[HN Gopher] Advice for Prospective PhD Students
___________________________________________________________________
Advice for Prospective PhD Students
Author : lairv
Score : 48 points
Date : 2023-10-09 13:06 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (gonzales.science)
(TXT) w3m dump (gonzales.science)
| light_hue_1 wrote:
| This is mediocre advice that largely won't work for the members
| of this community. For neuroscience, where there is relatively
| little competition, it's ok. For AI/ML, where the competition is
| crazy, it's bad advice.
|
| > Lastly - the dreaded Undergraduate Publication. Are you a co-
| author on a publication? Fantastic. It means you made a
| considerable contribution to a project which can only be done
| through a significant amount of dedication. Are you first author
| on a publication? Wow! Truly impressive and a rare feat for an
| undergraduate researcher. Do you not have any publications? Don't
| sweat it. I'm looking for people with a history of a strong work
| ethic, an innate curiosity, and an ability to think and dream
| big.
|
| Downplaying this, and cutely calling it the "dreaded" publication
| is the worst advice on this page by far. This is what gets you
| into good departments now. A publication as an undergrad can
| change your life. If you want to do a PhD, this is your goal as a
| student: publish a paper.
|
| The majority of new PhD students who get into good departments
| now have at least one publication. And what you did for that
| publication is what matters. Your supervisor(s) should include in
| their letter exactly what your contribution was.
|
| In our department the guiding philosophy for admitting PhD
| students mostly is: Are they already behaving like PhD students
| on the level of those we have in our department? A publication or
| more is a really good signal. The cleanest and strongest signal
| you can send.
|
| > There are two primary ways most undergraduates get research
| experience. One, a summer Research Experience for Undergraduates
| (REU). Two, working with a PI at your home institution for a few
| semesters. Neither is required for admission, but both are
| valuable for different reasons.
|
| I can hardly imagine a student getting in to our department with
| zero research experience at all aside from exceptional
| situations. These are definitely required.
|
| > First zoom meeting ... Generally, I'll try to keep this first
| meeting focused on you, your interests, your long-term goals, and
| whether my lab fits those interests and goals. Somewhat
| counterintuitively, I'll actually avoid going into depth about
| science. Of course, we will talk about my research program and
| open projects in my lab, but I really try and keep this first
| conversation focused on getting to know you (and letting you get
| to know me). I want to know how you got to be where you are
| today, how you made the decision to pursue a PhD, and where you
| see yourself going in the future.
|
| You must read the last few papers of the person who is calling
| you. You must be ready to talk about all of your work end to end,
| not just about what you did, but its limitations, what else you
| wanted to do, other approaches, etc.
| neuronerdgirl wrote:
| There is absolutely high competition in neuroscience PhD
| programs. I have no idea why you would think otherwise.
| fht wrote:
| > For neuroscience, where there is relatively little
| competition
|
| Insane take. Neuroscience is highly competitive. As someone in
| both fields, I would say it is only a little bit less
| competitive than AI/ML.
|
| I largely agree with the rest of your advice, but I would argue
| that having multiple extremely positive reference letters from
| different research experiences are worth more than some middle
| author publication.
| flashback2199 wrote:
| If you live in the US, have the ability to work in the US, and
| have a stem degree, the opportunity cost of a PhD is just way too
| high, many hundreds of thousands of dollars. Technically, one
| could do the PhD in the UK where PhD is 3 years, to minimize that
| opportunity cost, but not by much.
| scoobitydoobap wrote:
| Yes, unless that PhD puts you on an earnings track where you
| can quickly make up for a few lost years of wages and saving.
| Otherwise, the compounding effect of having missed investing a
| few hundred thousand dollars _at a young age_ is substantial.
| michaelrpeskin wrote:
| Yes, this is a hard calculation to make.
|
| A couple of years ago I would also have said that a PhD is
| not worth the opportunity cost. I look back to the the time
| when my wife and I were both fresh out of college and in our
| PhD programs. We lived _very_ frugally. After housing, food
| (all cooked ourselves, no take-out or eat-out),
| transportation (had to live outside of the city), we had
| maybe $100-$200 left over each month (in 2000-2004 dollars).
| We had no money to set aside for retirement or investments.
| We did take out interest free student loans and put them in a
| CD and paid them back immediately after we graduated, so that
| helped provide a little investment income. We worked hard to
| scrape by on a poverty-level stipend without going into debt.
|
| Shortly after we got real jobs, I looked at our friends who
| went to industry right after college and they were
| significantly better off, and continued to be better for a
| quite a while (that whole compounding rewards things).
|
| However, now that I'm senior in my position (real senior, not
| SV senior label), I have much more stability in my job than
| my non-PhD friends have. The PhD is pretty valuable for the
| work I do, and that keeps me as the lead on most of our
| contracts.
|
| I can't say if I would be better of right now if I went to
| industry right away and started making money and savings, or
| if the stability has put me in a better place.
|
| I don't have the massive income as an SV tech job, but I have
| also never been cut at a layoff, so I don't have to worry
| about the variability in income.
|
| As an aside, I will say that a PhD is non-trivial and you
| should probably only consider it if you _love_ the field. If
| you're just using it to buy yourself some time or to live off
| the stipend because you can't find work, you probably won't
| have a fun time.
| BeetleB wrote:
| First off: SW is an outlier. The opportunity cost is a lot
| lower in most other STEM fields. And for a few, the net
| wealth is actually more with a PhD (see what jobs you can get
| with just a biology/chemistry undergrad, for example).
