Abolish the PhD (2016)

http://blog.devicerandom.org/2016/05/16/abolish-the-phd/

by allenleein • 4 years ago

116 191 4 years ago

blog.devicerandom.org

tgv• 4 years ago

Does the author think that if we do away with the title, young academic workers, without publications or status, are going to be treated any better? If it somehow manages to overcome the temp-worker problem by giving them permanent contracts or tenure, the outcome won't be pretty. We've been there and done that. If we don't, the problem stays, but we've abolished the title.

"Are you a doctor yet son?" "No ma, but I've got three publications in Frontiers of Cell, Memory, and Sports Management."

leereeves• 4 years ago

The author thinks (and said) that if we do away with PhD programs, early career researchers will have all the protections afforded employees. For an unfortunate subset of PhD candidates, that would be an improvement.

oogali• 4 years ago

I don't doubt that the author would agree with you that a PhD by any other name still suffers from the same problems.

The contents suggest that author's title is hyperbolic and they know it, as the author is [clearly] calling for dismantling/restructuring/etc of the whole structure and pipeline by laying out each of the faults point by point.

david_allison• 4 years ago

(2016)

Fomite10• 4 years ago

"Problem is, “graduate students” are not students. They are workers."

Graduate students are both.

My students benefit heavily from me not necessarily treating them to the same standards as I would treat a full time research employee. And while they are the primary workhorses of research, there are large swathes of their graduate student careers where they are not particularly (or often negatively) productive.

I will take a chance on a promising student straight out of undergrad who seems like they might be interesting, knowing that it will take them some time to get their feet under them.

That would be very different if they were employees.

Should we build in more protection and better benefits for graduate students, both from the perspective of them being students and employees? Absolutely. But they are students.

xyzzy123• 4 years ago

In industry we just call those junior and senior employees.

shioyama• 4 years ago

This a thousand times.

And while they are the primary workhorses of research, there are large swathes of their graduate student careers where they are not particularly (or often negatively) productive.

Um, hello. This happens in industry as well. It's called training, learning, whatever. It's an investment on the part of the company in the future of its workforce. Why should academia expect to only pay employees who are "fully educated" and require no non-productive time to learn things?

As someone who has been there, academica is so f*cked up and those in it seem completely out of touch with the reality outside of it.

brabel• 4 years ago

Agree 100%... in tech, specifically, almost everyone is junior in at least some parts of your stack... by OP's standards we are all "students", which is true in some sense as we're always learning even after 20 years in the industry... but that doesn't mean a 20-year career veteran should be considered a "student" and given a different treatment because he/she never used Kafka or k8s and has to learn those from scratch. I really don't see how it's any different in research (I have no Phd, but I was with my wife through her whole Phd so I know how things go in that world).

MontyCarloHall4• 4 years ago

The standards for junior employees are much higher. I have encountered several PhDs in computational fields who barely knew how to code when they were first admitted to their grad programs. They would not have been hired as junior software engineers at any decent company.

ModernMech4• 4 years ago

Is it expected that a junior employee will remain as such for 5-10 years? Of course not. Junior employees are promoted and given more responsibility, or they are fired quickly if they are not performing well.

Do companies let junior employees work on whatever they want? Manage their time as they want? No, one of the key indicators of an employee status is that their time and work is managed by their employer.

If a junior employee works on some passion project related to their work but on their own time, do they own the intellectual property of that work? Probably not; many employers demand that all IP created by the junior employee belongs to the company.

I think this is a case of “be careful what you wish for”.

rjzzleep• 4 years ago

It depends where. Both the article and the responses throw everything in the same basket, as if it all universities are the same and all education systems are the same. The bologna accords sure tried to make all higher-ed work in the same fashion and it has been a disaster.

There is no doubt that in the US in a lot of universities graduate students are a cheap workforce that reinforces corporate interests through research that is funded by them to sway public opinion in certain directions.

To some extent this is due to the sheer amounts of money that flow into academy and the amount of money that you need to stay competitive. So you can't piss off your patrons.

For a long time at least the fact that graduate students in europe received a steady subsidy that is enough to comfortably live and universities received fixed amounts that are not dependent on industry push allowed universities to stay independent for the longest time. Although that too is changing.

There is a fair share of critique on the latter system, but in general it allows for more independent research institutions.

dsr3• 4 years ago

"There is no doubt that in the US in a lot of universities graduate students are a cheap workforce that reinforces corporate interests through research that is funded by them to sway public opinion in certain directions."

Citation is needed for this subject. Large amount of research in University is funded by NSF or the Federal Government. While industrial interest also contribute significantly to research fund, it is excessive to accuses a lot of universities to be a crony in a corporate-academic-complex.

badrabbit3• 4 years ago

You can go from undergrad to phd???

LudwigNagasena• 4 years ago

In the US PhD often includes master's.

chrisseaton15• 4 years ago

Doing a masters in between is usually I'd say a big waste of time and very inadvisable. If you're strong enough to start your PhD then just start it.

And to literally answer your question - you don't need any kind of prior degree at all to start a PhD. I was recently investigating getting a gifted engineer onto a PhD programme without an undergraduate, and it was possible.

mr_mitm2• 4 years ago

In the US you can enroll in either a master's program or a PhD program after obtaining the bachelor degree. Both count as graduate programs. The PhD program then usually takes as long as getting a masters degree and then a PhD in Germany, for example. PhD programs in natural sciences in Germany take around 3 years (can be longer), but the PhD program in the US for bachelor graduates takes 5-6 years.

marcosdumay• 4 years ago

Some countries impose (or almost impose) a masters in between. but it's more the exception than the rule.

(Also, those countries tend to have shorter PhDs. So it's not exactly wasted time.)

Fomite10• 4 years ago

I did, as did a number of my colleagues.

fruffy4• 4 years ago

As a current CS PhD in the US I find this sentiment aggravating. I am not a mere "student", I am a full-time employee. I do not take classes and I am not interested in taking classes. I would either like to teach or work on my research in a collaborative environment with other like-minded peers.

