The Illustrated Guide to a PhD

https://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/?_nospa=true

by chii • 2 years ago

410 225 2 years ago

matt.might.net

liontwist11• 2 years ago

It’s a nice idea that you’re going to help the boundary of human knowledge expand but I don’t think infinite progress is the right model.

All the evidence shows that fields are completely ignorant of each other and reinvent the basic solutions. This coincides with the theory that cohorts of experts develop expertise which is not transferrable.

Watch as ML rediscovers harmonic analysis while awarding plenty of Phds to those involved.

Rediscovery is a great thing. You bring new meaning and context. I’s just not “expanding circle of knowledge”

More likely is you will dig further down the track of the fads your advisor is into. The trend will be forgotten in a few decades, with a small change of unforeseen utility later. And its contribution will be to your personal life.

The model proposed is also lacking in ambition because historically PhDs were significant.

mnky9800n2• 2 years ago

For example

https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.10739

asicsp• 2 years ago

See also this previous discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29138570 (158 points | Nov 7, 2021 | 121 comments)

oezi2• 2 years ago

PhDs' unfortunately have lost much of their value.

- There aren't enough post-doc and tenure positions for the glut of PhDs.

- Plagiarism scandals have reduced the public's perception of a PhD to become almost something unprestigous.

someothherguyy• 2 years ago

Thankfully not everyone feels this way, and humanity continues to benefit from the work that PhD holders do.

oezi2• 2 years ago

That certainly would be nice, but the risk to the individual that they are just exploited on a meagre salary for 3-6 years to only benefit their advisor has become so large that I don't recommend doing a PhD to anyone (or at least think very hard and very diligently investigate the prospective advisor and the faculty). Even if this means we as a society are losing out on scientific discoveries.

CaffeineLD50• 2 years ago

As AI becomes better the quality of plagiarism should improve.

So there's that.

dyauspitr2• 2 years ago

Yes exactly. If you’re not a plumber are you even really contributing to human progress.

