Definitely need to focus. I think most of us come into our PhDs thinking that our research is going to change the world. For anyone doing highly theoretical work we can be over ambitious. We try to bite off more than we can chew, and then we're either paralyzed or we spend a good portion of our time back peddling to simpler problems. If I could give one piece of advice. Start simple. If possible replicate some of the earlier work because you may discover that you're building on a lot of unreported assumptions. Aim for a portfolio of small papers that together tell a larger story, rather than trying to pack it all into on opus magnus.
> For anyone doing highly theoretical work we can be over ambitious.
I would say that this danger applies more to those doing practical (applied) work. A practically oriented program will often have a clear goal, and preset goals are often unattainable in research. By contrast, a student doing theoretical work can always bend their goals when necessary.
> If possible replicate some of the earlier work because you may discover that you're building on a lot of unreported assumptions.
I concur wholeheartedly, and this is my recommendation to every new PhD student. Replicating earlier work has many benefits for a PhD student in the beginning of their studies:
* It forces them to deeply understand the system they're replicating. Much more deeply than simply reading the paper would.
* It allows them to uncover the many corner cases which the original paper probably just briefly mentions. (If it mentions them at all.)
* It makes them think about how they would design an experiment so that it is repeatable and reproducible.
* It is a good source for inspiration for alternative solutions to the problem or even new problems altogether.
Alas, replication is way too uncommon in systems CS, which I think is one of the reasons why other scientists often look down on systems research.
While it has a bit of snark to it, certainly conveys the point of "This is your PhD. No one is going to hold your hand. Get it done."
The people who drop out of PhD programs usually are plenty smart enough, they just don't know how to make things happen.
Then again, some people seem content and happy to do 8 years of PhD studies followed by 10 more of meandering post-docs. Bummer is when they're surprised that no one wants to make them a professor.
The people who drop out of PhD programs usually are plenty smart enough, they just don't know how to make things happen.
Vast oversimplification. I've watched people leave Ph.D programs for a wide array of reasons. Any attempt at binary classification on this is foolhardy.
Clone a person ten times and send them to ten different positions, they will all fail for different reasons. Luck is as big a factor as is talent and diligence.
I think most PhD students are set up to fail by graduate institutions. Graduate programs can often be corrosive environments with unrealistic expectations. Moreover even if you run the gauntlet and get a tenure-track job or a position in a national or even corporate lab, the training you received in graduate school is often inadequate preparation for the next step. I am not ascribing this latter point to malice but rather to a self-perpetuating canon that becomes increasingly distant from real-world applications.
Universities also exploit people who depend on academic success for self-worth and validation. The head games that advisors play to goad graduate students on to do more work can be pretty unscrupulous. The very fact that universities can convince some of the smartest (if not those most possessing in common sense) people to work long hours for below minimum wage, while learning a body of knowledge of dubious value, is pretty amazing when I look back at it.
In the real world, people pay you good money to do PhD level work. Job security and low work loads aren't on offer if you do an expected value calculation factoring in all of the tenure washouts. The only thing graduate programs offer in return for collapsing highly educated wages is an infinitesimal chance at fame. It is no less an exploitative championship system than professional sports or Hollywood.
I think the only good reason to seek a PhD is for altruistic reasons, to expand human knowledge. But keep in mind that you are choosing the life of a 21st century cleric, with its attendant material deprivation and very good chance of never marrying or having a family.
Sounds like one-sided advice from the point of view of the advisor. Fact is, the advisor-grad student relationship is two way, and the advisor, being the experienced scientist who plays the guiding role, is much more crucial to the success of the PhD than the student. When a PhD student meanders about for 8 years, it is likely that the advisor does not know "how to get things done" as much as the student.
You get it wrong. Many times the advisor doesn't care students future. There is many anecdotes about this, but the only one I heard publicly is Yitang Zhang and his Ph.D. Advisor's story.
> The people who drop out of PhD programs usually are plenty smart enough, they just don't know how to make things happen.
Generalizations like this aren't useful. I could just as easily say "The people who finish PhD programs are plenty smart, they just don't understand the sunk costs fallacy."
I dropped out to make things happen. I took a job where I learned and developed myself more than I did as a student.
"The people who drop out of PhD programs usually are plenty smart enough, they just don't know how to make things happen."
It's possible that those of us who drop out of PhD programs have, in fact, made quite a few things "happen" in our lives and realized that the job market was terrible, the subject was... just stupid... and that there are other things in life than petty academic squabbles.
Just to disclose, I was about 6 months away from defending my dissertation and didn't want to throw another half a year of my life away working at a minimum wage job so I might (possibly) be able to work at a poorly paying job for the rest of my life.
It was the first really great adult decision that I made in my life.
I'm not writing a thesis, but a book on teaching coding, and this one point is really important. One of my chapters was on the cognitive benefits of writing software code--which I assumed were great because of Seymor Papert ("Mindstorms") and Ted Nelson's ("Computer Lib/Dream Machines") glowing enthusiasm for teaching kids how to code.
I started writing the chapter and had to get into the literature to find references to support the idea that learning to code carried concrete cognitive benefits. The research was extremely mixed, with one survey of the literature being highly critical of Papert for assuming so many benefits when the research was not finding that at all. I ended up having to stop everything and just read papers for a week to understand what science really knew about the subject. When I went back to rewrite my chapter, I had to temper my own enthusiasm and add numerous qualifications and cautions about my claims considering the evidence.
I'm happy for the experience as my thoughts on the subject are much more highly nuanced now, but it was very disheartening at first.
There are pro's and con's to studying the literature. The main pro is that you can avoid a dead end. The main con is that your ideas will be shaped by the literature (i.e., not as unique).
I tend to try to solve a problem myself first (this could be days or weeks), then look at the literature. If I looked at the literature first, then my ideas would look like the literature.