Many PhDs are in their late 20s/early 30s, coming from all swaths of life. They are not children. However, in the American education system they are treated as if they were. While this sentiment can have its perks, as shown in the OP, it also means PhDs do not get proper contracts, pay, benefits, or any voice.

Thankfully, I managed to maneuver myself into a position that is livable but I frequently talk to other CS PhDs from other American institutions. It is depressing to hear what people have to put up with in their degree. Sure, the PhD requires initial training, but the ramp-up is not so slow that it is necessary to be stuck in the same serf status for 5+ years.

Unfortunately, I think this is a systemic issue that is not easy to solve.

chrisseaton15• 4 years ago

I am not a mere "student", I am a full-time employee.

Isn't 'student' the preferable option here? I was proud to be a student when I was doing my PhD. (I said 'doctoral student' when I wanted to be more clear.) Why do you want to work for someone else, on their hours, answerable to them, doing their research and teaching their classes, instead of working on your own research?

I can't understand why you'd want to be an employee?!

linuxftw• 4 years ago

Unfortunately, I think this is a systemic issue that is not easy to solve.

It's incredibly easy to solve. Quit your PhD and encourage others to do so as well. You're being used.

ModernMech4• 4 years ago

Agreed 100%. As a grad student, I made so many mistakes, destroying expensive equipment in the process. I took a 3 year leave of absence to join a startup and was taken back without question when it failed. I went on intellectual flights of fancy on a whim when I found things interesting without telling my PI, wasting precious time and missing deadlines. I took classes and then dropped them when I got too busy, wasting my PI’s grant money. I was given tasks to accomplish and failed them miserably.

He tolerated all of it because I was a student and the expectations were set accordingly.

As a professor today, I take the same attitude toward my students, and I think it’s for their benefit. If they want to be treated as employees, the bar for admission becomes a lot higher, and the expectations do as well. The capacity for mistakes goes down, and the latitude and freedom afforded to them to explore their interests goes away entirely.

Employees do what they’re told when they’re told it, and they are paid accordingly. I’m not sure that’s what many PhD students actually want when they say they want to be treated as employees.

watwut2• 4 years ago

My students benefit heavily from me not necessarily treating them to the same standards as I would treat a full time research employee.

Aren't PhD students working long hours already? I really dont see where is the supposed additional slack they are having.

I will take a chance on a promising student straight out of undergrad who seems like they might be interesting, knowing that it will take them some time to get their feet under them. That would be very different if they were employees.

That is called junior.

dls20162• 4 years ago

Aren't PhD students working long hours already?

Depends highly on the field. I knew some materials science PhD students who were relatively well-funded to work in the lab (~$35k per year), but often spent nights and weekends baby sitting experiments. But there was no undergraduate materials science program, so no teaching!

I was in the mathematics department where most people worked as teaching assistants for $22k per year (summer work available) but otherwise did as they pleased. I would maybe meet with my adviser for a few minutes per week? And after you've taught calculus five times, you can kind of coast.

Fomite10• 4 years ago

"Aren't PhD students working long hours already? I really dont see where is the supposed additional slack they are having."

They are - but I rarely impose my preferences for when they work, don't check to see if they've accrued enough vacation time, etc.

There's also slack that's not just "hours worked". A PhD student going down an intellectually stimulating but ultimately tangental rabbit hole that doesn't tie itself to a grant aim but might spawn a side project is something I'd encourage. I would not do the same for a staff scientist.

ur-whale• 4 years ago

"And while they are the primary workhorses of research"

If find this sentence borderline offensive, and for many reasons.

I'll just lay out the most prominent one: don't you miss doing actual work yourself?

Fomite10• 4 years ago

I miss it rather a lot - though I do do a fair amount of actual work myself still.

But I also take my responsibility to keep my lab - including both staff scientists and graduate students - funded rather seriously.

adamsmith14310• 4 years ago

It's simple, much of Europe has already figured this out. Pay PhD students appropriately, and give them full benefits. The idea that they are only contributing work worth the equivalent of minimum wage in the US is completely absurd and ensures only students with particularly forgiving attitudes or ones from wealthy backgrounds can reasonably complete PhDs here. I recently saw PhD stipends at UNC Chapel Hill advertised at 20000 per year and this comes with virtually 0 benefits which for a major research university is frankly shameful.

University of Amsterdam for example:

"Included Benefits:

University of Amsterdam PhD candidates are fully-funded for four years and earn competitive salaries. The salary will be in accordance with the University regulations for academic personnel, and will range from €2,325 to €2,972 (salary scale P) gross per month. This is excl. 8% holiday allowance and 8,3% end of year bonus. The Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities is applicable.

Additional comprehensive benefits include paid vacation, sick leave, disability insurance, maternity and parental leave and pension contribution. The mandatory Dutch health insurance is not included, but is very affordable (~€100 per month). Relocation costs (within reason) will also be reimbursed."

light_hue_18• 4 years ago

It's simple, much of Europe has already figured this out. Pay PhD students appropriately, and give them full benefits.

The EU is in many ways worse. You have the same problem except that your PhD is worth much less.

PhD students in the EU make less than students in the US! And virtually all of them in the US get full benefits.

You just said good salary, and listed University of Amsterdam as offering 27900-35000 per year.

At UNC, minimums are: bio $33k, chemistry $28k, CS $25k. And North Carolina is far cheaper than Amsterdam.

PhDs in the EU live often in much more expensive areas and make less than PhD students in the US.

borroka• 4 years ago

When did my PhD in a Southern European country -- I completed it 15 years ago -- I was getting 800 euros a month after taxes. Right now, PhD students get no more than 1000 euros a month after taxes. It is peanuts, difficult to live on that salary, almost impossible to have a family. Difficult to say if it is too little or too much, on the one hand it is a student position, on the other we are talking about skilled graduates with possible important contributions to offer.