wanderingmind• 2 years ago

I can do better, the one line guide to PhD.

``` For safety and well being of you and your family, EVACUATE NOWWW. ```

microtonal• 2 years ago

This is most likely a very American perspective. There are countries where you get paid like a normal employee (not much worse than an entry-level job) with unemployment benefits, building up pension, etc. and where you can focus on doing your research (only a lightweight teaching obligation).

I really treasure my (non-US) PhD time. I had a great adviser, was decently paid, and had a lot of time/opportunity to explore things, which I think lead to interesting research. And when I retire, it provides part of my pension. Also when I look back I often realize how relaxed my PhD time was compared to the much more stressful life after doing a PhD.

The field really changed after doing my PhD (I'm in NLP/CL and when I did my PhD, HPSG-like grammars and maxent models were still reigning), but I think I still benefit a lot from the methodologies I learned while doing my PhD.

maxweylandt• 2 years ago

I just completed my PhD at an American university, and I had a great time. Granted, my institution's stipend was on the higher side for the social sciences and I lived in an affordable city, which helped a lot, as did the kind and supportive faculty. I often feel the negative voices dominate discourse on this topic --- which is maybe fair given the many structural issues --- but it is possible, sometimes, to enjoy it.

(to clarify I'm not disagreeing with you, US academia does have lots of issues that lead to many having a bad time. But still, getting paid to learn is a dream)

blharr• 2 years ago

Even in America I've seen similar opportunities. Engineering PhDs at state schools have offers where you get paid a small but livable amount and get your tuition paid for. I think the big difference is that in industry you can just get paid way more in America compared to engineering elsewhere.

zipy124• 2 years ago

Or the UK perspective where again it is becoming unaffordable to live on the striped, definitely so in London where I am doing my PhD.

ulrischa• 2 years ago

A phd ist not a phd. A phd in medicine is like a Bachelor thesis. While a phd in engineering can become a 10 year nightmare

chaosite3• 2 years ago

That's not right. A PhD is a PhD.

An MD (Medical Doctorate) is like a master's degree. It's not like a bachelor's because many MD programs start out with or require a BSc, biology is a popular choice but a lot of STEM majors are possible.

But MD+PhD programs exist and those are definitely PhDs.

You are right that an MD is not a PhD, though. Notice how they don't call it a PhD.

reshlo• 2 years ago

It’s not like a bachelor’s because many MD programs start out with or require a BSc

In many countries, the degree you must obtain to qualify as an MD is indeed a bachelor’s degree, the “Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery” (often abbreviated MB ChB or MBBS).

mnky9800n2• 2 years ago

MDs are also obsessed with calling each other “doctor”. It always comes across as imposed authority from people who are essentially body mechanics.

anticensor• 2 years ago

No, a MD is a professional doctorate with novelty and research requirements, it's between a DA and a PhD in terms of difficulty.

ySteeK• 2 years ago

You don't need a PhD to push the boundaries. You need a PhD to make others believe you pushed the boundaries!

mr_mitm• 2 years ago

You got it backwards. You need to push the boundaries to get a PhD.

brulard• 2 years ago

Maybe at the worlds best universities. For sure not at an average one.

bdangubic2• 2 years ago

you should read some PhD dissertations outside of top schools /s :)

amelius• 2 years ago

Push the boundaries but not actually move them.

dyauspitr2• 2 years ago

Yes, because so many contemporary breakthroughs have come from some guy in his garage.

fl4tul4• 2 years ago

Yes, I can attest that nowadays, in some fields, research has become a 'game', where:

- people torture data until it yields unreproducible results;

- people choose venues that maximise their chances of getting published (and pay for publication sometimes, I'm looking at you, APC);

- little concern given to excellence, rigour, and impact;

- the chase for a 'diploma' from a renowned institute without putting the effort;

I could go on and on, but I'll stop now.

Perhaps something changes, I am waiting for this to happen for some time now (10y and counting).

It's a bad system but that's what we have (at the moment).

antegamisou• 2 years ago

Yes it's horrifying indeed. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that there are many that fall into this rat race and treat it as another type of MSc credential.

3abiton• 2 years ago

- people choose venues that maximises their chances of getting published (and pay for publication sometimes, I'm looking at you, APC); > - little concern given to excellence, rigour, and impact;

It's because the kpis of assessment are built like this. Goodhard's law. I know lots of good researchers who get frustrated with the system and end up giving up and faltering to those 2 points. If within a uni 2 research groups are putting out research at different rate at different quality, the one with higher quality, lower frequency, and higher standard and ambition gets heavily penalized. Seen it in action.

graycat2• 2 years ago

Yes, in the STEM fields, for published papers, it's easy just to count them; much harder to read them; to evaluate them, some people just count awards, etc. So, the hard work that makes the good material in the paper may never be noticed.