Beyond that, you have to talk to people. At least in my field, there is an uncomfortable amount of cultural knowledge; many papers are known to be bunk, but have not been retracted, or are otherwise compromised. You wouldn't know it from reading the literature but for a few carefully worded sentences when referencing some results.
I maintain that the most important domain knowledge is understanding what evidence/methods are actually robust, and what just sounds nice.
But yes, any research requires a lot of reading. If you don't like doing that (and ideally you really enjoy it) you're going to have a very tough time of it. You also won't have the background to have good conversations with people or to design experiments.
I am after my PhD and I consider quality of this list being close to of a "be creative" list.
That is, in principle all points make sense, but they are either truism, too obvious, too vague or things that are out of control. (If I had read it before starting my PhD it wouldn't have changed a thing).
Or maybe I am overly skeptical of simplistic life-advice? Is there any take-home message that changed your way of acting?
Here is a piece of advice for CS graduate students: take a look at the Gartner hype cycle. Here's the cycle from 2014: http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2819918. Pick something far on the left side of the curve, and ride the hype.
I'm not so sure this is great advice for PhD students. Junior faculty maybe.
You should fix a lot of other things first (in particular, prefered methodology and advisor) and then, after fixing those things, choose applications toward the left-hand side. A few reasons:
1. If you're doing it for hype alone you will be miserable. Ph.D. students tend to be out ahead of pretty much everyone in terms of the nitty gritty details, so they often hit the trough of disillusionment right around the time everyone else is at the top of the hype curve.
2. A Ph.D. is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be paid (sometimes comfortably) to work on (mostly) whatever you want. If it's not at least a little self-indulgent, you're wasting a great opportunity.
3. You'll have the rest of your life to chase the next sexy thing.
These curves are marketing material for an "advisory firm". Nothing more, nothing less. The idea of the curbe is more important that the particular points, and the points are often mis-placed. Also, lots of technologies jump around randomly on the curve or move rapidly through some parts, etc.
I disagree, honestly. I don't think creativity is an important part of doctoral work. The 'new' requirement is certainly true, but that can simply be an extension in relatively predictable territory.
A PhD demonstrates that you can successfully conduct original research. Period.
The time for creativity and really making a name for yourself is in a post-doc. That's when you differentiate yourself. You can do this during doctoral work, but it is far from required. As long as you're doing something significant (which any lab you join should be doing), you'll likely encounter plenty of new insights that really do contribute in a novel way.
This can let you focus on process and methods that lead to good results. You learn to troubleshoot, to adequately record observations, and to be able to write all that up in a coherent and thorough way. These are the key lessons, and those most valuable and translatable outside academia should you take that route.
In the end, I think that creativity comes easily and naturally if you're on top of the literature and actually performing experiments. If you trust your observations (which takes a lot of effort to get there) and are looking at interesting things, you will set down interesting paths of inquiry.
I really wish they would just get rid of the PhD. Keep the Master's degree. Have a hard series of tests, that if a person passed, they would get, I don't know, maybe a "Certified Master in Whatever."?
The test would be difficult--maybe like the CA bar, NY bar? Harder!
It would save a lot of money.
It would save a lot confusion about a person's abilities. Right now, I look at a fresh, young PhD with a lot of skeptism. Actually, I just fiqure it's a rich kid who wanted to stay in school. If the PhD is gotten later in life, and the thesis is a actually original, I admire the extra effort.
Why did I bring this up. Some of the worst Instructors, and insufferable people have come across have been PhD's. And in pretty much every field the Master's degreed candidate knows just as much as the PhD, and you put them in a room, and the there's a lot of laughter over the the whole Dr. thing.
Plus, I'm tired of calling someone a Doctor who isn't a MD. Actually these days, with extreme specialization; lets get rid of Dr.? In my world, a Doctor who didn't specialize is an experienced nurse, or PA.
I had a girlfriend whom killed so many animals for her thesis. Literally hundreds. She would tell me these stories in bed--until I told her "Enough--I just don't want to know." It's was all to get that title. She wanted that title so bad.
Did you know in the the bio sciences, after some wannabe researcher tests his/her drug/procedure on an animal, the animal is bashed over the head, so when the pathology/histology/whatever is performed---the brain/tissue is not contaminated in any way? They couldn't even use CO2, or Helium to kill the animal. At the time the students were going to lab using tunnels around the school, so they would have to look at the protestors--at least that's what she told me. She told me she felt empowered killing the animals at the time. Why--because the reward would be great. Being called a Dr! I never quite looked at her the same way after these forced conversations. I would wake up in that cold, damp, marina apartment, with all her goth artwork hanging around the bed; and sometimes I thought she was a actually a witch. She worked very hard at the whole witch thing at the time. All that doesn't matter.
I was just astonished at the cruelty that went on in those labs, all so the students could get that PhD. I once asked her about the "original research" that goes on. She laughed hysterically. I was so wrong she pointed out. She then caught herself, and said "Well, maybe someone was doing something original?"
Well, after the money ran out, and the realization she was no scientist, she moved to San Francisco and partied through the late 90's/2000's. She is now stuck with a lot of debt.
She is also a vegan. Well, she's not quite a vegan. She eats Salmon for her dry hair. Not quite a vegan? And yes, I got an earful, when I brought that up. I was just tired of her telling everyone, "I'm a vegan!" She further told people she was a PhD. I knew, and she knew, but wanted that title so bad, even when she didn't get it she would tell people she was a PhD. The funny thing is she isn't crazy. She actually gets paid pretty well, but thankfully, not in her field of study, with her magical PhD.
She was beautiful though. I remember thinking, why am I with her? I didn't think I was a shallow person. I guess I am.
Plus, I'm tired of calling someone a Doctor who isn't a MD.
In industry, nobody calls me doctor unless I just did something stupid. ;-)
Well, sometimes they also use the term if working with people in a country where it's customary. But not here in the US. When someone wears their PhD on their sleeve, and insists on being called "doctor," the other PhD's snicker and assume the person is headed for Management or Consulting.