Fomite10• 4 years ago

I did my PhD at UNC Chapel Hill. I was able to live without debt, pay for flights to see my (at the time) long distance girlfriend, and I got medical insurance when I needed it.

The dental plan was indeed appallingly bad.

kergonath• 4 years ago

But they are students.

They are trainees or apprentices. Our job as supervisors is to show them how the thing is done, and then provide them conditions to do it themselves. Like with any trainee, it is true that productivity is initially not great, because they need training and experience.

Apprenticeships are sometimes looked down upon because they tend to be associated with professions considered unglamorous, but that’s what a PhD is.

They have a student status with the implicit acknowledgment that they would not be as productive as accomplished professionals but their job is not to study as in high school or undergrad, it’s to learn the job by doing it supervised.

Fomite10• 4 years ago

A number of them are also just flat out students in that they take non-trivial amounts of coursework. In my program at least, as well as the one I went through, they were still paid.

eli_gottlieb2• 4 years ago

the same standards as I would treat a full time research employee. And while they are the primary workhorses of research

They can't be the primary workhorses and also not research employees.

api• 4 years ago

I was fortunate enough to have several brilliant Ph.D's discourage me from getting one. Basically they said unless you want to be a tenured professor or a research lead at a government lab and that's the goal on which you are fixated, it's a massive waste of time.

light_hue_18• 4 years ago

This identifies a problem: PhD students are treated badly both in terms of working conditions and pay. The solution isn't to abolish the PhD. It's to have better working conditions and pay!

PhD students should be employees with all of the protections this gives them. They should have unions (I have been both at union and non-union shops, you want to be in a graduate student union). PhD students should benefit from the combination of protections given to students and to employees.

Students should get paid a living wage. The problem today is that NIH, NSF, DARPA and others refuse to give us funds to pay students reasonably. I cannot write an NIH grant to pay a PhD student reasonably. Literally. My grant will be rejected because I'm paying too much. I can't pay postdocs what they are worth either for the same reason.

For better pay, you need to lobby Congress to beat NIH, NSF, DARPA and others with a big stick until they stop this system of abuse.

If you want to end advisor abuse it's simple: PhD students should not be tied to advisors. Under a system where your funding depends on one person, you always suffer from a power imbalance. PhD students should be free agents. When you join, the university promises you 6 years of funding and checks in every 2 years. Go nuts.

As for the thesis? Even in STEM a thesis is important. But, what a thesis is has changed. Today you often staple together 5-10 papers that you published. That's great!

PhD overproduction?! Nonsense! We don't have nearly enough PhDs. The demand for PhDs in industry is huge across many fields. It's true that in some fields there is too much supply, but there's also an oversupply of people of those majors in general anyway, that's not an issue with the PhD.

PhDs are critical for the development of humanity. It's a system that takes a smart person and turns them into a capable smart person who can find hard new problems and solve them.

There is absolutely no reason why we can't unionize all PhD students, immunize them from advisor influence, and pay them a living wage.

ImprobableTruth• 4 years ago

The demand for PhDs in industry is huge across many fields

... is it really? CS is as far as I know one of the fields with the highest demand and even there the jobs that actually need a phd are pretty rare. As far as I can tell it's possibly only ML where there's a good amount of jobs that essentially require a phd.

light_hue_18• 4 years ago

... is it really? CS is as far as I know one of the fields with the highest demand and even there the jobs that actually need a phd are pretty rare.

Yes. Although, I don't blame you for being misled by terrible articles about the situation.

Historically, departments look at PhDs that go to industry as having pursued "alternate careers" that the only real goal is to stay in academia at all costs. So they talk about them as being failures. Although, that couldn't be further from the truth.

STEM PhDs have huge demand. Bio PhDs, CS, Math PhDs, engineering, etc.

How you value PhDs also matters. In many fields, a PhD will not net you more money. It will net you a much more interesting job though. In some fields, like ML, it will net you both more money and a more interesting job.

But. There is vast vast oversupply of non-STEM PhDs. These departments need to be shut down or completely reformed to stop screwing over their students.

chrisseaton15• 4 years ago

PhD students should be employees with all of the protections this gives them.

I don't understand this point of view. Why do you want to be an employee, working for someone else, with all the obligations and restrictions of that... rather than a student free to pursue what you want and to do it in your own way.

If you want to be an employee and to be told what to research, then become a research engineer, don't do a PhD. That's an existing research career that's open to you.

pca0061322• 4 years ago

I guess he means with protections provided by employment laws, as there are no laws mandating protections such as annual leave for students? I think extending employment laws to cover graduate students or setup additional laws might be more appropriate.

xavxav2• 4 years ago

In France, you normally can't apply for a thesis without funding (it may vary on field though). And the moment you have funding that makes you an employee, with the protections accorded. Since most theses are funded using public money, you become a state employee with all the additional protections that implies.

That said, PhD students (and researchers) are still poorly paid (though PhD stipends are being raised over the next few years), and though France has a legal 35 hour work week, informal pressure of academia means that tends to be thrown out the window.

There are legal requirements on graduate schools that help protect students from abusive advisors or other abuse within their laboratories, of course since the research world is small, it remains to see how effective they can be.

NotOscarWilde2• 4 years ago

Clearly a click-baity premise. If you allow me an equally click-baity metaphor, the author suggests to abolish the road system because there are too many traffic jams. My suggested solution is consistent across the metaphors: Keep the roads, but through other venues, get as many people the possibility to travel (do research and other mentally engaging work).

I feel us computer scientists and computer science students are in the best field in this regard. There are so many interesting CS jobs where you can both get a competitive salary and engage your brain -- often even in relation to what you worked on as a MSc/PhD student.

363849473754• 4 years ago

Does anyone have experience with being a non-traditional PhD student and doing your PhD later in life?

I worked a bit and want to return for a PhD in CS. I took some courses at a nearby (and good) institution and did well (for fun). I want to continue taking graduate courses and and get involved in research before I apply for PhD programs (since I been out of school for a while).

