Ask HN: How does one find a research avenue? (retry)
I am considering getting into research, and I'm trying to figure out how one goes about finding a problem to solve.
Backstory:
I completed my bachelors in '16 with some significant side/hobby projects (kernel/systems) and I'm now working as an engineer at one of the Major Ones :/. Although it pays well for now, I am slowly losing motivation and creativity and it is replacing my 'engineering for the fun of it' mindset with 'do what you're told to'.
I'll need to adapt heavily to be able to thrive in this environment as a generic software engineer. I'm not learning, I'm not specializing, and I start to realize that I want to put in concentrated effort and work towards something for myself. Hence the idea of pursuing research, or working for/on a startup.
My reason for going into academia to pursue a PhD would be, to be able to focus X years of independent research towards an idea I think can turn into a product later. But that depends on the idea/domain, the supervisors I work with and how success is measured (number of publications v/s real-world outcome, which may have a gap). Of course if I can't turn it into a product later, I have specialized and can come back to the industry.
With all of this^, my intent is to be working on something relevant, and for myself.
Please correct me if my perspective is horribly wrong : ).
Thanks.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17024792 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17027601 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17033664
2 comments
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I answered you at length in an earlier comment[0], but you never replied, so I don't know what your reaction is to it. Let me be more blunt.
Getting a PhD requires doing research that will get you a PhD. If your objective is to do research to start a company or business, that is almost certainly different, and almost certainly has little or no overlap.
If your objective is to do research to start a company or business, doing a PhD is almost certainly not the way to go about it.
How would you fund your PhD?
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17027828
> I answered you at length in an earlier comment[0], but you never replied, so I don't know what your reaction is to it. Let me be more blunt.
Not responding to your comment earlier didn't mean I didn't consider your input valid, I appreciate it a lot and needed a bit more time to form thoughts. With the reposts I am simply trying to gather more opinions.
As my post, the objective is to turn the research into a product. I realize that it's very probabilistic to find such a research idea, although there have been companies that started this way out of a thesis. In my limited view, going for a PhD would give the freedom to work on a _valuable_ problem (== current industry relevant engineering issue) (a big probability factor-in here) rather than blurting out startup ideas and seeing what sticks.
And hence my focus was, _how_ to look for a tentative problem, or how to even start thinking in that direction.
I understand that a PhD is not the only way (or maybe not at all?). And research is tough investment. But it seems like one way to create something...