|
| It is problematic to view it purely from the perspective of
| money. Consider the huge _non-financial_ opportunity cost to
| not doing a PhD. If you get a PhD, you still have a chance of
| founding a business and becoming a multimillionaire. If you
| don 't do a PhD, you'll almost certainly not get the benefits
| of the PhD ever.
|
| I look at my friends who went straight to industry after
| their undergrad, and compare with myself and those who did a
| PhD, and there's a notable difference. If your advisor is not
| a slave driver[1], you'll have more time to introspect and be
| exposed to many perspectives/disciplines, at high
| concentration, than you have time for with a full time job.
| You _can_ do it after work, but only if you opt not to have a
| life. It will takes perhaps 10 years of consuming all your
| non work time to perhaps match up 5 years of grad school.
| Pretty much no one goes this route.
|
| Put another way: If your son discovered he had more earning
| potential if he never completed high school, would you say
| "Go for it!"?
|
| [1] And contrary to what you read on HN, many are not.
| bachmeier wrote:
| You should not get a PhD for the money. That's always been the
| case. It's a research degree. If it will open doors for the
| type of work you want to do, that's the only time it's worth
| it.
|
| Traditionally, the reason to get a PhD was that it was the only
| way to get an academic job. In 2023, I don't recommend academic
| employment. Sadly, it's just another type of employment today.
| I started my first academic job in 2002 and things were
| different back then.
| [deleted]
| flashback2199 wrote:
| It's not a 0 dollar difference, that would be doing something
| not for money, but a huge negative difference is doing
| something for _negative_ money. Bad idea IMHO. Life isn 't a
| video game; you only get one play thru.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| Somebody has to do it. We wouldn't have the civilization we
| have if we had no scientists. Similarly, we need teachers,
| caretakers, stay at home parents, and somebody has to
| repair the phone lines and pave the roads. If every person
| on the planet simply pursued the maximum pay career
| available to them, we wouldn't have much of a society at
| all.
|
| You should certainly be aware of the financial sacrifice
| you're making to do socially impactful work and consider
| this in the decision calculus, but I don't think you can
| say zero people should ever make that decision.
| nsagent wrote:
| > Non-academic jobs and experience - should I include it?
|
| > I am a huge supporter of two things not related to research and
| education: having a job while an undergraduate or showing a
| substantial dedication to an organization.
|
| Sadly, this is a very ageist perspective, that I think is very
| common in academia. This advice is specifically geared towards
| undergrads who are applying to PhD programs without stating so.
| It's fine to tailor your advice to certain audiences (in fact the
| post says it's the author's perspective), but at least state who
| the intended audience is. I think the reason this ageist
| persepctive is common in academia is two-fold:
|
| 1) Many academics came straight from undergrad (or maybe had a
| one/two year gap), so they reflect their personal background as
| indicative of the path others will take to academia. 2) Older
| students typically have significantly higher self-esteem and
| understand their worth. They've potentially achieved success
| outside of academia where their talents were appreciated. It's
| much harder to steer such students to eschew their self-worth.
|
| I speak from personal experience here. I started my PhD program
| at 35 after a successful industry career where I was unhappy with
| the type of work I was doing. I realized after a terrible
| interview experience at OpenAI that a PhD was the only way to
| pursue my interests in the burgeoning AI/ML/NLP field. Luckily, I
| made it into a pretty good PhD program that I'm happy with. I now
| conduct research melding LLMs with video games an interest I've
| held since the 90s playing CRPGs (back then I didn't have a
| specific technology in mind, just the idea of an "AI narrator").
|
| If I had to give advice to PhD students, it's to know your worth.
| The fact that you made it into a PhD program is not a fluke.
| Imposter syndrome is rampant and many advisors take advantage of
| this, either explicitly or implicitly without realizing it.
|
| I came from the video game industry, so I knew crunch times, but
| my first year as a PhD student was exceedingly brutal. To get my
| first paper out, I spent three weeks working 100 hours a week. I
| walked out of the lab the day before the paper deadline and
| nearly quite my PhD program. I just thought nothing is worth this
| stress.
|
| If my wife didn't take care of everything else during that time,
| I couldn't have done it. During that exact same time, I was
| taking classes. I had a three week project that coincided with my
| paper deadline. I didn't start the class project until the day
| after it was due (you lost 10% of your grade per day late).
| Having industry experience helped tremendously here: I was
| already quite familiar with distributed systems having been the
| lead engineer on a (never released) MMORTS.
|
| Don't do this to yourself. It's not worth it. At least in CS,
| deadlines for conferences are pretty arbitrary. Good research
| doesn't fit into fixed timelines.
|
| As an aside, I don't blame my advisor for my stressful first
| year. He became a professor the same year I started my PhD. He
| didn't know any better and just assumed I was managing my time
| well while getting my work done. We had a good talk after the
| deadline and he's been absolutely great since. That's why I say,
| sometimes it might happen out of pure ignorance of the system. No
| one teaches you how to be a good advisor while you're getting a
| PhD. You're assumed to learn that once you become a professor.
|
| Though there are those who DO take advantange knowingly. There's
| a professor in our department who is an absolute nightmare and
| for each candidate weekend when new prospective students are
| deciding on programs, all the current CS PhD students actively
| warn them away from working with this individual. They quite
| literally work people to the brink of death at times, where
| people have been hospitalized for exhaustion, and the professor
| even contacted them to do work while they were in the hospital!
