This is a very fair view of the scene, and it all rings true. But do remember that it is written by a professor.
Speaking as someone who has been seduced into academia on multiple occasions by my friends who are professors: They are hopeless optimists. This is not their fault. Indeed, it is a precondition for their existence: just as you would not be surprised to find that most of the creatures sitting on top of a high crag have wings and can fly, you should not be surprised that most professors, and especially most tenured professors, are completely besotted with their lifestyle and can barely conceive of anything else. Darwin has seen to this. The academic environment is all about selection pressure.
For example, this essay is by a particularly self-aware and wry professor, so he's able to joke that "getting a PhD costs you a house". But self-critics don't last long if they go for the jugular, so he doesn't point out that, if you wish to continue doing research after your PhD, it's going to cost you another house, and another: Postdocs pay better than graduate fellowships, but still only half what industry pays, if that, and even less if you calculate the hourly rate. And then to go any further you will need to start writing grants, and administering students, none of which is exactly research. Then you probably won't get to keep your job writing grants because it's hard to get the grants, and hard to get tenure... [1]
So, take this fellow's advice to heart, but be sure to also have a beer with a real cynic before spending fifteen years in pursuit of academic nirvana.
---
[1] I never studied CS, so maybe the grass is greener over there and CS is some kind of abundant academic paradise where grants flow like water. But I kind of doubt it.
One of the things I miss about academia is the ability to do whatever the hell I wanted too outside of work. This allowed me take on some fairly lucrative consulting jobs during the course of my PhD. Although I haven't looked too hard, it seems to me that once you get into industry it is very difficult to work on anything on the side without having to worry about things like IP restrictions. I think in California it is illegal for companies to try and restrict you from doing extra work outside contract hours, but from what I gather it is hard to find companies anywhere else that will agree to such a thing (well at least here in the UK). Actually it is one of my pet theories that this law is a significant contributing factor to the number of companies started in Silicon Valley. I'd be interested in hearing about any experiences people have had in avoiding such restrictions on after hours work, especially in the UK.
Good points - always good to get multiple views. It's worth pointing out that at least in CS, you can keep doing research after getting a PhD by joining industry labs, which shouldn't cost you as many houses.
Re: your footnote, the exact comparison would depend on what field you're looking over from, but no, grants don't flow like water in CS.
In fact, there's been some discussion lately that CS reviewers are overly critical of each others' articles and grant proposals, compared to other fields. For example, in a recent editor's note[1], Moshe Vardi coined the term "Hypercriticality" to describe the harshness of CS reviews. There's a great quote from Ed Lazowska, who called it "Circling the wagons and shooting inwards".
But said professor is currently on a break from research, working at Google. He has expressed a desire to "just write some code" and "deal with real problems".
"The only reason to do a PhD is because you love doing research."
Can't stress this enough. A lot of people do grad school just because they didn't like a string of jobs they had, think they need more training to switch to a certain specialty, or even just because they're still basically searching for what they want to do in life. Those are all excellent questions to ask yourself before taking another job, and also excellent ways to go into grad school with exactly the wrong attitude and become a huge dropout risk.
I got lucky and learned all this without having to go to grad school. My first job out of college was at my college because I turned my undergrad job into a fulltime role and the grad students were the only other people on that part of campus that were close to my age. The biggest difference between the ones that enjoyed the experience and those that didn't even make it to the end was that the dropouts still didn't know exactly what they wanted to do in life, so they thought they'd try research only to get chewed up and spat out by tenure-starved associate professors.
There is another approach to a PhD that this article did not mention. A couple of my friends are doing a PhD with the aim to be professors at much lower ranked universities where the research pressure isn't so high and the emphasis is more on teaching. They want the easier, more relaxed life that it offers.
One of them is more interested in teaching, and he wants to have the relaxed atmosphere of a lower university so that he can spend his free time (including whole summers) on his music, which is his true passion. The other one is a pretty involved family man, and he wants a laid back, relaxed job with some academic freedom to do interesting things and the ability to spend a lot more time with his family than a normal job would offer.
