[HN Gopher] Strong/Weak Reasons to Do a PhD in Computer Science
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Strong/Weak Reasons to Do a PhD in Computer Science
Author : ryscheng
Score : 21 points
Date : 2021-04-21 17:24 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (raymondcheng.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (raymondcheng.net)
| the_only_law wrote:
| > if I wanted to do a career change and start working in
| computational biology, would I do another PhD? Of course not! I
| would read papers, find good mentors and colleagues in the field,
| and start doing work in the space.
|
| I mean I'm sure that's all good and fine for the author who if I
| understand correctly already has academic accomplishments and
| connections to lean into with.
|
| But what if I or John Nobody wanted to work in computational
| biology? Am I supposed to just start reading and than reach out
| to randos working in the field and beg them to let me work
| for/with them?
| codingc wrote:
| Great post, Ray!
|
| I particularly like the mention that a CS PhD isn't about
| "novelty" or "freedom", and I've found this to be a common
| misconception that new CS PhD students make. Another common one I
| will bundle in there is "making an impact on the world"; I cringe
| when a new PhD student tells me they chose to do a PhD because
| they wanted to change the world. There are so many better
| ways....
| disqard wrote:
| This is a great point. There are many avenues where one can
| invest time+money to make a positive impact on the world, yet
| "doing a Ph.D" is unfairly held up on a pedestal, even though
| there is no hard science showing that grad school is a prudent
| way to attempt such an endeavor.
|
| Edit: adding examples of ways that are less sexy, yet way more
| likely to be measurably impactful (in a positive way)
|
| 1. Teach high school,
|
| 2. Volunteer at your local soup kitchen (do it for 2 years --
| less than half the time you'd spend in classes for quals),
|
| 3. Mentor an undergrad for a decade,
|
| etc.
| bruvbruv wrote:
| Guilty of weak reason #2. This post puts things into perspective.
| Thanks!
| disqard wrote:
| Thanks for writing and sharing this!
| [deleted]
| aseemk wrote:
| I'm biased here since I know Ray, but I thought this post was
| super informative & helpful! I love how short & sweet it is yet
| so chock full of meaningful points. Thanks Ray!
| ryscheng wrote:
| Thanks! If only I could teleport back in time and tell myself
| some things
| disqard wrote:
| Here's an interesting notion -- that a lot of wisdom is
| simply bound up in the integral over time of personal life
| experience.
|
| Thus, the _value_ of wisdom is individual, and non-
| transferrable -- it can neither be carried "backwards over
| time", nor handed over to another human via a "brain dump".
|
| The best one can hope for, is to distill personal lessons
| from our own experience (compute that integral), and invite
| others to sample it (no guarantees that it'll stick in any
| way, but their journey _might_ be similar, allowing them to
| compute their own integrals faster, by seeing our own).
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