Curious to hear from older students their experiences or from professors on thoughts about older students (say late 30s/early 40s) and whether there are job opportunities in industry for folks in this age range upon completion (in say applied areas).

I’m doing it because I really want to do research and enjoy hard theoretical problems outside the scope of your regular SWE job.

enviclash• 4 years ago

Your real world experience is an advantage, try to position yourself among relatively young scholars (recently tenured) and write one paper and submit it before entering grad school.

chrisseaton15• 4 years ago

I worked for four years and then went back to do a PhD, so I did it married, with a mortgage, and a baby, etc. was stressful in some ways but in others I was more mature so more self-aware and relaxed. I didn't have a problem getting a job afterward.

m0002• 4 years ago

I've done that, mostly because my position felt stagnant and repetitive. Some things to keep in mind:

- It's a full-time job. Unless you're really brilliant, or your current position has a huge overlap with the research you want to work on, expect to drop your current position.

- You have a steady income at this point, so you're not in a rush. Be patient and research where to apply.

- If you can use your position to first network with your future advisor, do it. Can you set-up some small collaboration relevant to your current position? Even better. Trust can get you a long way, and lift any doubts.

- Your strong card is that you will probably need much less "babysitting" than a younger student. Play that well.

- Writing is essential part of the PhD. If you already have strong technical writing skills, that's a huge advantage.

- Find a PhD that involves the least amount of exams possible. It's fine to attend courses if you find the topic relevant to your research, but being forced through an exam routine may not sit very well if you're already in your mid-30s.

- Post-PhD industry job opportunities typically arise through (paid!) industry internships. Make sure to complete 1-2 of them, even if that will add to your PhD time.

avian• 4 years ago

I started my PhD in my mid-30s. I was working as engineer support staff at a science institute at the time and was encouraged to enroll in a PhD course. I dropped out of the course and academia all together after 5 years for various reasons, among others being burned out and developing health problems. I would describe myself similar to you, loving to do research and working on hard problems, but that's just a part of getting a PhD.

I strongly suggest reading the "How to Survive your Doctorate" [1]. It goes into social, financial and office politics side of doing a PhD. You might think that it's something you can avoid, but it's not. It's a book I wish I've read before going down the PhD route.

[1] https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Jane-Matthiesen/dp/0335234445

hoosieree• 4 years ago

I currently am both a full-time employee and a full-time PhD student at a US university. Recently I finished my coursework and passed a qualifying exam so now I"m a "PhD Candidate" which means I can focus more on research.

It's been very difficult to do both school and work simultaneously. It helps that I enjoy learning the material and have had some truly outstanding professors. The biggest challenges for me have been (in no particular order):

- Group assignments with unmotivated or unethical students. In 3 separate instances, I caught a student in my group attempting to submit blatantly plagiarized work (simple GitHub search to find the duplicate code). Other times I would be the only person to write any code that actually worked.

- Seemingly pointless bureaucracy, like a form certifying that I completed all my coursework which needs approval by 5 people and a minimum of 4 weeks processing time. As far as I can tell, this form only asserts that I passed >90 hours of coursework, which is already in my transcript.

- Not enough one-on-one time with my advisor.

- Not enough guidance on the publishing process. I have collected anecdotes from some professors and snippets from my advisor, but I would have appreciated some formal training. I would have gladly swapped some independent study credit hours for a course about academic publishing.

On the plus side:

- COVID restrictions forcing classes to be online really helped with logistics.

- I used to have imposter syndrome pretty bad. But comparing my work to that of other PhD students across a broad range of topics has proven to me that I'm at least better than average for this university. Maybe I am a big fish in a small pond, but some of those peers have FAANG jobs now. So maybe I'm actually getting pretty good at this stuff.

hyperbovine• 4 years ago

Mind you: this is not part-time work, or even standard 9-to-5. It is hard, continuous work, with weekends and nights spent in the lab or writing research papers (see e.g. here). Journals advise graduate students to work most weekends and long hours, because that’s how you succeed.

Or could the “because” be that you find the work deeply intellectually stimulating to the point where it’s hard to step away? I guess maybe that crowd isn’t writing about it, since they’re off doing, you know, science. This is my problem with the monthly “down with PhDs!” screed that shows up on the front page of HN. There is a huge anti-survivor bias.

ok_dad2• 4 years ago

“They hate us ‘cause they ain’t us” probably isn’t a valid explanation. Grad students are worked like dogs, everyone knows it, and in the end only few of them attain their goal of becoming a professor.

chrisseaton15• 4 years ago

Grad students are worked like dogs

They do... but the thing is the work for themselves, which I think is a different kind of hard work.

and in the end only few of them attain their goal of becoming a professor

Is that the goal?

thevania2• 4 years ago

its just one persons opinion based on his experiences, I do not share his views because my experience was completely different, for the sake of having a different perspective let me share how it went for me:

I did my PhD (and an MSc before that) in EU, as a PhD I was paid an above average salary and it even provided me enough time to work as a consultant in parallel where I was able to get a few patents - which also look good from "academic perspective"

my phd advisor didn't really care at all as long as I was producing papers that got accepted to conferences / journals and he was a co-author even though he literally never even talked to me about any of the topics of my research, so basically zero supervision as long as I produced "academic results"

I finished my PhD in 3 years (normally it should have taken more) and went straight to running my startup

would I have done it again? sure

can it be done better? sure - science and all the institutions around it are just "processes" that the collective mankind came up with over last few centuries, there will always be outliers that do not fit in, I never did fit in myself, but i sucked it up and made the best out of it, and that is what i believe the greatest thing that phd thought me - persistence under extreme pressure, and i still do that to this day - the pressure is much higher than it was back then because the stakes are much higher, but phd was the first step - breaking the barriers showing that even I can push the boundaries of what is considered possible

if money are an issue - just do a phd in EU, here I never heard of an unpaid phd position

arpa• 4 years ago

Get out more. Elsewhere in the EU PhD is not paid, at best you're doing lectures all while without any paid time off, sick leave, and if you want a good laugh from the universities' administrators, bring maternal leave up. The experience of my partner left me with a very bleak and medieval picture of the academia. And of course, if you're getting a research grant through the university, it comes as a loan of ~60-90k€ - you're expected to pay it back if your research is not as successful and, for example, you don't manage to publish enough articles in time.