They're both midwestern folk, and are happy living in relatively rural areas in states that I suspect most HN users wouldn't dream of living in.
For some reason, the high powered paper-excreting types tend to look down on this approach or at the very least completely overlook it. I don't quite understand why.
For us in Germany, these "more teaching, less research" universities are actually a separate kind of institution.
While "regular" universities are mostly research oriented, "universities of applied sciences" have only a small bit of a professor's time allocated to research. Most of their time is spent giving lectures, preparing material, managing student projects and talking to people from the industry about possible collaborations.
Both universities have bachelors + masters degrees. PhDs are usually only available at the "regular" universities, not the "applied science" ones.
I actually think that being a professor at one of the universities of applied sciences must be a fun job. You get to read about new stuff, play with it and teach students. From time to time, there is a small research project or a conference you can go to...
Something interesting, at least at my university (an applied sciences one) is, that one of the prerequisites for being a Professor are at least ?6? years in the industry. I was part (the student rep) of a commission that selected a new professor. They're basically looking for a Senior Project Manager from a research and development department that is fed up with the way the industry works and loves his craft (this was in CS)
Indeed this is a lovely route.
Maybe I don't want to be in the cutting edge.
But I want to be a great teacher.
Someone that disseminates knowledge in a way that makes sense for the students.
Someone that is influential en students lives and maybe those students will go and become great researchers.
So yes being "just" a great teacher is a worthy goal on its own.
Even if you want a position at an undergraduate college (which is by no means certain if even if you get a PhD), getting the PhD still requires doing research.
In fact just the other day HN linked an article by Matt Might who cited "aiming low" as one of the reasons PhD students fail.
I'm not really sure why the OP says that the Master's has more coursework than the PhD. At least in my Master's program at UMD, the PhDs have to take the same amount of classes as the Master's students. The only difference is that in the Master's, after you're done with your classes, you either write a thesis or a scholarly paper (for non-thesis based), and you're done. If you're a PhD student, you finish your classes, then you spend the next few years working on research towards your dissertation.
He might be referring to more work for an MS Comps, which is the non-thesis Master's. Instead of writing a thesis (which counts as 6 credit hours) you have to take 30 credit hours worth of classes, and half of those classes must be "MS Comps," where at least 50% of your grade in a class (at least here at UMD) must come from exams. I am doing a thesis-based Master's, so I guess you could say I am able to take all my classes just as a PhD student would - in that in most classes there is a research project due at the end of the semester on a topic of your choosing. This allows you to shape the course to your liking and interests.
For me, being a Master's student has afforded me just as many research opportunities as a PhD student; I just won't be here as long.
He means that the students finish up their coursework during their Masters program, so the PhD work is usually entirely research. Thus during your Masters program, you frequently don't get a good idea at all of how the PhD program is.
I think it varies a lot. In my PhD program I am not required to take a single class. Suggested to. You'll fail your quals if you don't, suggested to. But not required at all.
Almost 20 years ago, I went back and earned my PhD in computer engineering after serving a 4 year military commitment I incurred for my ROTC scholarship.
A few things I should point out:
1) You can finish in 4 years. I did. You just have to be organized and not allow your advisor define your pace. I finished ahead of some of my undergrad peers who went straight through. They waited for their advisors to tell them when they were ready.
2) I did my PhD mainly because I wanted the challenge. Life isn't just about money. I had fun doing it, I learned a lot about myself and my field, and I'd do it again.
3) The payoff isn't just the credential. Having done it, I am no longer intimidated by things I don't know how to do.
4) This quote is silly: "Once you have a PhD -- and even during the process of getting one -- you are able to be your own boss. Rather than working on someone else's vision, you are the one to define the vision" You don't need a PhD to be your own boss, and getting a PhD is not a ticket to being your own boss. That quote leads me to think the author doesn't have much of a clue about the world outside academia.
"If you are serious about going to grad school, I do not recommend [working in industry "for a year or two" and then appling to grad school "later."]"
This suprised me. It is what I did, as well as several other people in my year. The difference in maturity and competency between the people who have worked in industry and those who haven't is night and day. In my experience, people who have spent time in industry are much stronger PhD candidates.