| Though, considering the one suicide in their lab, it's debatable
| if "brink of death" goes far enough.
| bachmeier wrote:
| As someone that runs a PhD program in economics, I'd like to see
| "in a grant field" added to the title. It's completely different
| in fields with limited grants (those that hire TAs rather than
| GAs). One of the things I wasn't expecting when I started this
| position is the number of students that use advice from the
| sciences/engineering as if it applies to all fields. (And a lot
| of my email time is spent fixing those incorrect beliefs.)
|
| > Most PhD programs in science and engineering will come with
| free tuition, a stipend, and health insurance.
|
| Don't go if it doesn't come with funding. There should be a
| tuition waiver (not always a full waiver, I didn't get one),
| but...
|
| > fees typically aren't. This can still be a significant amount
| of money each semester
|
| This really is ridiculous. They can be in the thousands of
| dollars. Make sure you subtract fees from the stipend. You might
| need to pay taxes on the full stipend, but not be able to deduct
| the cost of fees (I don't know current law).
|
| > Again, program stipends will vary widely. Some may offer a
| stipend, but not guarantee it past 1-2 yrs.
|
| This is a concern if you're funded by a grant. I know lots of
| programs that don't guarantee five years of stipend, because they
| aren't allowed, but in practice they'll do everything they can to
| keep funding you if you're making progress. That's because
| completed PhD's is a big deal when evaluating the research status
| of universities.
|
| > health insurance. Most programs will offer graduate student
| health insurance. But, as with stipends, the monthly premiums and
| quality of insurance can vary widely.
|
| If you can get insurance through your parents, you almost always
| want to go that route. I was surprised when I saw how much this
| varies from school to school. My employer covers 75% of the cost
| (one of the highest I've seen) but it still costs the student
| $700/year. As with fees, subtract the cost of health insurance
| from the stipend, but only after you determine the quality is
| sufficient for your needs.
| digging wrote:
| Since it seems just about everybody who's been in or around a PhD
| program agrees it's a miserable institution with low chances of
| satisfaction, I will continue to follow the advice that it is not
| for me.
|
| However, are there alternative paths to a research career? I
| really enjoyed being in an academic environment in undergrad and
| dream of working on AI/ML research in some capacity, but I'm a
| total outsider.
| nolamark wrote:
| for yourself, write down in great detail what your dream is.
| What do you imagine yourself doing day-to-day? What experiences
| did you really enjoy?
|
| Identify (via posting here, linkedin, discord) some people that
| have the sort of job you imagine and have a dialog with them.
| (if they are actively posting, they likely have the time to
| converse with you)
|
| If your exerpience is anything like mine, you may find the
| activities you enjoy are a small part of the researchers jobs,
| which in many cases is a grant writing machine.
| chriskanan wrote:
| Getting a PhD is hard, and it certainly does take a mental
| toll. Students are trying to push up against the boundaries of
| human knowledge to expand humanity's knowledge. That isn't
| easy, and because we train them to be independent researchers,
| much of that time is spent working on solo projects with their
| mentor supervising.
|
| That said, once one has a PhD, it really opens up many exciting
| careers that are otherwise not attainable. If one wants to be a
| scientist and do research, you almost certainly need a PhD. It
| also gives you so much more autonomy in terms of the projects
| you work on rather than just being a coder working on someone
| else's projects. I only have one life, and we spend much of our
| lives working. I'd rather have the ability to control what I
| work on and wake up excited to get to work every day.
| toomim wrote:
| There are some independent research organizations out there now
| that one could condider, like invisible college, astera, and
| arcadia.
| Beldin wrote:
| > _it seems just about everybody who 's been in or around a PhD
| program agrees it's a miserable institution_
|
| I disagree, quite strongly in fact. But my experience is not
| with US PhD programs, which is what discussions here often
| center upon.
|
| As for working on research outside of pursuing a PhD: one
| option is to become a scientific programmer. Typically, you'd
| work on helping to execute the research, without the pressures
| of having to publish.
|
| Of course, your "clients" do have that pressure, but your job
| typically is to Make It Happen, explain why it can't, and find
| crafty workarounds to Make It Sorta Happen Anyway.
| digging wrote:
| > I disagree, quite strongly in fact. But my experience is
| not with US PhD programs, which is what discussions here
| often center upon.
|
| Indeed, that is my sole reference point. If I ever leave the
| US, maybe that will be a better opportunity!
|
| > one option is to become a scientific programmer
|
| I'll look into this. Thanks!
| ipnon wrote:
| Does it ever make sense to do graduate school just to get by? If
| you're desperate for work, does the stipend ever cover the cost
| of living, at least enough to spend all your time in the library?