Academia is a fucking joke.

thevania2• 4 years ago

sure if you can not handle it you tend to hate it

i know a lot of guys that were not able to finish phd or even basic bachelor degrees because they were too "proud" to adapt and believed they do not need to adapt and can live a good enough life without it

personally, in my organization i would never hire a person without at least a MSc for a non-research position and without a Phd for a research position - because to me the degree signifies they can adapt and will do what is necessary to accomplish the goals and won't quit on me when they will be pushed out of their comfort zone

badrabbit3• 4 years ago

As someone who hates schools and formal education with a passion, if money was not an issue (say I win a big lottery) I would be motivated by a phd (crypto in my case because I suck at it). The level of research and work demanded of you honestly feels like it would be worth it and you actually do stuff instead of pass exams and write papers the way the teacher wants it writtem and all is good, you have to have results and original thought.

m0002• 4 years ago

No, we don't need to abolish the PhD. We need to regulate and modernize it. Some of the perks of STEM PhD students in the Netherlands (and I would guess elsewhere in Europe):

* Full employee status, including pension benefits. You're still underpaid of course, compared to market rates. This also addresses issues like parental leave and holidays.

* PhD contracts are fixed-term, 1+3 years. If you are given a third fixed-term contract, you are entitled (by law) to convert your contract to indefinite term. This makes it hard to keep around students for longer than needed as cheap workers.

* The typical format for a STEM PhD thesis is "story chapter" + peer-reviewed publications in verbatim. Which means you can spend more time on research instead on an exercise in futility.

* PhD defense is purely ceremonial and timed. OFC, you can still be made look like a fool.

Daub• 4 years ago

In art and design, the requirement for lecturers to have PhD has become the norm. But this in no way guarantees quality. At my last uni, a prof had earned his doctorate with a PhD the title of which was something like: 'The Duality of Asia. Design and Art.' Neither he nor his supervisor ever noticed the problem with this.

wodenokoto• 4 years ago

My understanding is that US system places Ph.D. and masters degree in the same course.

In Europe and Asia you take a bachelor, then a masters degree. Both as university students. A masters opens the door to apply for a Ph.D.

In Denmark, for example, a Ph.D. is commonly a job position, with a limited contract. Union governed, pay, pension. You apply for a position when one is announced, just like many other jobs. Literally you see things like: "University X, department Y are looking to fill a Ph.D. position in Z. Applicants must have these qualifications ..."

madsohm• 4 years ago

Do note that, specifically in Denmark, you can do a 4+4, where you do a 4 year bachelor/master and a 4 year PhD, instead of the regular 3 year bachelor, 2 year master and then 3 year PhD. Here you'd have to apply for the PhD well before entering the university, or at least whist doing the bachelor studies.

urthor4• 4 years ago

In the US and other Anglo Saxon countries it's a free for all after Bachelors.

Whatever the faculty wants happens.

galleywest2002• 4 years ago

In the US you can apply for a PhD path or apply for a masters. The benefit of going straight to PhD path is that it is free (read: zero dollars) if you are in the STEM field. Masters are out of your pocket, unfortunately.

I made the mistake of applying for a PhD track and failed to get in, as those are super competitive. Now I feel as if I cannot ask for new letters of recommendation to try to get a masters. Its a shame, as I would love to go to graduate school one day.

I was offered the chance to be a non-matriculated student with the option of becoming a regular student after 1 quarter, but that is expensive. Once I pay off my car I think I will try to take that offer.

efitz• 4 years ago

I haven’t seen a career field yet where early-career employees are not abused.

Doctors? Residency

IT? Support or DevOps

Lawyers? “Partner track”

Our current education system at all levels is fundamentally broken in many ways. We don’t even agree on what education is for- most people think it’s for preparing you for work but many people think that it’s for training you to be well-rounded or to inculcate cultural mores and values or to propagate ideology.

In general, to prepare people for work (to enable them to self-support and to be net benefit for society rather than net cost) you need some basic education (reading, arithmetic, etc) and then some skill training.

I think all sorts of careers would benefit from having apprenticeships that incorporate whatever mix of classroom training and practice, but there are several problems:

1. Most businesses don’t want to bear the costs of training employees, and don’t care to be vested in their success in that way. They’d rather pick drop-in rock stars, compensate them as little as necessary to attract and retain them, and cut them loose the second their performance starts to drop.

2. Gatekeeping - the people who would train apprentices might feel threatened by apprentices, mostly because who wants to compete for their own job, so why not limit the number of entrants and either assimilate or eliminate ones that could pose competitive threats. many organizations, eg the AMA (American Medical Association), cosmetologists, moving companies(!) capture government licensing mechanisms and either limit entry to the field or impose ridiculous burdens of effort and cost for entry.

3. Power dynamics. TFA discussed this at length, but many people happily exploit those under their power for labor, sex, or money.

So the bottom line is that we’re screwed; there’s so much entrenched interest at every single level, and so much negative human nature involved, that there will never be some kind of systemic solution.

teekert• 4 years ago

Is this a cultural problem? I've never experienced abuse of junior employees, generally they get a "buddy" and are encouraged to find a mentor. Here in the Netherlands PhD students get a proper salary and are encouraged to finished in 4 years, I wrote my thesis with only 1 paper published (of 5 chapters). It was a nice time, I learned a lot from my friendly prof that cared about my well being and loved being in the lab with me.

It's not all bad. Sure, the whole graduation ceremony is an elitist clown-show with a weird dress-code, but it was fun.

But perhaps I was lucky.