That might be true, but it's irrelevant. The right question to ask is, "what will make me better off after 7 years? 2 years exp -> PhD or PhD -> 2 years exp?"
I suspect PhD -> work is better, since the 2 years of industry experience will probably be at a higher level.
On masters vs PhD: here in the Netherlands you have to do Bachelor -> Master -> PhD. I don't think it's at all common to skip masters and go straight to PhD. And pretty much anyone who completes bachelor continues with master.
Some UK courses now are 4 year MEng vs 3 year BEng + optional 1 year MSc (FWIW I started on the former and ended up doing the latter for various reasons).
I think it is like this pretty much everywhere but the US. At least it is in France, UK, and Japan, and the US are the only country I have heard so far where you don't have to get a master before a PhD.
Not necessarily for any particular person. So much depends on your personality and that of your adviser, coworkers, and other prominent folks in the field.
But all the bad things happen to someone, often one of your friends. For a Ph.D. holder reading PhD Comics is an exercise in nodding with recognition.
And I haven't read all that much PhD Comics so I don't know if it plumbs the real depths. Do characters in the comic become suicidally depressed? Do professors drive talented eighth-year students to drop out by making crazy demands on their time? Do students find themselves drafted as poorly paid, no-equity employees at their adviser's startup company? I saw all of that happen to one friend or another in the real world.
It depends a lot on department culture. Some departments are really fragmented, the professors hate each other, etc. So if you're in a department like that then not only will you be stressed out from all the work you are doing but you will also be miserable. That's why it's really important to get a feel for the place by visiting it first but even then it will be hard to get a read on the culture. Doing research 5 days a week really wears you down if the people around you doing similar work are assholes.
There can certainly be some dark times. Sometimes when reading PhD comics I didn't know whether to laugh or cry! Do I regret doing a PhD? Not for a moment: on balance my PhD and postdoc years were fantastic. Although part of my happyness is because I was lucky enough to be in good places and do moderately well. As with going into anything, people should get a balance of views and then decide what's best for them.
It can be, and the end is certainly very stressful. But the amount of things you can learn during a PhD, and the pleasure of working/meeting very smart people is rewarding. Your mileage may vary, obviously.
Also, in my case, even though I left academia afterwards, the PhD's freedom enabled me to become involved in several open source communities which have opened a lot of opportunities. If you like freedom, and you like research, I think PhD are a good experience, even if you don't end up in academia - after all, most PhD graduates do no become tenured professors.
As others have said, it can be.
He certainly isn't making any of the situations up in those comics.
But of course, the good parts of grad school aren't as funny - so they don't show up as much in the comics, but should help balance out all the despair.
In Canada, at least, there is no checks or accountability on the the supervising professor. A bad supervisor can _really_ make a person's life difficult and there's not much the student can do about it.
True in my limited experience (EE not CS). The UK PhDs get a pretty well defined thesis topic and graduate on schedule.
The US PhDs don't have a clear finish line until less than a year from finishing.
The "joke" in the US is that if someone says they are six months from finishing it is really a year, if they say a year from finishing it is 2+ years, if they say more than a year they have no idea how much longer.
I have always had on my someday list to do a PHD in developing a quantitative model for information security risk using power laws because I believe it is something that is badly needed and something I am passionate about. I started to explore the problem here: http://rakkhi.blogspot.com/2010/07/security-return-on-invest...
Could I do this online while doing my full time job?
What are some universities that are quite cost effective and would support this type of online / distance learning model for a PHD?
Northcentral University does an online PhD in CS for 27k GBP. You could also talk to folks at Open University. They have a wide range of MPhil and PhD interests and might advise you.
And yes, you can do a PhD and work at the same time. Depends what motivates you and makes you happy. If you cannot wait to be productive and find things out, the sky is the limit.
Just watch out for burn out...
I've never seen the appeal of grad school CS. I love programming, making money, learning, creating, building, reading and writing, but I can do all of these things outside of grad school. And do them much cheaper and faster and with greater flexibility. I can even try to push the state of the field forward, if I wished. (Personally, I don't care about this aspect.)