I don't know how many dozens of these off-topic stories about old girlfriends you've posted, but we've asked you before to stop, and enough is enough. Really, please stop. This is not what HN is for.
Once or twice would have been fine, obviously, but you exceeded that a long time ago.
I appreciate your comment. Yeah, it's sincere and rambling, but at least it's an interesting slice of a stranger's life. HN can't or won't enjoy something like this.
If you get the first one wrong the rest of the list will not matter at all. The most important questions are, who will my advisor be? What is the completion rate for graduate students under their care? What kind of personal network does the advisor maintain and what kinds of roles do the graduating PhDs go into?
I wish I had known to ask that sort of thing. My advisor typically kept a lab of a dozen postdocs and a single PhD at any given time. I think in 25 years of being a research professor with sizeable grants that advisor only graduated 4 doctoral students, and a rather distressing proportion of the postdocs left not only academia but science after that lab.
I would also try to hang out with the current doctoral students and assess their psychological well-being.
While this is completely valid advice, it might not be applicable with junior faculty who may not have graduated many students. I chose my advisor (who was as assistant professor at the time) based on the belief that I'll get to publish aggressively since it's in both of our interests. But I had no way of knowing how hard it would be to work with her. And I wasn't the only person who felt this way; I saw my fellow group mates (all of us joined the group at around the same time) and other collaborators express similar sentiments in course of time. But since I'd already sunk in time, I decided to stick around.
I was able to successfully complete my PhD, but I took more time than expected. Moreover, I was no way near as productive as I'd hoped to.
^ A thousand times this. Vet your advisor like there's no tomorrow. This is trickier than it sounds because the best source on this is your advisor's current or past grad students, and they often won't open up cause they don't know you. Your filter should then be: "if they don't give you great/enthusiastic feedback about their advisor, play it safe and look elsewhere."
It is the most important factor, but I disagree that it's that easy to tell (if that's part of what you're implying).
Some people can actually do very well in what appear to be hostile labs. Some needs lots of space, while others do best with close monitoring. It ultimately just comes down to whether the advising relationship works or not, and it's nearly as complicated as romantic relationships.
One thing that I like to stress is that you don't have to like your advisor. You should probably not dislike them, but what matters is how you play off each other and work together.
An example: some advisors will put the people in their lab in somewhat adversarial positions. There will be two or more people working on similar projects, and the more successful of them will start to get more and more of it. For certain types, this situation is actually very motivating and can produce two differentiated projects that support each other. For others, it will undermine their confidence and wellbeing to a terrible degree. There can be a lot of resentment among both parties.
While I would generally consider this a warning sign, you must recognize that this can be a good environment for the right person. The difficulty is that it's hard for you to know what works for you until you do it. There's no best formula, you just have to choose as best you can.
I've seen a lot of really good people get
very badly hurt pursuing a Ph.D. I did
get a STEM field Ph.D. but didn't get
hurt.
For a good and broad view of the problem,
buried in D. Knuth's The TeXBook is
"The traditional way is to put off all
creative aspects until the last part of
graduate school. For seventeen or more
years, a student is taught examsmanship,
then suddenly after passing enough exams
in graduate school he's told to do
something original."
Yes, here Knuth identifies a significant
challenge.
Compared with the OP, here's a very
different and much more specific approach
that clearly makes a lot of sense and that
worked well for me:
First, note carefully that for some work
that can be called research the usual,
nearly universal criteria are that the
work be "new, correct, and significant".
Below, keep these three in mind.
Second, get a major in math, at least a
good undergraduate major in pure and
applied math and hopefully enough more in
pure and applied math for roughly a
Master's in math. Even if you don't care
about the Master's degree, I do very much
recommend getting the math for a Master's
degree.
Why pure math? The pure math gives you
the crucial, central, foundational tools
of math, that is, many crucial
prerequisites and, broadly, the ability to
state and prove theorems. E.g., you will
learn how to write math, and that alone
will start to put you ahead, even of some
high end professors.
What pure math? For your research likely
mostly you will use the part of math
called analysis but in your studies for
more you will also want at least the
basics of abstract algebra and maybe
differential geometry, combinatorics, and
maybe even some in foundations. In
addition, if you have some reason to
believe you can get some value from
algebraic topology or geometry, then, sure
study those.
Why applied math? Likely applied math
will be closer to the math you will use
for your research. What applied math?
Sure, e.g., statistics, numerical linear
algebra, ordinary differential equations,
more in numerical techniques,
optimization, stochastic processes, etc.
Third, get your Ph.D. in some field of
engineering -- computer science,
electronic engineering, mechanical
engineering, civil engineering, operations
research, statistics, etc.
Three biggie points:
(1) In science and engineering, by far the
most highly respected research is that
which mathematizes the field. Good work
here can help meet the criterion of
"significant".
(2) Work in math, well supported with
theorems and proofs, is much more
difficult to criticize than work that is
mostly just experimental or empirical.
Good work here can be help meet the
criterion of "correct".
(3) The standard and severe weakness of
the backgrounds of researchers in most of
science and in engineering is way too
little in math. Thus, there are a lot of
good research problems they can't address.
So, your good work here can be help meet
the criterion of "new".
So, with your background in math, on
(1)-(3) you will have at least a good --
maybe even an overwhelmingly strong --
comparative, competitive advantage.
Another point if you care: Unless your
family wants to donate $10+ million or so,
it is just super tough to get into an Ivy
League university. But getting in as a
grad student is much easier -- e.g., I got
accepted to Cornell, Brown, and Princeton.
So, you should intend that your research
be essentially math for that field of
engineering. Usually you will aim to use
your math tools to solve a relatively
practical problem in that field of
engineering, but you might use your math
to add to the basic theory of that
field; for some wild guesses, you might do
something in the theory of predators and
prey in environmental engineering; maybe
you would have been the one who did Kalman
filtering in electronic engineering; maybe
in mechanical engineering and continuum
mechanics you will make some n...