Topolomancer• 4 years ago

There are some very good points in the article. As someone whose adviser proved troublesome when it came to graduating and letter writing (a horrible practice as well!), I second most of the points made.

At the same time, there's also reason for cautious optimism. In the German system, for instance, PhD students are paid (mind you, it's an academic salary, which is not a lot but a first year PhD student with a full time contract already makes more money than the median German salaried worker) and new graduate school regulations are supposed to crack down on advisers abusing the system.

Yes, not everything is perfect, and there's a bunch of people in academia that are trying hard to keep the status quo, but things are shifting slightly.

The most worrisome trend, also mentioned in the article, is that there are just so many highly qualified academics. If the trend I see in machine learning continues, the next generation of PhD students will require multiple publications before being admitted to a job... That's highly problematic in more than one way.

rusticpenn• 4 years ago

I was offered a half position, which was actually a 37.5% position. My second advisor proposed a summa cum laude, but my prof said its pretty close (0.6) but not there and awarded a magna cum laude with a proposal that I do a Habilitation under him…

mr_mitm2• 4 years ago

In the German system, for instance, PhD students are paid

Sometimes paid. In engineering and CS you might be able to land a full position, but for example in physics you can call yourself lucky if you get a half position -- with the same amount of work, obviously. Many must apply for scholarships, which is comparable to a half position but has the downside of not paying into unemployment insurance.

In the humanities, my understanding is that PhD students are not paid at all.

sybercecurity• 4 years ago

It also depends on the university. There are usually positions as a teacher's aide in both STEM and humanities that provide a stipend for grad students. You are paid to grade undergraduates and sometimes teach, tutor, help in labs, etc. Depends on the university but one of the few ways to support grad students in the humanities.

suyjuris• 4 years ago

In the German system, for instance, PhD students are paid (mind you, it's an academic salary, which is not a lot but a first year PhD student with a full time contract already makes more money than the median German salaried worker)

Just to put numbers on this: PhD students earn roughly 4300€ per month (before taxes and insurance), resulting in something like 2600€ take-home pay. This is for a “full-time” position (quotes because all positions are full-time, it is only the pay that is reduced). In CS full-time positions are common, in most other fields they are not.

If you want to look up details, search for E13 TV-L.

epups5• 4 years ago

For most other fields, the salary for PhDs is 65% or 50% of these numbers. Considerably lower than median salary then.

anonimamente3• 4 years ago

That we only need to abolish PhD programs is like shaving the foam off the top of a spoiled bear and thinking that fixes it. The whole premise of college has been rendered obsolete by the Internet a long time ago. What does a University provide that you cannot find online? You are paying to read textbooks and listen to someone quote from those textbooks. Do you need someone to tell you that you must study X for N hours a day and then pass a test for it? Follow your curiosity and enforce your own discipline. Other than that, colleges are merely social clubs. In the USA, the job requirement for a University degree has become part of the grand grift for profit: you are billed outrageous amounts for babysitting and then pay more in interest on the loans that you will be saddled with for decades. This, like so much of our society, has become a scam.

osrec• 4 years ago

I wholeheartedly agree. In the UK, I find it especially irritating that the biggest selling point touted for going to university by a lot of people is the "social experience", not the education!

Either way, most of the education seems to happen when you're locked away in your dorm room. I could have honestly done that studying anywhere with a bit of peace and quiet.

sigmoid102• 4 years ago

To be fair, while this works great for certain subjects like computer science, there are things you can't learn online. Medicine, chemistry, biology, experimental physics and most of engineering require labs and tools and a level of personal oversight or interaction that's just not accessible to young people otherwise. You might be able to get rid of lecture halls in the long run, but you'll never get rid of labs.

anonimamente3• 4 years ago

This makes a great case for community-based labs. There have been some startups doing this for mechanical engineering, at least. A big issue is the monopoly over labwork by the university system and then industry. The first requires your money, the second requires that you give money to the first.

danielscrubs• 4 years ago

“ What does a University provide that you cannot find online? ”

Motivation and likeminded students who put in effort for years.

Programming happens to be very addictive but this is rarely the case in other types of work.

anonimamente3• 4 years ago

Do you think that in the hypothetical absence of the formal education system, the vacuum would be filled by the collaboration of a likeminded community? Social communication among groups with common interest is easier now than it has ever been, particular across vast geographies. This is a least one positive effect of social media, notwithstanding all its negative societal impacts.

KindAndFriendly• 4 years ago

I thoroughly enjoyed my time as a PhD student.

Imho it might be the only time in your career when you are truly, 100% your own boss. You own your PhD thesis. While your professor/advisors give input and feedback you ultimately decide what goes in there and what not. You have the freedom to explore anything you deem as relevant and there are no customers/co-workers/VCs etc who tell you otherwise.

epups5• 4 years ago

You are your boss in these regards, but you are very much not your boss when it comes to a world of other issues. While I enjoyed the freedom, I experienced all sorts of abuses from higher-ups and my career was harmed by how lopsided the hierarchy is.

Balgair• 4 years ago

It sounds like you had a really good advisor.

My limited world view saw that nearly all grad students had to work on the projects that their PI got funding for. Their own research was never financially possible unless they got significant funding from outside their lab. Even my SO, who got grad school fully paid for by a smaller government agency, couldn't work on individual research and had to do what the PI said.

slotrans2• 4 years ago

100% your own boss

I don't think those words mean what you think they mean.

A more accurate description would be that you are your advisor's slave.

jiggunjer• 4 years ago

Lucky you. In many places, if the supervisor doesn't like it they won't sign off on the submission. They treat it like a paper, by demanding that it contains positive findings (i.e. p-values < 0.05) and must have wide appeal in the field. So much for freedom.

TrackerFF• 4 years ago

In Norway, you are employed by the University. Your title is a (doctorate) "stipendiat", but in any case - you are still employed, with a state governed title and minimum wage.