[+] [-] mechanical_fish|15 years ago|reply
Speaking as someone who has been seduced into academia on multiple occasions by my friends who are professors: They are hopeless optimists. This is not their fault. Indeed, it is a precondition for their existence: just as you would not be surprised to find that most of the creatures sitting on top of a high crag have wings and can fly, you should not be surprised that most professors, and especially most tenured professors, are completely besotted with their lifestyle and can barely conceive of anything else. Darwin has seen to this. The academic environment is all about selection pressure.
For example, this essay is by a particularly self-aware and wry professor, so he's able to joke that "getting a PhD costs you a house". But self-critics don't last long if they go for the jugular, so he doesn't point out that, if you wish to continue doing research after your PhD, it's going to cost you another house, and another: Postdocs pay better than graduate fellowships, but still only half what industry pays, if that, and even less if you calculate the hourly rate. And then to go any further you will need to start writing grants, and administering students, none of which is exactly research. Then you probably won't get to keep your job writing grants because it's hard to get the grants, and hard to get tenure... [1]
So, take this fellow's advice to heart, but be sure to also have a beer with a real cynic before spending fifteen years in pursuit of academic nirvana.
---
[1] I never studied CS, so maybe the grass is greener over there and CS is some kind of abundant academic paradise where grants flow like water. But I kind of doubt it.
[+] [-] anonymousDan|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mmc|15 years ago|reply
Re: your footnote, the exact comparison would depend on what field you're looking over from, but no, grants don't flow like water in CS.
In fact, there's been some discussion lately that CS reviewers are overly critical of each others' articles and grant proposals, compared to other fields. For example, in a recent editor's note[1], Moshe Vardi coined the term "Hypercriticality" to describe the harshness of CS reviews. There's a great quote from Ed Lazowska, who called it "Circling the wagons and shooting inwards".
[1] http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2010/7/95070-hypercriticality/...
[+] [-] jganetsk|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alabut|15 years ago|reply
Can't stress this enough. A lot of people do grad school just because they didn't like a string of jobs they had, think they need more training to switch to a certain specialty, or even just because they're still basically searching for what they want to do in life. Those are all excellent questions to ask yourself before taking another job, and also excellent ways to go into grad school with exactly the wrong attitude and become a huge dropout risk.
I got lucky and learned all this without having to go to grad school. My first job out of college was at my college because I turned my undergrad job into a fulltime role and the grad students were the only other people on that part of campus that were close to my age. The biggest difference between the ones that enjoyed the experience and those that didn't even make it to the end was that the dropouts still didn't know exactly what they wanted to do in life, so they thought they'd try research only to get chewed up and spat out by tenure-starved associate professors.
[+] [-] sofal|15 years ago|reply
One of them is more interested in teaching, and he wants to have the relaxed atmosphere of a lower university so that he can spend his free time (including whole summers) on his music, which is his true passion. The other one is a pretty involved family man, and he wants a laid back, relaxed job with some academic freedom to do interesting things and the ability to spend a lot more time with his family than a normal job would offer.
They're both midwestern folk, and are happy living in relatively rural areas in states that I suspect most HN users wouldn't dream of living in.
For some reason, the high powered paper-excreting types tend to look down on this approach or at the very least completely overlook it. I don't quite understand why.
[+] [-] rb2k_|15 years ago|reply
While "regular" universities are mostly research oriented, "universities of applied sciences" have only a small bit of a professor's time allocated to research. Most of their time is spent giving lectures, preparing material, managing student projects and talking to people from the industry about possible collaborations.
Both universities have bachelors + masters degrees. PhDs are usually only available at the "regular" universities, not the "applied science" ones.
I actually think that being a professor at one of the universities of applied sciences must be a fun job. You get to read about new stuff, play with it and teach students. From time to time, there is a small research project or a conference you can go to...
Something interesting, at least at my university (an applied sciences one) is, that one of the prerequisites for being a Professor are at least ?6? years in the industry. I was part (the student rep) of a commission that selected a new professor. They're basically looking for a Senior Project Manager from a research and development department that is fed up with the way the industry works and loves his craft (this was in CS)
[+] [-] elviejo|15 years ago|reply
So yes being "just" a great teacher is a worthy goal on its own.