Thanks for taking the time to write this. I found it inspiring to hear a rare positive experience of doctoral education. Your advice about studying math but researching engineering was insightful.
As someone doing research in systems CS with a CS background but not pure math, I think you're on to something here. However, I think you could also view it from the perspective of it often being easy to make a novel contribution in a field when you possess skills from a completely different field (i.e. interdisciplinary research). Of course you could argue whether mathematics should be treated differently because it is in some sense more fundamental.
> However, I think you could also view it from the perspective of it often being easy to make a novel contribution in a field when you possess skills from a completely different field (i.e. interdisciplinary research).
A very old story is that field crossing is a powerful aid to innovation.
> Of course you could argue whether mathematics should be treated differently because it is in some sense more fundamental.
Yup, especially for the most respected research, mathematizing a field.
Systems work is often awful though, precisely due to the religious aversion we systems people carry to notions like "proof", "mathematics", and "correctness".
Yes, I work in systems. No, don't ask me what I system I'm talking about. I'm certainly not allowed to tell you, of course, and anyway there have been multiple such systems throughout my life.
Really appreciate the insights here - I'd love to get your advice on my own situation
I've already done a pure math (+business) undergrad from a mid-tier university and have been working as a product manager at a financial services company for 3yrs post undergrad. I've been thinking of getting a PhD in an engineering sub-discipline, but not sure how to go about doing it especially since I have no research experience.
Do I:
(i) spend 1 year doing research with a professor nearby then apply (I live close to a major research university)
(ii) apply now and hopefully my work experience can cover for research experience
(iii) Rethink the whole PhD thing and get a professional degree like an MBA (did well on GMAT)
(iv) Just continue to learn on the side and try to use my skills for opportunities
-----
Also two more questions if you don't mind:
How did you narrow your interests before applying for a PhD?
Is it possible to get a masters level pure math education through self study? I've taken until PhD level measure theory.
> I've already done a pure math
(+business) undergrad from a mid-tier
university and have been working as a
product manager at a financial services
company for 3yrs post undergrad. I've
been thinking of getting a PhD in an
engineering sub-discipline, but not sure
how to go about doing it especially since
I have no research experience.
It would appear that you might pursue
something in "financial engineering".
Since you are in the financial industry,
you might ask around and grow a network:
E.g., ask person A; maybe can get them to
suggest person B; tell person B that
person A recommended them and ask person
B; etc. I.e., apply social networking
techniques. E.g., try to get to some
people who can outline some of what James
Simons did. If you can, talk to Simons.
Similarly for various quants and people
who create algorithms and code for
automatic trading. Look into the
programs in financial engineering at
Princeton (E. Cinlar), NYU (M.
Avellaneda), Columbia (I. Karatzas), and
CMU (S. Shreve).
If you want to get into some other field
of engineering, then gather some
information, meet some people and get some
input, and start to pick some fields or
one field.
> (i) spend 1 year doing research with a
professor nearby then apply (I live close
to a major research university)
Maybe. If you can find a good situation
and like it, maybe, sure.
I have been suggesting that you start with
your own problem and make some progress on
it, maybe with a little advice (once I got
just three words), and maybe then consider
a professor as a official or unofficial
mentor or dissertation adviser.
> (ii) apply now and hopefully my work
experience can cover for research
experience
For a graduate program, in most fields,
you are not expected to have experience in
research. So don't have to "cover for
research experience".
> (iii) Rethink the whole PhD thing and
get a professional degree like an MBA (did
well on GMAT)
And, with that MBA, what will you do with
it? Consulting? Try to work your way up
as a C-level guy? Try to do portfolio
management or be a venture capitalist?
I'm a former MBA prof -- typically an MBA
is not very technical, but, now,
especially with some much in computing,
being technical can be seen as an
advantage. Or, maybe the flip side is,
soon all the work that the techies can do
will be done and what will be left is the
non-technical work. Your guess.
As far as I can see, still need to hustle
and/or be lucky to have a good career.
Also, an MBA is expensive while a Ph.D.
often costs $0.00 for tuition and might
provide a stipend.
> (iv) Just continue to learn on the side
and try to use my skills for opportunities
That can be a short-term approach that can
lead to a degree later.
If you sense that your background is not
good enough to go for a degree, then,
sure.
A major cause of my success in grad school
is the math I studied independently
between my Bachelor's and my Ph.D.
program.
In particular, for a Ph.D., will likely
have to pass qualifying exams, and you
will want to have enough preparation for a
path to do that.
> How did you narrow your interests before
applying for a PhD?
I attacked some practical problems with
applied math and computing. I did this,
first, in work in US national security
around DC.
> Is it possible to get a masters level
pure math education through self study?
I've taken until PhD level measure theory.
IIRC at one time the Web site of the math
department at Princeton said that the
graduate courses were introductions to
research by experts in their fields, that
no courses were offered for preparation
for the qualifying exams, and that
students were expected to prepare via
independent study. For this, you will
need a good undergraduate background.
There is some question how much a student
or anyone should attempt via independent
study. As a researcher, a lot of
independent study is usually just part of
the work, but there are seminars, etc.
that can hel...
> I've been thinking of getting a PhD in an engineering sub-discipline, but not sure how to go about doing it especially since I have no research experience. .... (I live close to a major research university)
If you know the discipline you want to study, email someone like the Director of Graduate Studies in the department in question. If you don't know the discipline, email someone in either the Graduate School or the College of Engineering, or both, depending on how you school's organized.
I like the "new, correct, and significant" guideline. But, I would add it's often easier to look at a thesis as a way to document original research than an end goal. Basically, if you are in the habit of doing original research then creating a dissertation is easy. If you try and find research worthy of a dissertation what that can be much harder.
Remember, the value of a PHD is maintained by rejecting people. If you demonstrate your 'in the club' then you can often just stable together a few papers and call it a day.
re: "The traditional way is to put off all creative aspects until the last part of graduate school. For seventeen or more years, a student is taught examsmanship, then suddenly after passing enough exams in graduate school he's told to do something original."