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| Just come to Norway. As a PhD student you're actually a full
| time "federal" employee with pension benefits, you're entitled
| to sick leave, parental leave, etc. You have 5 weeks of paid
| holidays per year. Your starting salary is $49k per year, which
| is decent - about the same level as a nurse or a teacher.
|
| To be clear: if you're a woman who move here with your partner
| for a PhD, and you get pregnant during your PhD, you will be
| entitled to 9 months of fully paid maternity leave, plus your
| planned dissertation date will get postponed by 9 months, no
| questions asked. You can even do this twice if you're
| "efficient". Kindergarten is quite cheap at around $320 per
| month. As a man, I had one kid before starting my PhD and the
| second about halfway through, then I got 10 days leave just
| after the birth, and 3 months leave from our daughter was 9 to
| 12 months.
|
| There are several bona fide unions you can join as a PhD
| student, you have a relatively well functioning HR system that
| will help quite a bit against toxic PIs. You will have annual
| "evaluation talks" with a professor other than your supervisor,
| where you can voice any concerns you might have. The PhD
| programme duration is 3 years, maybe some people do an
| additional few months, but I've never heard of someone doing
| more than 4.
|
| It's still hard work though, there is supposed to be blood,
| sweat and tears. But it should be because sciencce is hard, not
| because you are living in poverty or because you have to
| postpone starting a family until you are in your fourties.
|
| For some reason we get a lot of candidates applying from Europe
| and Asia, but almost nobody from North America, and I don't see
| why.
| ipnon wrote:
| Thanks for this response. It sounds like such a good deal I
| am checking out the Norwegian universities now.
| n4r9 wrote:
| Back in 2010, studying for a PhD in the UK meant I got an EPSRC
| stipend of PS13500 per year. I was fortunate to find rooms to
| rent in houses with other grad students for around PS350-400
| per month. I didn't go out much, cooked my own food, commuted
| by bike, and made use of free or low cost uni services like gym
| and therapy. On some weekends I drove ~100 miles to visit my
| girlfriend, but I was a pretty lousy partner at the time and
| didn't do that as much as I wish I had. Also petrol was a fair
| bit cheaper back then. The only time I remember coming close to
| worrying was when my stipend cheque got put in the wrong place
| and I didn't get it for a few weeks.
| BeetleB wrote:
| I'm seeing a lot of answers in the negative, so I'll give my
| experience:
|
| Find a relatively low cost of living area. The good news is
| that there are several top universities in such places (e.g.
| Midwest).
|
| Find out the pay you'll get.
|
| Find out the fees you'll pay.
|
| Now you know how much you'll make. Check rents in the area, and
| then decide.
|
| For me, (2003-2010), as a single person, the pay was more than
| sufficient to get by. I could afford a single bedroom
| apartment, got a good used car, and drove across the country
| (staying at motels, not camping) twice. I bought a DSLR, and
| had a very nice PC that lasted me all those years. Would eat
| out from time to time.
|
| It wasn't much, but it was all I needed, and a bit more.
|
| The main difference between then and now is that cars have
| gotten a lot more expensive. Rents may have gone up, but
| perhaps not as much (i.e. pay may have gone up enough to
| compensate).
| iwonthecase wrote:
| As always, "it depends" but it's very possible if you go with
| the understanding that you're going to live like a poor college
| student for the next half decade and don't want or need your
| expenses to go up like your peers that go into industry.
|
| You also have to take into account that you're going to be
| working more hours than a traditional job and that you're going
| to be stuck there for half a decade, but also you get something
| out of it at the end which you won't get just working some
| other low pay job.
| soupfordummies wrote:
| I don't see how it even covers people's rent. My partner's
| worked out to less than minimum wage.
| B0DYSPLAY wrote:
| >Does it ever make sense to do graduate school just to get by?
|
| most people who do them are coerced -- i made about as much as
| my pizza delivery driver. i attempted it because it seemed a
| way to become financially independent. instead, when i tried to
| leave with a masters i was forced to eventually return to my
| homeland and be subjected to the same things that drove me from
| it.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Maybe try to teach at a community college or something like
| that instead? Or bag groceries.
| Beldin wrote:
| Starting salary for Dutch PhD students is roughly median
| national income. So: yes, easily.
|
| Basically, it's a job at MSc. level and you're paid (somewhat)
| close to market rate for that.
| currymj wrote:
| rarely sufficiently covers the cost of living, though yes in
| some cases (e.g. if you get the top end of the stipend range
| from a rich university that also happens to be in a low-cost-
| of-living area).
|
| terrible idea for someone who just wants to work (if you can
| get into a good grad school you can find some job that pays
| better and has better working conditions); conceivably not a
| terrible idea for someone with specific career goals who is
| trying to ride out some specific industry downturn.
| synergy20 wrote:
| I stopped reading the original post and the comments here as my
| brain stuck at PI, what the heck is that? Not all the readers are
| PhDs and PI is 3.14 or Raspberry to me these days.
| the_snooze wrote:
| Principal investigator. i.e., the person in contractually in
| charge of a research effort, often used as a shorthand for a
| supervising professor who heads up a lab and advises PhD
| students.
| dmitris wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal_investigator
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| I feel like this article is missing a gigantic point: your PI is
| everything as a PhD student, if you have a PI who's a shitty
| person (sometimes even unknowingly), you are going to be in hell
| for four to seven years. Don't pick your PI just based on <<they
| seem to be at the forefront of research on this field >>, also
| check how they treat their students. This is not like a normal
| job where you can easily quit, you're likely going to be stuck
| with your PI, so they better be good.
| orochimaaru wrote:
| From my experience
|
| 1. Don't opt for a phd just because it sounds cool (remember
| the first tweet shared in that article).
|
| 2. Academia is a pretty hard space if you can't get your own
| funding or if you don't like hustling for it. Getting tenure
| track jobs without having funding attached is impossible.
|
| 3. Very few jobs in industry need a PhD. Most are ok with a
| masters. Those that require a PhD can be selective based on
| where you graduate from and what your publication record is.
|
| 4. Know your PI well and reach out to his/her previous students
| who have already graduated. Some may reply - especially those
| with a bad experience.