There is, "You get what you pay for." So, want papers, you will get papers, and you can count them. It goes, did Haydn write 101 symphonies or 1 symphony 101 times?

Early on, had a good career going in computing but where occasionally some math made a lot of difference. So, to help that career got a Ph.D. in applied math. Never had any intention of being a professor but for a while did to try to help my seriously, fatally, stressed out wife (Valedictorian, PBK, Woodrow Wilson, NSF, Summa Cum Laude, Ph.D.) -- took a professor job near her family home and farm.

In my little Ph.D department, saw the Chair and four professors get fired and one more leave, fired or not. The career I had before grad school was a lot better than the one those professors had.

Had to conclude that, tenure or not, being a professor is, on average, a poor way to even reasonable financial security. Generally there is low pay, e.g., too little to buy a house, keep cars running, support a wife and family. There's a LOT of dirty politics, infighting, higher-ups who don't want you to be successful.

Bluntly, a research university takes in money that a lot of people care about and puts out papers that only a few people care about: Net, there is no very strong reason to pay professors enough for even reasonable financial security. Key sources of the money are short term grants from the usual suspects, NSF, DOE, DARPA, NIH ("too many for them all to be turned off at once" -- JB Conant?), but that is essentially just contract work and not steady employment, with little promise that when a Professor's baby is ready for college there will be money enough for them to go. It's a house built on paper that can be blown away by any thunder storm.

Now, for a career, e.g., financial security, to leave something for the kids in the family tree, regard business, e.g., now involving the Internet, as the best approach, and there regard computing and math as important tools but only tools. Research? Did some, and it is a key to the business. Academic research? Did some, published, on my own dime, still waiting for the checks.

History, how'd we get here? Used to be that some guy built a valuable business and had several sons. One of the sons inherited the business, and the rest went to the military as an officer, academics as a professor, or to politics. Then WWII showed that the STEM fields can be crucial for national security, and some related funding started, e.g., summer math programs for selected high school students, research grants.

"If you are so smart, why aren't you rich?"

Ah, "The business of America is business."

eloisant3• 2 years ago

Yep. I also know researchers who refuse to play this game, but their career plateau'd and they have to work with little fundings.

knolan7• 2 years ago

I’ve seen this with a PhD student publishing several rapid fire papers in MDPI journals. They are repeating well understood physics work done 50 years ago using off the shelf commercial simulation software. They don’t cite any papers older than a decade and claim without irony that the work is “significant” while none of their papers are cited. They will go to events where no one is an expert in the field and win prizes for showing lots of pretty pictures but nothing that isn’t already well understood.

When I, an expert in the field, tell them they need to produce something novel at their research panels I’m told I’m wrong. When I list all the work they are ripping off I’m told it’s somehow different without explanation. When I question the obvious sloppiness in their work (the simulation data showing major artefacts) they blow up at me screaming and shouting.

I’ve never experienced arrogance like this before. It’s shocking. Their supervisors tell me that they are close to firing them but then also celebrate all the publications they are getting.

The mind boggles.

Over2Chars15• 2 years ago

This isn't new, and academia has been rewarding behavior that wouldn't survive elsewhere for a long time.

Maybe it's time we unshackled ourselves from these 'prestigious institutions'?

noisy_boy• 2 years ago

When I, an expert in the field, tell them they need to produce something novel at their research panels I’m told I’m wrong. When I list all the work they are ripping off I’m told it’s somehow different without explanation. When I question the obvious sloppiness in their work (the simulation data showing major artefacts) they blow up at me screaming and shouting.

At risk of relying totally on assumptions, that wouldn't be a surprising reaction for someone facing first serious criticism after an entire life of probably being unconditionally lauded for their smarts (or the projection of it). When parents push children towards something relentlessly without providing any constructive feedback on account of living their dreams through their children and/or the fear of discouraging the child, any criticism can feel like someone is trying to destroy your life goals.

Their supervisors tell me that they are close to firing them but then also celebrate all the publications they are getting.

Probably trying to protect themselves from being in the crosshairs of one of many things that can blow your career apart.

throwoutway• 2 years ago

I've experienced this in the corporate world too, when someone is seeking a promotion. Entitlement is becoming a bane

whatever1• 2 years ago

Ok to be fair the original is probably a badly scanned tech report from GE from the 70’s with minimal implementation details. Whoever has tried to implement an obscure physics paper from that age knows how tough it can be.

I think there is value revisiting some of this work with our modern toolsets and publishing the code in some public repository.