In practice, that undergrad research is mostly for biomedical wet lab research under close supervision of a much more senior person?
There will be some issues of social maturity that can get in the way of the research. E.g., typically an undergrad student is still under some influence of some of the unfortunate attitudes of some of their high school teachers.
E.g., after my junior year, I had a summer job in a bio-physics lab doing electronics. I knew Maxwell's equations well enough, but what I didn't know, and hurt a lot, was that I really needed to get the data sheets on some power transistors, read off some values, and, then, just apply Ohm's Law to characterize the usual operating range of those power transistors. I didn't have enough social maturity to do well enough asking others, and from high school I was too afraid just to use my own judgment, strike out into the unknown, and discover that all I had to do was just use the data sheets. That is, I guessed that digging into the data sheets would be too much of a detour and I'd get criticized. Also the guy I was working for kept emphasizing that I should take a practical approach and shouldn't go off into too much theory. Gee, I just needed to read the darned data sheets and, there, the curves that showed the basic, simple minded performance of the power transistors.
Out of undergraduate school and in a job for a while and with some good successes, I came to have a sense of what where good, appropriate, and promising investments into the unknown. The lessons of high school conflicted with that "sense".
Finishing a PhD is unlike completing a project in most other jobs. In most other jobs, someone needs what you're working on. Other people's investment in the outcome is similar to your own. If you fail to complete your work, others are likely to fail to complete their work. Consequently, incentives (hopefully) line up, and infrastructure (hopefully) exists to support you, with the recognition that your success is linked to group success.
Your PhD dissertation is not like this. Yes, your adviser is invested in you finishing - but not as nearly as much as you are. They will have other students, and they can always work on their own. Your peers may be invested, if they are working on another part of the project - but if you do not finish, they will find a way to get on without you. Your university is invested in you (quite literally, most of the time, with money), but again, not as nearly as invested as you are: plenty of grad students never finish, and they will help you, but schools also recognize that not all students finish.
The author has a good list, and I may read his book, but he's missing this attitude that I felt I had to adopt. The person who cares most about you finishing is you, and sometimes that means having to be selfish in order to finish. That can take of the form of not engaging in as much service in your department, or not providing some help on a project that is not part of your dissertation.
I do think this attitude is unfortunate, but it is a natural result of the requirement that a PhD dissertation represents work that the student owns. I much more enjoy the research I have done in an industry research lab, where me and my colleagues have collaborated equally. (Or equal-enough that in a grad school context, no one person could claim ownership of the work for a dissertation.) But, it's the system we have, and because of that, I think that in order to finish, grad students have to - at least eventually - adopt a selfish attitude.
Specifically, this "selfish attitude" means ruthless evaluating: will this thing get me closer to graduation? If no, don't do it. (Obviously this only applies to work. Having a life outside of grad school work is enormously important.) In the beginning, I don't think one needs to have this attitude. But as you approach completion, I think one needs to start thinking this way.
59 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 132 ms ] threadI would say that this danger applies more to those doing practical (applied) work. A practically oriented program will often have a clear goal, and preset goals are often unattainable in research. By contrast, a student doing theoretical work can always bend their goals when necessary.
I concur wholeheartedly, and this is my recommendation to every new PhD student. Replicating earlier work has many benefits for a PhD student in the beginning of their studies:
* It forces them to deeply understand the system they're replicating. Much more deeply than simply reading the paper would.
* It allows them to uncover the many corner cases which the original paper probably just briefly mentions. (If it mentions them at all.)
* It makes them think about how they would design an experiment so that it is repeatable and reproducible.
* It is a good source for inspiration for alternative solutions to the problem or even new problems altogether.
Alas, replication is way too uncommon in systems CS, which I think is one of the reasons why other scientists often look down on systems research.
The people who drop out of PhD programs usually are plenty smart enough, they just don't know how to make things happen.
Then again, some people seem content and happy to do 8 years of PhD studies followed by 10 more of meandering post-docs. Bummer is when they're surprised that no one wants to make them a professor.
I don't think that's fair either.
Universities also exploit people who depend on academic success for self-worth and validation. The head games that advisors play to goad graduate students on to do more work can be pretty unscrupulous. The very fact that universities can convince some of the smartest (if not those most possessing in common sense) people to work long hours for below minimum wage, while learning a body of knowledge of dubious value, is pretty amazing when I look back at it.
In the real world, people pay you good money to do PhD level work. Job security and low work loads aren't on offer if you do an expected value calculation factoring in all of the tenure washouts. The only thing graduate programs offer in return for collapsing highly educated wages is an infinitesimal chance at fame. It is no less an exploitative championship system than professional sports or Hollywood.
I think the only good reason to seek a PhD is for altruistic reasons, to expand human knowledge. But keep in mind that you are choosing the life of a 21st century cleric, with its attendant material deprivation and very good chance of never marrying or having a family.
Generalizations like this aren't useful. I could just as easily say "The people who finish PhD programs are plenty smart, they just don't understand the sunk costs fallacy."
I dropped out to make things happen. I took a job where I learned and developed myself more than I did as a student.
It's possible that those of us who drop out of PhD programs have, in fact, made quite a few things "happen" in our lives and realized that the job market was terrible, the subject was... just stupid... and that there are other things in life than petty academic squabbles.
Just to disclose, I was about 6 months away from defending my dissertation and didn't want to throw another half a year of my life away working at a minimum wage job so I might (possibly) be able to work at a poorly paying job for the rest of my life.
It was the first really great adult decision that I made in my life.
I'm not writing a thesis, but a book on teaching coding, and this one point is really important. One of my chapters was on the cognitive benefits of writing software code--which I assumed were great because of Seymor Papert ("Mindstorms") and Ted Nelson's ("Computer Lib/Dream Machines") glowing enthusiasm for teaching kids how to code.