|
| 5. Back to point #1, don't take up the PhD just because you get
| the assistance and stipend. Make sure you really like your
| subject - it's the only thing you're doing for the next 4-12
| years depending on your discipline while subsisting on poverty
| level stipends
| nyssos wrote:
| > Very few jobs in industry need a PhD. Most are ok with a
| masters.
|
| This varies dramatically by field.
| orochimaaru wrote:
| What industry has a heavy concentration of PhD except
| academia?
| lightspot21 wrote:
| IC design for behemoths like Intel/AMD/Nvidia. AFAIK none
| of those is gonna let you anywhere near their
| multibillion-dollar design without being at the top of
| the field or having lots of experience (>5yrs) already
| pc86 wrote:
| Is 5 years really the bar for "lots of experience?" I
| feel like this is a byproduct of current (last 10 years
| or so) frontend/bootcamp dev mentality that you're a
| senior engineer after a 6-week course and 2-3 years of
| experience at a consulting body shop.
|
| Even if you get a PhD your working career is going to be
| around 35 years. Add 5-10 if you're done after college,
| and even more if you're not doing college.
|
| I think we need to stop pretending people are senior when
| they're 10-15% of the way through their career.
| [deleted]
| pc86 wrote:
| Not the GP and I agree with your broader point that a
| master's is sufficient approximately 99% of the time, but
| a few places come to mind: SpaceX, NASA, CERN (is that
| technically non-academic? I don't truly know), probably
| certain departments of US Dept. of Energy, things around
| nuclear power.
|
| They probably don't have high concentrations absolutely
| (e.g. they're not going to be 90%+ PhDs) but it's
| probably still several orders of magnitude above your
| average industry role.
| patrick451 wrote:
| Robotics is one such field. I work with tons of PhDs, and
| self driving car companies hire them like crazy. In
| certain organizations, you need a PhD to advance as an
| Applied Scientist. A masters won't cut it.
| orochimaaru wrote:
| But that's my entire point. Taking your example, the bulk
| of robotics companies aren't all applied scientists (for
| that matter in spacex, nasa, etc.). You will have a very
| small cohort that does the r&d and the rest of the folks
| executing on that.
|
| The r&d space is really interesting but very selective
| for obvious reasons. Just a PhD won't get you in. You
| will need significant other contributions - eg the right
| publications in high impact journals, possibly internship
| with the companies themselves, the right advisor/PI that
| collaborates with the company, etc.
| Nevermark wrote:
| Any job that is highly research oriented is going to
| appreciate a Ph.D.
|
| Whether it becomes a practical requirement, or formal
| requirement, would depend. If it's a high paid position,
| in a small research group, of an established field, then
| Ph.D.s are likely to be very important.
|
| If its a position in a large research group in a new and
| fast changing field, then its likely to be more open to
| anyone with unusual or interesting promise, but still
| highly value Ph.D's.
|
| As for fields: research in engineering, finance,
| economics, device physics, chemistry, biology,
| pharmaceuticals, etc. Anywhere the research involves
| highly technical knowledge, and a pre-existing track
| record of original thinking, personal initiative, that
| have produced objective results, are very important.
|
| "Research" is a thought and project management
| meta/leadership skill, on top of being highly educated
| and talented in an area. Ph.D.'s provide the extra time
| and social context to fill out those skills and
| demonstrate a track record.
| toomim wrote:
| That's true in biology, chemistry, and physical sciences,
| but less true in computer science.
| Nevermark wrote:
| In any of those fields, and computers science, there is a
| spectrum.
|
| Deep research areas in computer science would be
| foundations of databases, cryptography, formal
| verification, statistical heuristics, core algorithms
| behind deep learning, ...
|
| Since so many areas in computer science are relatively
| new, there is generally more flexibility in who might be
| considered great at research. The field includes many
| unusually creative individual practitioners who have
| produced great work without a Ph.D.
|
| But Ph.D.s are still very much in demand and common for
| research positions in these highly technical, high value
| areas.
| chriskanan wrote:
| Far too few incoming students value this, even if explicitly
| told. They will go to the lab of the most famous professor at
| the highest rank university, even if that PI is not a great
| mentor. Not all PIs are intentionally aiming to make their
| student's lives hell, but many inadvertently do by providing
| insufficient mentorship, which results in students suffering
| huge amounts of anguish because they are struggling to excel
| and know it.
|
| If a PI isn't meeting with each PhD student for at least 30-60
| minutes per week, especially in the first few years, they are
| probably not doing a great job.
|
| I always encourage students to email the current and former
| students of the professors they want to work with once admitted
| to see if they can have a video chat to discuss what it is like
| working in the lab. Even then, it can be hard to get frank
| feedback.
| soupfordummies wrote:
| I think the entire grad school "industry" really needs a "Me
| Too" moment. Abuse and exploitation are the norm it feels like
| :(
| stefanpie wrote:
| This is my advise to people who ask me for advise when applying
| to PhD / graduate school for research. The advisor is probably
| the only other main factor besides finances and any other
| personal constraints. If you have a great advisor all around
| (not just the best researcher in their field, as in they also
| know how to mentor, teacher, network, and help you reach your
| goals), they will know how to navigate your different research
| interests and goals of your PhD and get you to where you want
| to go.
| [deleted]
| the_snooze wrote:
| This 120%. Your day-to-day, your mental health, and your
| research success are largely a function of your lab's culture,
| and it's the PI who sets that culture. And the unfortunate
| reality is that PIs really don't get any formal training on
| culture-setting and people management, so there are some really
| successful folks out there who suck at running their groups.