Current minimum wage for these seem to be 491200 NOK, or roughly $50k / year. Obviously not a whole lot compared to being a salaried professional with Masters Degree...but also much more than the usual student loan / stipend here in Norway, which is 128877 NOK / $13.2k

MontyCarloHall4• 4 years ago

After all, having a shitty job is a privilege! The abovelinked article tells it with a straight face: “Those who stick with a career in science do so because, despite the relatively poor pay, long hours and lack of security, it is all we want to do.”

This is an inherent, intractable problem with many careers that are also passions. There will always be a contingent of people willing to put in extremely long, brutal hours because they genuinely love what they’re doing. This disadvantages, if not entirely disqualifies people who simply want a regular 9-5 job in said career, since they will invariably be less successful than people for whom the career is their passion and thus push themselves because they genuinely enjoy it.

As an extreme example, consider Olympic athletes. Often for little-to-no pay, they put their bodies through long, grueling training regimens that make backbreaking sweatshop labor look easy by comparison. It is simply impossible to be a “casual” Olympic athlete.

I know a junior PI who pledged when they started their lab to maintain a culture of healthy work/life balance. That ended up going nowhere, since most of their trainees worked hard anyway because they genuinely enjoyed it. After hiring a couple trainees who were not so passionate about their work and produced very little by comparison (and caused the lab to not get funded for a major grant in the process), the PI made it a point to only hire passionate trainees, and so the cycle was complete.

galleywest2002• 4 years ago

As an extreme example, consider Olympic athletes. Often for little-to-no pay

I was under the impression these athletes get lucrative sponsorships from private companies, at least for the more high-profile sports.

austinjp• 4 years ago

so the cycle was complete.

This is the heartbreaking part. It's like the bullied child becoming the bully: it happened to me so it's gonna happen to you.

The status quo continues unchanged, despite strongly negative experiences, because nobody is empowered to make change. Quite the opposite.

avidphantasm• 4 years ago

There are problems with the way we conduct research; we rely too much on low-paid and precarious graduate research assistants and not enough on professional research scientists. However, parts of the (ideal) PhD experience are invaluable. For example: having vast stretches of distraction-free time to read, learn, and explore ideas; having your supervisor shield you completely from administrative bullshit. I don’t know how to fix our research system, but whatever we do, we must protect the good in the current system.

Andrew_nenakhov• 4 years ago

From what I got from my colleagues who were pursuing PhDs and order such degrees (like Russian Candidate of Sciences), "Science" is mostly a bureaucratic cartel that has very little too do with actual science, and ~99% of efforts are consumed by satisfying the bureaucratic requirements.

mikesabbagh• 4 years ago

Graduates are underpaid by society. The reason is either there are too many graduates, or graduate work is futile and not needed

feet• 4 years ago

I don't think its either actually. The work is insanely important

We need more basic research, I personally think it's underfunded and that's the reason that graduates are underpaid. Research in the sciences can be extremely expensive just buying equipment and supplies.

On top of that, we have universities taking massive chunks of the research funding for their own pockets to fund admin and other departments

One route to making things more affordable could be more nonprofits working as research supply companies instead of profiteering corporations.

epups5• 4 years ago

Do you also believe we have too many teachers, or that they are not needed by society? Or, maybe, there are other factors that determine wage?

CMDBob• 4 years ago

It's funny, in that my (current) PhD hasn't felt anything like that. I dunno if it's my source of funding or whatever, but I've not had to do much more than the research I said I was going to do when I got the funding. I've had a module here and there, but otherwise, I've been able to 100% focus upon the research that I've been doing, which I've totally self directed. My supervisors have been great, supportive, etc, and I've benefited from links to industry as well. It's been a great 2.5 years, and I'll be sad once it's over, really.

urthor4• 4 years ago

Just pay them more.

That's it.

The return on investment for a PhD student in Computer Science to society must be absolutely ridiculous.

badpun• 4 years ago

The return on investment for a PhD student in Computer Science to society must be absolutely ridiculous.

Are you sure? Most of them produce a bunch of either theoretical papers with little hope of ever being applied (e.g. guys squabbling about second decimal point of the constant in theoretical computational complexity of some algorithm), or, if they're in an applied field, their papers are heavily gamified to beat state of the art in some meaningless way (or just fake the results). Most of it is useless BS and I'd say is actually worsening the society, because journals and conferences are now filled with useless cruft which make finding the actual valuable contributions very hard.

tpoacher2• 4 years ago

I agree with most points in the article, with the notable exception of the Thesis. Writing individual papers vs planning and executing 3 or more years of research into a successful project with a cohesive narrative are entirely different tasks. Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/124705/58645

Also, the opening quote is unfortunate, in that it probably contradicts the article and makes many false assertions (while Dyson Freeman might be forgiven for thinking at the ripe age of 90 that a PhD is a harmful choice for "a woman who pretends to do research she is not well-suited for, only to get a paper that means nothing", I don't think it's something that can be used as a serious argument by people in academia today...).

Finally, the whole article is extremely reductive, focusing only on negative aspects, without touching any positives; i.e. it's effectively a 'rant' rather than a nuanced analysis.

However, the biggest beef I have with it is the whole "therefore the phd needs to be abolished" conclusion, which is a complete non-sequitur, and effectively the "Politician's fallacy" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism). No, PhDs do not need to be abolished. They do need to be upgraded to come with some protections, but that's a very different argument. At the moment, there are very few protections, and most if not all career training beyond the immediate scope of the relevant research simply comes down to supervisors' good will. However, talking about abolishing the institution because it's "broken" is no less a serious proposition than overthrowing governments and leaving countries into chaos because governments are "broken".

walnutclosefarm2• 4 years ago

It seems the author is taking the experience of Science PhDs, and realistically, a specific kind of Science Phd, and tarring the entire notion of a doctoral degree on that basis. US Universities grant PhDs in a wide range of academic disciplines across the Humanities and Sciences, and quite a few professions (Engineering and Education come immediately to mind). My children both have PhDs and academic careers (one as faculty in top-ranked University, and one as a research associate in the Health Sciences, an neither's experience is particularly close to that the author outlines. The author's one-size fits all criticism really doesn't fit all.

