought this whole PhD business, not as a rite of passage into an elite club, but as a tool for real-world impact. After all, isn't education supposed to prepare us for life, not just for more education? Daniel Lemire, "The PhD Paradox: A Journey into Academia's Upside-Down World," in Daniel Lemire's blog, September 11, 2024, https://lemire.me/blog/2024/09/11/ the-phd-paradox-a-journey-into-academias-upside-down-world/. Published by [2ca999] Daniel Lemire A computer science professor at the University of Quebec (TELUQ). View all posts by Daniel Lemire Posted on September 11, 2024Author Daniel LemireCategories 5 thoughts on "The PhD Paradox: A Journey into Academia's Upside-Down World" 1. [2aacaf] Fazal Majid says: September 11, 2024 at 10:36 pm I work at Meta and have plenty of Software Engineer colleagues with PhDs, often not in EE/CS or related fields, e.g. in Physics. A doctorate does not always relegate you to a life of penury in academia. What is clear is that graduate students are a cheap source of labor and cannon-fodder for interdepartmental turf wars, specially in the humanities, and the way university departments market graduate school is often nothing short of fraud. Reply 2. [134b8d] Josh Bleecher Snyder says: September 12, 2024 at 4:20 am Dropping out my PhD program was one of the best (and hardest) life choices I have made. Reply 1. [a905ab] Dr. Jochen L. Leidner, Professor of AI says: September 18, 2024 at 7:18 pm I respect that. I offer an alternative experience, though: completing my Ph.D. was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life (not the hardest, my second Master's degree was actually way more demanding), and the thesis defense was on of the most satisfying events. Working for three to five years in a row on the same thing is a stretch and requires self-discipline and internal motivation, you will need to learn what works for you, acquire a routine and stick to it. Hiring a Ph.D. means to get someone that has gone thrugh ups and downs and has shown perseverance in the face of adversity. There are people who teach things they don't know much about, but there are also professors that can outperform industry experts e.g. at designing systems and even writing code. There's a lot of variance in the caliber of people, but what rings true about the article is 1. the exploitation and 2. the fact that there is not a happy ending possible for everyone because of resource limitations; so one needs to be fiercely competitive, or brilliant or politically savvy (or all of that). Reply 3. [b26ec3] Juho Vepsalainen says: September 12, 2024 at 6:09 am What's your take on professors of practice (also known as clinical professor)? Do you think it's a worthy compromise? Reply 1. [2ca999] Daniel Lemire says: September 12, 2024 at 4:13 pm It is a very nice concept. Reply Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Comment * [ ] Name * [ ] Email * [ ] Website [ ] [ ] Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. [Post Comment] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] D[ ] You may subscribe to this blog by email. 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