|
| The way you tilt the odds in your favor for getting a good PI-
| student match is to be embedded in the field. If you're an
| undergrad, getting involved in research is a great low-risk way
| to do this. People in research have reputations in their field,
| and people in the know will direct promising students away from
| labs with bad cultures.
| etrautmann wrote:
| Yes - this is unfortunately everything. There are a number of
| categories to optimize (research area, lab size, funding,
| university, other lab members, etc) but the biggest factor is
| your relationship with your PI. I cannot imagine working as a
| PhD student in a lab where I don't deeply respect and get along
| with the PI. I was _very_ lucky but selected for this when
| choosing PhD labs. A surefire way to have a terrible few years
| is to ignore others advice about PIs to avoid.
| prosqlinjector wrote:
| I chose mine because he was a reasonably guy to work with and
| talk to. What I did not know at the time was that he was very
| junior in the department and needed to please other
| professors. So even though I liked working with him, I was
| quite helpless at certain difficult parts of the process.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Disclaimer: Did not read the whole thing.
|
| The one advice I often do not see is: While there may be enough
| jobs for PhDs out there, there are very few that _you_ will want
| to do.
|
| People get a PhD because they are passionate about the field and
| want to do research. Not just any research but research on a few
| topics. Most jobs for PhDs will not let you do the research that
| you would like to do. It will be totally on you to target those
| few jobs that will. You have to work towards it throughout the
| program. Actively network at conferences, and get key people to
| know you. Position yourself for those jobs. Merely doing good
| research and publishing papers may not be enough.
|
| Anyone who sticks to it can get a PhD. But no one feels sorry for
| a PhD grad who can't get a job. It's expected that if you're
| smart enough to get one, you're smart enough to figure out the
| job situation.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| I would just flat out advise against it. Don't set your life up
| for a dice roll on which PI you get. It can be good. It can be
| bad. But it's not a wise gamble for any aspect of life quality
| that I think is particularly wise to orient towards.
| jpm_sd wrote:
| Yep, I was half-expecting this to be a single-word post:
| "Don't."
|
| (I worked as a research engineer at a big name university for 8
| years, helping people do experiments for their PhDs, and I have
| Seen Some Shit.)
| bee_rider wrote:
| I'd instead say:
|
| * talk to your PI beforehand obviously, so you can see if they
| are a jerk
|
| * keep an eye on the failure mode. Check if you are making real
| progress after a year or two. If not, mastering out in a STEM
| field a totally legit path that will still leave you with a
| perfectly decent career potential. Some places will even let
| you do a thesis with your masters if you for some reason love
| writing giant LaTeX documents.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| (1) is hard. Very hard. Plenty of people are nice but
| psychotic.
|
| (2) is mixed. There's a lot of science that doesn't care
| about masters at all. And for many people it is extremely
| soul sucking to master out.
| etrautmann wrote:
| progress can be extremely nonlinear - my year or two progress
| check would have yielded little, but ultimately I was in
| great shape when graduating my PhD program. Your advice isn't
| bad, but it's helpful to understand that the foundation can
| take a while to lay and then progress can accelerate rapidly
| towards the end.
| chriskanan wrote:
| This is definitely true. I've had some students who ramped
| up quickly in the first year or two, but some of my best
| students didn't ramp up until year 3 and had no output
| before then. It was very stressful for them, though, since
| students are prone to comparing themselves to the very
| best.
| testcrash12345 wrote:
| Having seen what my partner has been through in her PhD in
| generics in the UK. I can certainly advice against doing it.
|
| PhDs are not worth the stress your will be through. You are
| barely paid to get by. PhD students are exploited left and right.
|
| The whole concept is not suitable for what's life in 2023. If you
| have a toxic colleague at a workspace you can do something about
| it, change team, change your manager, change workspace.
|
| If you have a toxic colleague or supervisor it's done, your will
| be miserable for 4 years. Then if you need extension suddenly
| fees will pop up.
|
| It's not worth it.
| jakeinspace wrote:
| They are worth it if you're trying to emigrate out of a bad
| situation. My partner is in a lab with an awful PI, but she is
| Lebanese, and wanted to be able to bring herself and her family
| out of a very unstable situation.
| BeetleB wrote:
| I'm seeing way too many comments about not being able to change
| the relationship.
|
| I was in a top school. I saw plenty of students change advisors
| and do fine. You have to be a bit careful - your former advisor
| shouldn't be in your thesis committee, and some advisors are
| unwilling to take you if they think it will cause bad blood
| between him and the original advisor. But it definitely was
| done. Over and over again.
|
| Of course, it helps if the department is big (mine had about
| 100 professors).
| joewferrara wrote:
| Best advice for quality of life for a PhD student living off the
| PhD stipend - live in a low cost of living area. In math (what I
| got a PhD in), you get paid the same amount (about $20,000 a year
| when I started in 2013) if you live the SF Bay Area (sat going to
| UC Berkeley) as you do if you live in Tucson, Arizona (say going
| to University of Arizona). There are good universities in low
| cost of living areas that prospective PhD students should heavily
| consider - at least I wish I did.
| InSteady wrote:
| _Almost_ completely unrelated to the article, but I figure a few
| of you prospective PhD candidates could use a mental break
| anyway, so here goes.