That's not to say there aren't abuses and inefficiencies in Science doctoral programs. Just that "Abolish the PhD" is the wrong rallying cry.

psi755• 4 years ago

As someone in his late 30s who's doing a Master's degree and likely to go on for a PhD, I agree. It should be reformed, not abolished.

What should be abolished are 97 percent of postdoc positions. Postdocs used to be a rare, prestigious opportunity to do something different one might not want to do for one's whole life, like work for IAS in Princeton or for the government doing cryptography. What they became is something else entirely: another stupid rung on the ladder, an excuse to dangle the carrot of tenure (which isn't "lifetime job security" as academic detractors like to claim, but merely the presence of due process, as opposed to arbitrary whim, around personnel decisions) for longer.

walnutclosefarm2• 4 years ago

Yes, most post-docs exist for the purpose of getting cheap, highly trained and specific expertise in a way that does not threaten the hierarchy of authority and prestige. Like medical internships, they institutionalize exploitative labor practice, but are even worse, because unlike internships, where physicians at least do learn skills and the reality of how medicine is practiced, they are almost purely for the purpose of augmenting the master's portfolio of work.

adamsmith14310• 4 years ago

Stop defending the US PhD system! It is hopelessly broken and quite abusive. PhD students across Europe earn real salaries (40k-50k+ euros), have full medical benefits, get paid vacations, sick days and many receive year end bonuses. US PhD students at Famous State Universities in the US routinely live off $20k per year stipends with token healthcare benefits and NOTHING else.

jrm4• 4 years ago

I won't weigh in much either way because I mostly don't understand the Ph.D. process or phenomenon. Why that fact might be weird or notable; my full time job is in a non-research teaching role, in higher-ed, for 15+ years.

Even weirder, my law degree is what technically qualifies me to teach graduate students in an IT program (maybe not THAT weird, I do teach legal research and Info Policy...but also web design/admin/programming)

whatever1• 4 years ago

We should instead make mandatory a couple of years of research for everyone.

1. You learn that you know nothing, even for the slimmest slice of science

2. You learn that a search on the internet, twitter whatever will not help

3. You learn that you have to put the work to start understanding

4. You learn how to learn in depth

5. You learn how cope with failure and yes how to learn from it

cashsterling• 4 years ago

I got my PhD in chemical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. - I was paid a stipend that actually covered all basic living expenses for my wife and I. - there was a 5 year limit for finishing PHD research, after which both the student and professor have to sign that they want to continue and the department would only allow that for about another year. - I was treated very fairly and respectfully by my advisor at all times and I would say most of the other PhD candidates felt the same way. - The chemical engineering department built a great environment for student-student and student professor collaboration. I learned so much from my fellow student colleagues and professors during my PhD and after finishing all graduate coursework.

... my positive experiences were all stated goals that department purposely worked really hard to bring about. I rate my experience a strong 9+ out of 10 and would do it again.

I do know other folks who had horrible, abusive PhD experiences at other universities. But that is the fault of the university for not creating a good environment.

rencrisa• 4 years ago

I am in a CS PhD at a top 10 institution, and I've had a great time in my lab. My advisor has a saying "You can never make me do something I'm not interested in!" Thus, I've personally never worked on anything I didn't enjoy. I learned a lot from my lab mates and my advisor.

Of course, I think this is super dependent on the subfield and advisor. Based on our department surveys, ML / AI / Graphics students rated the lowest in satisfaction, happiness, and highest in hours worked per week. While, Theory, HCI, and Systems are overall pretty happy and have regular working hours.

EDIT: In response to other threads, my pay is also very comfortable. I can take vacations, eat out, and afford a nice studio apartment. Free health insurance as well.

renegadeuser2• 4 years ago

One other component of this argument that I believe is missing is the PhD by publication. This would allow someone to be a researcher and work towards a PhD in the manner the author describes.

Fomite10• 4 years ago

Most modern graduate programs, at least the ones I'm in, effectively do this. Your "dissertation" is an introductory chapter, several free standing publications that are at least in submission, and a closing chapter wrapping it all together.

While my postdoctoral mentor lamented the decline of the traditional dissertation, most programs even express their graduation requirements in terms of N Papers, in STEM fields.

renegadeuser2• 4 years ago

Agreed. Mine was a fairly decent split, of publication and thesis. The perks of referencing yourself is an immensely satisfying experience.

slotrans2• 4 years ago

I quit my (economics) PhD program after one semester.

Best decision I've made in my entire life.

Academia is a meat grinder. Choose not to throw yourself in.

Test0129• 4 years ago

I dropped from my PhD program after 2 years because I could not afford it. I didn't even get the masters, even though I had no problem maintaining class work with an external job.

There was too much pressure for funding and I was excluded from a lot of good research because I was "paying my own way". They offered me a 13,000/year stipend if I was an RA + teaching summer classes. I could not take this because even with my wife's salary we would not be able to pay rent. In addition, with taxes, healthcare, and other small university fees removed I'd net around $10,000. The only benefit was getting ~$6,000/year in classes but that wasn't a huge sell for me.

I wish universities would pay more. The selection process for a PhD deserves justification for a living wage (~45,000/year or better). I would abandon my day job in a heart beat to go back if they offered me this despite it being astronomically less than I make today. I wanted to be a professor so bad but the cards life dealt me had me needing a job since I was a kid, and healthcare for just as long. I just never had the opportunity, and when I tried the system was so broken I could not navigate it. There seems to be far more opportunity for H1Bs, who are capable of making such sacrifices. The vast majority of my cohort in school were foreign-born visa students which also made me sad for the state of my country.

selimthegrim9• 4 years ago

The problem is that “paying your own way” is synonymous with “no one prevetted these ideas so publication will be harder”

Abolish the PhD (2016)

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