But of course with a clear citation chain, and no pompous lies that a new discovery was made.

enum3• 2 years ago

Any evidence that this approach works? Are people who do this able to move from the PhD to a solid position afterward that they could not have had without the PhD?

carlosjobim• 2 years ago

Perhaps something changes, I am waiting for this to happen for some time now (10y and counting).

What will change is that PhD will become an inherited title. If your parents were/are PhDs, you will ceremoniously be granted the title when coming of age. That title can then be rented out to people or organizations (such as companies) who are required to have a PhD by government regulation for the activity that they are in. You can of course also mortgage this title to a bank or other company that will take care of the process.

y-curious• 2 years ago

Chiming in with my own experience. I was with a new PI that was a charlatan; I am grateful for the experience because I now know how to recognize these sorts of people and avoid them.

"There is no journal of negative results." he would say at our weekly meetings. In order to secure his future, he set ablaze the dreams of 5 PhDs in my lab (all of which took their masters and went into industry; One developed severe OCD). Data was massaged, lies were told to his bosses.

Guess what? He's still a professor there, his lab still publishes dubious, unreproducible research. No recourse was to be had at the university (all of the PhDs went to the head of the department and were told to f*ck off).

Academia is on a death spiral at many schools, and I worry that it's up to the industry to carry the torch of research in the future.

dataflow• 2 years ago

I just pray that everyone denigrating PhDs is making even greater contributions to humanity.

sashank_15097• 2 years ago

No one’s denigrating those who choose to do a PhD, most of them I am sure are bright, ambitious and thoughtful individuals. Unfortunately the Academic Meat grinder system, successfully grinds them into working 80hr weeks on meaningless projects, meaningless papers that just serve to create jobs for other academics. They could be doing so much more with the faculty they possess, alas they would be more useful as a barista. (I am not picking on humanities PhD system, which is a bigger cesspool than normal, all my criticism is aimed at STEM PhD system. My actual advice would be do a PhD if you judge the lab you are joining as doing great work, lab is everything, don’t join a PhD if it’s not a lab that you’ve vetted or if you didn’t get into that lab.)

liontwist11• 2 years ago

making even greater contributions to humanity.

than writing papers nobody will ever read? yes I am.

A PhD can be a great contribution to your life, and the opportunities it can bring you and your family.

The phony marketing that appeals to young people is that you are advancing the progressive human narrative.

KnuthIsGod• 2 years ago

Not in here Australia.

At many of our leading institutions in the hard sciences, rehashed work, data stolen from other teams, photoshopped images and a bit of plagiarism is enough to get you by.

Once you get to the social "sciences", it is much worse.

Karma cannot be denied and the result is that work outcomes with a PhD are derisible, since employers have worked out that something does not compute about the quality of freshly minted PhDs.

paulpauper2• 2 years ago

People complain about the US education system and higher-ed being bad or dumbed=-down. I'm like, compared to what? Much of the rest of the worst is worse in this regard. Cheating and plagiarism rampant. I've seen math papers in arxiv where the stuff is rehashed. Almost never US institutions.

giacomoforte• 2 years ago

If you don't pick your lab/PI wisely you might end up stroking you PI's ego without accomplishing anything of value. Or you might end doing four years of work that ends up obsolete before you even graduate.

kowlo2• 2 years ago

For most (nowadays), the journey is about becoming a competent researcher.

InkCanon15• 2 years ago

I'm considering getting a masters or PhD (in PL) under a professor I work with now for my undergrad thesis. It has been my observation that the standard path of getting a standard corporate job tends to nullify all impact you could have (with a few rare exceptions). And after that I could get a job, become a professor, turn my research into a startup etc. The pros are

1) I know my professor and he's a solid guy

2) Pays decently well, money isn't too much of a concern

3) I get paid to do research, university provides generous grants if turned into a startup

Cons

1) Hear a lot of bad things about the academic rat race, pressure to public even at masters/PhD level

2) I could probably hack out some paper into journals but whether I could have any real impact "on demand" (versus say spontaneously coming up with something) is a big question mark, especially within the deadlines given in the program

Any thoughts on this? Especially heuristics, methods or ways to increase impact?

sashank_15097• 2 years ago

Ask yourself this, has there been any useful Programming Language that has come out of PL research/ Academia in the last 20 years? The only example I can think of is Julia, and it only seems to be used by other academics.