|
| Had a nice Baader-Meinhof moment from the article. I have been
| obsessed with music from a young age, not just the output but
| also the creative and technical processes that come together to
| make it, yet despite reading and watching a lot about my favorite
| bands, the creative process, the music industry over the years
| I've never internalized his name (although I've doubtless
| encountered references to him many times).
|
| I stumbled onto a documentary about Rubin and his studio Shangri-
| La last night and found it immediately captivating, musing to
| myself, "Wow, what a cool and weird dude. How have I never picked
| up on his influence before?" After the doc finished I enjoyed a
| nice session of creative thinking inspired by some things he and
| David Lynch were talking about. Cool, I've got a new person on my
| radar to seek out their words and wisdom when the mood or need
| arises. Then in the opening paragraphs of the first link I click
| this morning, on HN in a piece written for PhD candidates of all
| places, here is his name. Kind of wild.
|
| The song "Hurt" by Johnnie Cash [0] is a long-time favorite. It's
| one the greatest rock and roll covers ever, in no small part for
| how transformative and emotionally powerful the reinterpretation
| is, second only to "Take It to the Limit" by Etta James [1] imo.
| I just learned from that interview it was Rubin who brought
| Reznor's song to Johnny, saying "this is you, this is the man in
| black." It's funny, I have sometimes wondered about Johnny
| listening to Nine Inch Nails, finding it weird. But this is
| somehow even crazier, that Rubin could hear that first song and
| somehow connect it to Cash, knowing he might be able to turn it
| into something so powerful and personal.
|
| I feel like anyone who has a fair degree of creativity in their
| pursuits, whether professional or for personal fulfillment, can
| benefit from absorbing some of this dude's process, thoughts, and
| vibes. Even if you find him and what he says completely
| ridiculous. Anyway, the entire 60 minutes interview that the clip
| linked in the article is from is worth a watch [2]. It's pretty
| short. I particularly like an exchange from the end of that
| interview,
|
| Rubin: "The audience comes last."
|
| Cooper: "How can that be?"
|
| Rubin: "Well, the audience doesn't know what they want. The
| audience only knows what has come before."
|
| In the brief time I've been exposed to the guy, one of my
| favorite concepts Rubin expressed is this idea that his best
| creative ideas come entirely from outside himself, so most of his
| life is about putting himself in a place where he can be
| receptive to that outside force or influence, whatever it is.
| That rather than being a generator of great ideas, he is merely
| an antenna that can be carefully tuned to receive the signal from
| somewhere else.
|
| We all have heard the wisdom that you really can't force
| creativity or flashes of insight, but this takes it a step
| further in a way that resonates with me. I don't think what he is
| saying is necessarily true in any objective or empirical sense of
| course. The power of this concept is that it deeply acknowledges
| that almost everything inside us that we think of as ourselves,
| especially our ego, our sensory interpretations, and our
| conscious thought processes pouring through our knowledge base,
| are nowhere near enough on their own to produce the kind of
| brilliance which human beings are sometimes capable. And becoming
| overly focused on those more superficial (or at least obvious)
| parts of our consciousness can sometimes drown out or distort the
| signal that comes from deeper awarenesses which sometimes have
| unique and powerful things to say about reality.
|
| Thanks for reading, and good luck to you in your creative and
| technical pursuits!
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AHCfZTRGiI
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqhYXLVYQJ8
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUbUn9FnrME
| mnky9800n wrote:
| My advice is find a PhD you want in Norway or the Netherlands.
| They have programs with competitive research groups, salaries
| that will get you a quality of life you will appreciate, they
| will end in 3-4 years, and they have money to pay for you to go
| to conferences, etc without you having to fight for it from your
| adviser. Everywhere else sucks.
|
| This comment is based on my experience working as a scientist in
| academia in USA, Japan, Germany, France, Norway, UK, and now the
| Netherlands.
| Beldin wrote:
| Add Luxembourg and Switzerland to that list - at least EPFL and
| ETH. It's so unbelievably better to be at an institute where
| travelling within Europe is simply not a budgetary problem at
| all.
| bafe wrote:
| Your experience at ETH might vary a lot though. Their PhD
| programs are extremely heterogeneous between departments and
| vary from modern, well structured grad schools to the old-
| fashioned central European style where the student are
| basically at the mercy of their advisor for five years.
| mnky9800n wrote:
| Good point. University of Lausanne is nice too I hear.
|
| Definitely stay away from places like France or UK. They both
| have terrible salaries and culture (at the university).
|
| I would say Germany is a mixed bag. Your salary can be nice
| in Berlin. The same salary in Munich, and it will be the
| same, is unliveable.
| abrichr wrote:
| Any thoughts on Poland?
| mnky9800n wrote:
| Currently the salary is not competitive however Poland is the
| shining star of Europe given their growth and everything else
| these days. I might go there if science funding becomes more
| inline with other European countries.
| cybrexalpha wrote:
| When I was an undergrad, I once asked one of the department
| professors "I want to do a PhD, how do I do that?" and the first
| thing he said to me was "Don't."
|
| It turned out to be pretty good advice. I didn't in the end, and
| having seen close friends do it, I'm glad I was dissuaded.
| karaterobot wrote:
| The PI on the only research project I ever worked on as a student
| was relatively chill and collaborative, so I assumed that's how
| they all were. 20 years later, I once again work with big
| research projects, and was surprised to learn how tyrannical and
| petulant PIs are (or have a reputation for being). Much more so
| than CEOs in any private sector company I've worked at, the PI
| seems to be both at such a high level that they are disengaged
| from the daily work of their "employees", and simultaneously
| inclined to micromanage that work when their attention turns to
| it at last--the worst of both worlds!