Even if you don't discover anything new.
[+] [-] Goladus|15 years ago|reply
In fact just the other day HN linked an article by Matt Might who cited "aiming low" as one of the reasons PhD students fail.
[+] [-] mawhidby|15 years ago|reply
He might be referring to more work for an MS Comps, which is the non-thesis Master's. Instead of writing a thesis (which counts as 6 credit hours) you have to take 30 credit hours worth of classes, and half of those classes must be "MS Comps," where at least 50% of your grade in a class (at least here at UMD) must come from exams. I am doing a thesis-based Master's, so I guess you could say I am able to take all my classes just as a PhD student would - in that in most classes there is a research project due at the end of the semester on a topic of your choosing. This allows you to shape the course to your liking and interests.
For me, being a Master's student has afforded me just as many research opportunities as a PhD student; I just won't be here as long.
[+] [-] blacksmythe|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tel|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baddspellar|15 years ago|reply
A few things I should point out: 1) You can finish in 4 years. I did. You just have to be organized and not allow your advisor define your pace. I finished ahead of some of my undergrad peers who went straight through. They waited for their advisors to tell them when they were ready. 2) I did my PhD mainly because I wanted the challenge. Life isn't just about money. I had fun doing it, I learned a lot about myself and my field, and I'd do it again. 3) The payoff isn't just the credential. Having done it, I am no longer intimidated by things I don't know how to do. 4) This quote is silly: "Once you have a PhD -- and even during the process of getting one -- you are able to be your own boss. Rather than working on someone else's vision, you are the one to define the vision" You don't need a PhD to be your own boss, and getting a PhD is not a ticket to being your own boss. That quote leads me to think the author doesn't have much of a clue about the world outside academia.
[+] [-] thisisnotmyname|15 years ago|reply
This suprised me. It is what I did, as well as several other people in my year. The difference in maturity and competency between the people who have worked in industry and those who haven't is night and day. In my experience, people who have spent time in industry are much stronger PhD candidates.
[+] [-] yummyfajitas|15 years ago|reply
I suspect PhD -> work is better, since the 2 years of industry experience will probably be at a higher level.
[+] [-] jules|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CaseOfEmergency|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gaius|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cdavid|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sz|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mechanical_fish|15 years ago|reply
But all the bad things happen to someone, often one of your friends. For a Ph.D. holder reading PhD Comics is an exercise in nodding with recognition.
And I haven't read all that much PhD Comics so I don't know if it plumbs the real depths. Do characters in the comic become suicidally depressed? Do professors drive talented eighth-year students to drop out by making crazy demands on their time? Do students find themselves drafted as poorly paid, no-equity employees at their adviser's startup company? I saw all of that happen to one friend or another in the real world.
[+] [-] greenlblue|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] imurray|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cdavid|15 years ago|reply
Also, in my case, even though I left academia afterwards, the PhD's freedom enabled me to become involved in several open source communities which have opened a lot of opportunities. If you like freedom, and you like research, I think PhD are a good experience, even if you don't end up in academia - after all, most PhD graduates do no become tenured professors.
[+] [-] mmc|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rikthevik|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _corbett|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gaius|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] imurray|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arethuza|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blacksmythe|15 years ago|reply
The "joke" in the US is that if someone says they are six months from finishing it is really a year, if they say a year from finishing it is 2+ years, if they say more than a year they have no idea how much longer.
[+] [-] rakkhi|15 years ago|reply
I have always had on my someday list to do a PHD in developing a quantitative model for information security risk using power laws because I believe it is something that is badly needed and something I am passionate about. I started to explore the problem here: http://rakkhi.blogspot.com/2010/07/security-return-on-invest...
Could I do this online while doing my full time job? What are some universities that are quite cost effective and would support this type of online / distance learning model for a PHD?
[+] [-] radekstepan|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mkramlich|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] c00p3r|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pjscott|15 years ago|reply