I started writing the chapter and had to get into the literature to find references to support the idea that learning to code carried concrete cognitive benefits. The research was extremely mixed, with one survey of the literature being highly critical of Papert for assuming so many benefits when the research was not finding that at all. I ended up having to stop everything and just read papers for a week to understand what science really knew about the subject. When I went back to rewrite my chapter, I had to temper my own enthusiasm and add numerous qualifications and cautions about my claims considering the evidence.
I'm happy for the experience as my thoughts on the subject are much more highly nuanced now, but it was very disheartening at first.
I tend to try to solve a problem myself first (this could be days or weeks), then look at the literature. If I looked at the literature first, then my ideas would look like the literature.
It's a gamble either way
I maintain that the most important domain knowledge is understanding what evidence/methods are actually robust, and what just sounds nice.
But yes, any research requires a lot of reading. If you don't like doing that (and ideally you really enjoy it) you're going to have a very tough time of it. You also won't have the background to have good conversations with people or to design experiments.
That is, in principle all points make sense, but they are either truism, too obvious, too vague or things that are out of control. (If I had read it before starting my PhD it wouldn't have changed a thing).
Or maybe I am overly skeptical of simplistic life-advice? Is there any take-home message that changed your way of acting?
You should fix a lot of other things first (in particular, prefered methodology and advisor) and then, after fixing those things, choose applications toward the left-hand side. A few reasons:
1. If you're doing it for hype alone you will be miserable. Ph.D. students tend to be out ahead of pretty much everyone in terms of the nitty gritty details, so they often hit the trough of disillusionment right around the time everyone else is at the top of the hype curve.
2. A Ph.D. is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be paid (sometimes comfortably) to work on (mostly) whatever you want. If it's not at least a little self-indulgent, you're wasting a great opportunity.
3. You'll have the rest of your life to chase the next sexy thing.
A PhD demonstrates that you can successfully conduct original research. Period.
The time for creativity and really making a name for yourself is in a post-doc. That's when you differentiate yourself. You can do this during doctoral work, but it is far from required. As long as you're doing something significant (which any lab you join should be doing), you'll likely encounter plenty of new insights that really do contribute in a novel way.
This can let you focus on process and methods that lead to good results. You learn to troubleshoot, to adequately record observations, and to be able to write all that up in a coherent and thorough way. These are the key lessons, and those most valuable and translatable outside academia should you take that route.
In the end, I think that creativity comes easily and naturally if you're on top of the literature and actually performing experiments. If you trust your observations (which takes a lot of effort to get there) and are looking at interesting things, you will set down interesting paths of inquiry.
The test would be difficult--maybe like the CA bar, NY bar? Harder!
It would save a lot of money.
It would save a lot confusion about a person's abilities. Right now, I look at a fresh, young PhD with a lot of skeptism. Actually, I just fiqure it's a rich kid who wanted to stay in school. If the PhD is gotten later in life, and the thesis is a actually original, I admire the extra effort.
Why did I bring this up. Some of the worst Instructors, and insufferable people have come across have been PhD's. And in pretty much every field the Master's degreed candidate knows just as much as the PhD, and you put them in a room, and the there's a lot of laughter over the the whole Dr. thing.
Plus, I'm tired of calling someone a Doctor who isn't a MD. Actually these days, with extreme specialization; lets get rid of Dr.? In my world, a Doctor who didn't specialize is an experienced nurse, or PA.
I had a girlfriend whom killed so many animals for her thesis. Literally hundreds. She would tell me these stories in bed--until I told her "Enough--I just don't want to know." It's was all to get that title. She wanted that title so bad.
Did you know in the the bio sciences, after some wannabe researcher tests his/her drug/procedure on an animal, the animal is bashed over the head, so when the pathology/histology/whatever is performed---the brain/tissue is not contaminated in any way? They couldn't even use CO2, or Helium to kill the animal. At the time the students were going to lab using tunnels around the school, so they would have to look at the protestors--at least that's what she told me. She told me she felt empowered killing the animals at the time. Why--because the reward would be great. Being called a Dr! I never quite looked at her the same way after these forced conversations. I would wake up in that cold, damp, marina apartment, with all her goth artwork hanging around the bed; and sometimes I thought she was a actually a witch. She worked very hard at the whole witch thing at the time. All that doesn't matter.
I was just astonished at the cruelty that went on in those labs, all so the students could get that PhD. I once asked her about the "original research" that goes on. She laughed hysterically. I was so wrong she pointed out. She then caught herself, and said "Well, maybe someone was doing something original?"
Well, after the money ran out, and the realization she was no scientist, she moved to San Francisco and partied through the late 90's/2000's. She is now stuck with a lot of debt.
She is also a vegan. Well, she's not quite a vegan. She eats Salmon for her dry hair. Not quite a vegan? And yes, I got an earful, when I brought that up. I was just tired of her telling everyone, "I'm a vegan!" She further told people she was a PhD. I knew, and she knew, but wanted that title so bad, even when she didn't get it she would tell people she was a PhD. The funny thing is she isn't crazy. She actually gets paid pretty well, but thankfully, not in her field of study, with her magical PhD.
She was beautiful though. I remember thinking, why am I with her? I didn't think I was a shallow person. I guess I am.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_(title)
You realise that the origin of the word doctor is someone who is qualified to teach? That's much closer to the modern PhD than an MD.
A PhD isn't about learning what we already know. It's about learning how to find out what we don't know.
You can't make a test on a topic we don't understand.
>It would save a lot of money.
Hard science PhDs don't require tuition, and pay a stipend equivalent to about 30-40K per year.
>She was beautiful though.
Sorry you got dumped dude, but don't take it out on scientists.
In industry, nobody calls me doctor unless I just did something stupid. ;-)
Well, sometimes they also use the term if working with people in a country where it's customary. But not here in the US. When someone wears their PhD on their sleeve, and insists on being called "doctor," the other PhD's snicker and assume the person is headed for Management or Consulting.