| nolamark wrote:
| Dear Prospective PhD Student, Pay careful attention to the optics
| of this advice. It is addressing how you can best serve your PI.
| Your goals and aspirations are not addressed. It is advice on how
| to land a job, but does not address why you should want the job,
| or if it is a good fit for you.
|
| Perhaps you are a good fit for the academic life. But seek out
| more advice on what the job of Prospective PhD Student is. Seek
| out more advice on the job market of jobs that require a PhD. If
| you are thinking of working in the university setting, there may
| be a lot fewer tenure track jobs, with a lot more applicants than
| you might imagine, available that you.
|
| EDIT: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03394-0
| ramraj07 wrote:
| The question then becomes who do you even trust for advice? I
| always said never ask a first or second year PhD student lol.
| airstrike wrote:
| Only take advice from people with whom you'd be willing to
| switch places.
| nolamark wrote:
| You trust no one, and, at the same time, everyone.
| Determining what you are getting yourself into, based on
| data, not your imagination of the jobs based upon your
| undergrad experience, should be your first research project.
| If you aren't up for doing that research, evaluating the data
| you gather, and seeing the bias in the data, a research
| position probably not a good fit.
| Hermitian909 wrote:
| IMO you want to distinguish between advice that is tactical
| and short term or strategic and long term.
|
| The best tactical advice tends to from people who were
| recently in a very similar position as you, had had
| approximately the same goal you have, and either achieved the
| goal or failed. You want a sample of both successes and
| failures. The less recent, the less useful the advice.
|
| The best strategic advice tends to be from people who have
| accomplished things you want to accomplish, regardless of
| time distance. Their tactical advice is less useful (because
| it is often dated), but the strategic advice tends to be
| better. You again need a large sample size to filter out
| noise.
| 3abiton wrote:
| Finding a good PI is the real advice.
| chriskanan wrote:
| It should be a mutually beneficial relationship. That said, I
| run into far too many PhD students who want to join my lab who
| cannot answer the question "Why do you want a PhD?"
|
| I work in AI, so there is enormous opportunity inside and
| outside of academia currently (was not true when I finished my
| PhD, when it was the least popular area of CS), but I'm very
| upfront with students about how challenging it is to get a
| tenure-track job. That said, for those who want that, I help
| them make plans and set goals to achieve that objective, which
| means having a much stronger CV by the time they graduate than
| for those aiming for industry.
|
| Many may disagree in practice, but I see my primary job as
| creating strong scientists and helping them achieve their
| career objectives. But, I won't take PhD students if their
| goals would not greatly benefit from having a PhD.
|
| I do think too few academics are upfront with students about
| how challenging it is to get a tenure track position and what's
| needed to pull that off.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| As is frequently the case here, I feel most comments about
| whether or not to do a PhD are way too absorbed in cynicism and
| negativity.
|
| Sure, a bad PI can make you miserable, and if you only catch on
| when you've already invested serious time into research, you
| might be stuck with that PI until you're done. But, at least from
| what I've seen at my university, you have a good amount of
| flexibility during the first years of the program. Plus, after
| the first semester, our department expects PhD students to do
| teaching assistant work if not funded by other means, which gives
| them the chance to work with professors without getting tied down
| to a PI, making it easier to make a more informed decision.
|
| It's worth emphasizing that if you really love the topic, have
| confidence in your skills and can tolerate your PI, it can be a
| very fulfilling albeit stressful experience. My PI is typically
| well spoken, very demanding and often an asshole but also gives
| enough freedom and autonomy to grow. The pay is also definitely
| nowhere near as good as it would be in industry.
|
| But as someone who would consider himself to have been pretty
| immature and mentally 'weak' (struggling to cope with anything
| stressful that wasn't an exam or project) when starting the
| program, I feel I have grown significantly as a person over the
| past few years in a way that would have likely involved a lot
| more exploitation and pain in industry (especially given my
| immigration status, which also tends to encourage exploitation).
| When I started, I struggled even with basic 'adult' things, yet 4
| years in, approaching the end of my program, I am able to operate
| in the group mostly autonomously, with just occasional progress
| updates and handling basic decision making - reducing my PI's
| workload etc.
|
| Additionally, as someone who had always been interested in
| physics, but pursued an education in computer engineering since
| that was my stronger skill, a PhD ended up giving me the chance
| to participate in cutting edge physics research despite my
| computer specialization.
|
| I may have lost out on some wealth, but I feel I've more than
| made up for it through the personal growth, the satisfaction of
| unintentionally fulfilling a childhood dream, the satisfaction of
| making a measurable and meaningful contribution to science and
| the significantly expanded immigration opportunities compared to
| the conventional painful H1B->Green card route for Indians.
|
| I can't speak too much about admissions, as my experience with
| that was fairly unusual - I transferred in from a Masters at the
| recommendation of the department chair with most other
| requirements waived because they remembered my classwork from
| undergrad and felt a PhD would fit me better. I was also set up
| with an introduction at a lab to fund me (granted that this did
| mean I didn't get any flexibility in choosing my PI). But I
| disagree with the general premise that PhDs are not worth it.
| wanderingmind wrote:
| The only advice that a prospective PhD student needs to have is
| telling them to stay the hell away from a PhD and never even
| touch it in their dreams with a ten feet pole.
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