Once or twice would have been fine, obviously, but you exceeded that a long time ago.
http://henrikwarne.com/2016/03/07/ph-d-or-professional-progr...
I wish I had known to ask that sort of thing. My advisor typically kept a lab of a dozen postdocs and a single PhD at any given time. I think in 25 years of being a research professor with sizeable grants that advisor only graduated 4 doctoral students, and a rather distressing proportion of the postdocs left not only academia but science after that lab.
I would also try to hang out with the current doctoral students and assess their psychological well-being.
I was able to successfully complete my PhD, but I took more time than expected. Moreover, I was no way near as productive as I'd hoped to.
Some people can actually do very well in what appear to be hostile labs. Some needs lots of space, while others do best with close monitoring. It ultimately just comes down to whether the advising relationship works or not, and it's nearly as complicated as romantic relationships.
One thing that I like to stress is that you don't have to like your advisor. You should probably not dislike them, but what matters is how you play off each other and work together.
An example: some advisors will put the people in their lab in somewhat adversarial positions. There will be two or more people working on similar projects, and the more successful of them will start to get more and more of it. For certain types, this situation is actually very motivating and can produce two differentiated projects that support each other. For others, it will undermine their confidence and wellbeing to a terrible degree. There can be a lot of resentment among both parties.
While I would generally consider this a warning sign, you must recognize that this can be a good environment for the right person. The difficulty is that it's hard for you to know what works for you until you do it. There's no best formula, you just have to choose as best you can.
For a good and broad view of the problem, buried in D. Knuth's The TeXBook is
"The traditional way is to put off all creative aspects until the last part of graduate school. For seventeen or more years, a student is taught examsmanship, then suddenly after passing enough exams in graduate school he's told to do something original."
Yes, here Knuth identifies a significant challenge.
Compared with the OP, here's a very different and much more specific approach that clearly makes a lot of sense and that worked well for me:
First, note carefully that for some work that can be called research the usual, nearly universal criteria are that the work be "new, correct, and significant". Below, keep these three in mind.
Second, get a major in math, at least a good undergraduate major in pure and applied math and hopefully enough more in pure and applied math for roughly a Master's in math. Even if you don't care about the Master's degree, I do very much recommend getting the math for a Master's degree.
Why pure math? The pure math gives you the crucial, central, foundational tools of math, that is, many crucial prerequisites and, broadly, the ability to state and prove theorems. E.g., you will learn how to write math, and that alone will start to put you ahead, even of some high end professors.
What pure math? For your research likely mostly you will use the part of math called analysis but in your studies for more you will also want at least the basics of abstract algebra and maybe differential geometry, combinatorics, and maybe even some in foundations. In addition, if you have some reason to believe you can get some value from algebraic topology or geometry, then, sure study those.
Why applied math? Likely applied math will be closer to the math you will use for your research. What applied math? Sure, e.g., statistics, numerical linear algebra, ordinary differential equations, more in numerical techniques, optimization, stochastic processes, etc.
Third, get your Ph.D. in some field of engineering -- computer science, electronic engineering, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, operations research, statistics, etc.
Three biggie points:
(1) In science and engineering, by far the most highly respected research is that which mathematizes the field. Good work here can help meet the criterion of "significant".
(2) Work in math, well supported with theorems and proofs, is much more difficult to criticize than work that is mostly just experimental or empirical. Good work here can be help meet the criterion of "correct".
(3) The standard and severe weakness of the backgrounds of researchers in most of science and in engineering is way too little in math. Thus, there are a lot of good research problems they can't address. So, your good work here can be help meet the criterion of "new".
So, with your background in math, on (1)-(3) you will have at least a good -- maybe even an overwhelmingly strong -- comparative, competitive advantage.
Another point if you care: Unless your family wants to donate $10+ million or so, it is just super tough to get into an Ivy League university. But getting in as a grad student is much easier -- e.g., I got accepted to Cornell, Brown, and Princeton.
So, you should intend that your research be essentially math for that field of engineering. Usually you will aim to use your math tools to solve a relatively practical problem in that field of engineering, but you might use your math to add to the basic theory of that field; for some wild guesses, you might do something in the theory of predators and prey in environmental engineering; maybe you would have been the one who did Kalman filtering in electronic engineering; maybe in mechanical engineering and continuum mechanics you will make some n...
> However, I think you could also view it from the perspective of it often being easy to make a novel contribution in a field when you possess skills from a completely different field (i.e. interdisciplinary research).
A very old story is that field crossing is a powerful aid to innovation.
> Of course you could argue whether mathematics should be treated differently because it is in some sense more fundamental.
Yup, especially for the most respected research, mathematizing a field.
Well, that's debatable :) I can think of plenty of recent systems conferences where the best paper had nothing to do with mathematizing the field.
Yes, I work in systems. No, don't ask me what I system I'm talking about. I'm certainly not allowed to tell you, of course, and anyway there have been multiple such systems throughout my life.
So. Many. Race conditions.
I've already done a pure math (+business) undergrad from a mid-tier university and have been working as a product manager at a financial services company for 3yrs post undergrad. I've been thinking of getting a PhD in an engineering sub-discipline, but not sure how to go about doing it especially since I have no research experience.
Do I:
(i) spend 1 year doing research with a professor nearby then apply (I live close to a major research university)
(ii) apply now and hopefully my work experience can cover for research experience
(iii) Rethink the whole PhD thing and get a professional degree like an MBA (did well on GMAT)
(iv) Just continue to learn on the side and try to use my skills for opportunities
-----
Also two more questions if you don't mind:
How did you narrow your interests before applying for a PhD?
Is it possible to get a masters level pure math education through self study? I've taken until PhD level measure theory.
It would appear that you might pursue something in "financial engineering".
Since you are in the financial industry, you might ask around and grow a network: E.g., ask person A; maybe can get them to suggest person B; tell person B that person A recommended them and ask person B; etc. I.e., apply social networking techniques. E.g., try to get to some people who can outline some of what James Simons did. If you can, talk to Simons. Similarly for various quants and people who create algorithms and code for automatic trading. Look into the programs in financial engineering at Princeton (E. Cinlar), NYU (M. Avellaneda), Columbia (I. Karatzas), and CMU (S. Shreve).
If you want to get into some other field of engineering, then gather some information, meet some people and get some input, and start to pick some fields or one field.
> (i) spend 1 year doing research with a professor nearby then apply (I live close to a major research university)
Maybe. If you can find a good situation and like it, maybe, sure.
I have been suggesting that you start with your own problem and make some progress on it, maybe with a little advice (once I got just three words), and maybe then consider a professor as a official or unofficial mentor or dissertation adviser.
> (ii) apply now and hopefully my work experience can cover for research experience
For a graduate program, in most fields, you are not expected to have experience in research. So don't have to "cover for research experience".
> (iii) Rethink the whole PhD thing and get a professional degree like an MBA (did well on GMAT)
And, with that MBA, what will you do with it? Consulting? Try to work your way up as a C-level guy? Try to do portfolio management or be a venture capitalist?
I'm a former MBA prof -- typically an MBA is not very technical, but, now, especially with some much in computing, being technical can be seen as an advantage. Or, maybe the flip side is, soon all the work that the techies can do will be done and what will be left is the non-technical work. Your guess.
As far as I can see, still need to hustle and/or be lucky to have a good career.
Also, an MBA is expensive while a Ph.D. often costs $0.00 for tuition and might provide a stipend.
> (iv) Just continue to learn on the side and try to use my skills for opportunities
That can be a short-term approach that can lead to a degree later.
If you sense that your background is not good enough to go for a degree, then, sure.
A major cause of my success in grad school is the math I studied independently between my Bachelor's and my Ph.D. program.
In particular, for a Ph.D., will likely have to pass qualifying exams, and you will want to have enough preparation for a path to do that.
> How did you narrow your interests before applying for a PhD?
I attacked some practical problems with applied math and computing. I did this, first, in work in US national security around DC.
> Is it possible to get a masters level pure math education through self study? I've taken until PhD level measure theory.
IIRC at one time the Web site of the math department at Princeton said that the graduate courses were introductions to research by experts in their fields, that no courses were offered for preparation for the qualifying exams, and that students were expected to prepare via independent study. For this, you will need a good undergraduate background.
There is some question how much a student or anyone should attempt via independent study. As a researcher, a lot of independent study is usually just part of the work, but there are seminars, etc. that can hel...
Thanks!
If you know the discipline you want to study, email someone like the Director of Graduate Studies in the department in question. If you don't know the discipline, email someone in either the Graduate School or the College of Engineering, or both, depending on how you school's organized.
Remember, the value of a PHD is maintained by rejecting people. If you demonstrate your 'in the club' then you can often just stable together a few papers and call it a day.
A lot can change over the last 35 years : http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=5517&from=fu...
There will be some issues of social maturity that can get in the way of the research. E.g., typically an undergrad student is still under some influence of some of the unfortunate attitudes of some of their high school teachers.
E.g., after my junior year, I had a summer job in a bio-physics lab doing electronics. I knew Maxwell's equations well enough, but what I didn't know, and hurt a lot, was that I really needed to get the data sheets on some power transistors, read off some values, and, then, just apply Ohm's Law to characterize the usual operating range of those power transistors. I didn't have enough social maturity to do well enough asking others, and from high school I was too afraid just to use my own judgment, strike out into the unknown, and discover that all I had to do was just use the data sheets. That is, I guessed that digging into the data sheets would be too much of a detour and I'd get criticized. Also the guy I was working for kept emphasizing that I should take a practical approach and shouldn't go off into too much theory. Gee, I just needed to read the darned data sheets and, there, the curves that showed the basic, simple minded performance of the power transistors.
Out of undergraduate school and in a job for a while and with some good successes, I came to have a sense of what where good, appropriate, and promising investments into the unknown. The lessons of high school conflicted with that "sense".
Why would you assume I would bring up wet lab work in the context of mathematics? https://sites.google.com/site/mathreuprograms/
Here's a 20-year-old 20-year retrospective: http://www.d.umn.edu/~jgallian/tanglewood.html
I was asking.
Okay. Graph theory, etc.
Finishing a PhD is unlike completing a project in most other jobs. In most other jobs, someone needs what you're working on. Other people's investment in the outcome is similar to your own. If you fail to complete your work, others are likely to fail to complete their work. Consequently, incentives (hopefully) line up, and infrastructure (hopefully) exists to support you, with the recognition that your success is linked to group success.
Your PhD dissertation is not like this. Yes, your adviser is invested in you finishing - but not as nearly as much as you are. They will have other students, and they can always work on their own. Your peers may be invested, if they are working on another part of the project - but if you do not finish, they will find a way to get on without you. Your university is invested in you (quite literally, most of the time, with money), but again, not as nearly as invested as you are: plenty of grad students never finish, and they will help you, but schools also recognize that not all students finish.
The author has a good list, and I may read his book, but he's missing this attitude that I felt I had to adopt. The person who cares most about you finishing is you, and sometimes that means having to be selfish in order to finish. That can take of the form of not engaging in as much service in your department, or not providing some help on a project that is not part of your dissertation.
I do think this attitude is unfortunate, but it is a natural result of the requirement that a PhD dissertation represents work that the student owns. I much more enjoy the research I have done in an industry research lab, where me and my colleagues have collaborated equally. (Or equal-enough that in a grad school context, no one person could claim ownership of the work for a dissertation.) But, it's the system we have, and because of that, I think that in order to finish, grad students have to - at least eventually - adopt a selfish attitude.
Specifically, this "selfish attitude" means ruthless evaluating: will this thing get me closer to graduation? If no, don't do it. (Obviously this only applies to work. Having a life outside of grad school work is enormously important.) In the beginning, I don't think one needs to have this attitude. But as you approach completion, I think one needs to start thinking this way.