If you’re looking to be impactful, you are much better off joining a job and working in your free time, than doing a PhD. A PhD is a program to compete for academic prestige. Grad students want to publish papers that get them noticed at conferences, invited to talks at prestigious universities etc, those are the incentives, always has been in academia. The brightest minds join academia because they care more about prestige than money (as they should, anyone can earn money, few can win a Nobel prize). In a healthy academic system, prestige is linked to real world societal impact. That is still somewhat true in fields like Machine Learning, in some fields it seems to be completely dis-aligned from any real world impact whatsoever (which seems to be PL research). Our academic system unfortunately is a rotten carcass.

You could still, advisor willing, do research that interests you and not care at all whether you get noticed by conferences/ journals, your peers etc. But that takes a certain level of anti-social behavior that very few humans possess and so I say join a job. Plenty of companies are still building programming languages, like Google, Apple etc which are being used by engineers worldwide and if you finagle your way into a job at those teams, you will have a meaningful, impactful job, which is also well paying as a side bonus.

noelwelsh3• 2 years ago

has there been any useful Programming Language that has come out of PL research/ Academia in the last 20 years?

The goal of PL research is not, usually, to produce languages that see commercial adoption but to produce ideas that industry adopts. You cannot say a language like Rust is not influenced by PL research.

peterkelly• 2 years ago

A PhD is a program to compete for academic prestige

That's true for some people but others have different motivations, such as learning useful skills so they can gain the ability to work on interesting problems in a given field.

Doing a PhD in PL can also help you get the kind of jobs you mentioned, and achieve more once you're there. For me, the most valuable I thing I got out of the process was extensive exposure to the literature, which has been useful in a range of contexts.

bdangubic2• 2 years ago

Ask yourself this, has there been any useful Programming Language that has come out of PL research/ Academia in the last 20 years?

Scala

InkCanon15• 2 years ago

There are several assumptions here tangled together here

1) Use is sufficient, but not necessary for impact. Theory of relativity, a lot of QM, etc has had only uses in real world edge cases, but have enormous value. The value function for impact, so to speak, includes more than just use.

2) There is the structure of academia and it's incentives, the average behavior of people in it, and it's outcomes. I don't necessarily have to bow to it's incentives, nor behave like the average person in there. Academia is also sufficiently large and fractal that you can find people less interested in the incentives and more in some thing they obsesses about.

PL has had some interesting, although sometimes unheard of, real world uses. CUDA for example. A significant chunk of PL now focuses on ML. Awhile back a company called Monoidics got acquired my Facebook for work on static bug finding with formal methods. Rust has been pretty influenced by PL concepts. New languages like WASM are formally verified from the ground up, and there are exciting opportunities for that.

I have considered slinging my resume to more research oriented companies, but hearsay from people is that the golden age is over. Under FOMO and stock market pressure, these companies are eradicating the kind of freewheeling research they used to and dumping money into ML and ML hardware. Not to mention it's a bit of a dice roll and a circus to get a job at such companies nowadays as a fresh graduate.

hiAndrewQuinn2• 2 years ago

getting a standard corporate job tends to nullify all impact you could have

It's very strange to me that you think other people would pay you millions or tens of millions of dollars over an average 30- or 40-year career, without you generating at least that amount of value back to the external world as a whole, and probably generating some huge multiple more, and yet all that counts as "no impact" to you. Especially when your comparison point isn't oncology or something, but doing research in PL theory of all things.

But I thank you for giving me the opportunity to get a little riled up on a lazy Sunday morning, it's one of my favorite hobbies. My recommendation to you for "increasing [overall] impact" is to read https://80000hours.org/ and follow their advice, and for "increasing impact [in this niche I really care about]" is simply to be more bounded with your claims.

InkCanon15• 2 years ago

people would pay millions over a career without you generating at least that value back

Some of it is empirical observation. I've seen many friends at big/elite tech firms get paid to do very little. Many claims online to that effect, although I weigh it lesser. And I think it's completely plausible. I think because of the exponential advancement of technology, huge accrual of capital and inability of human incentive structures to keep up, value does not universally equal money. IMO many examples. Many people are tech firms do things that are very loosely related to revenue generation - so you can almost double your headcount during COVID, fire tons of them and still function the same (a substantial amount of hiring and firing was tech companies FOMOing about each othe). Meta's VR division has burned through $50 billion, but it's people got paid incredible salaries. One in three Nvidia employees are now worth over 20 million. Many of them were working decent jobs making GPUs for video games and suddenly because of AI, their net worth went up 100x. Oncology is another possible example. By far the wealthy people today are all in computers, instead of curing cancer.

I'm not saying these people are bad or anything like that. The other part of the equation, wealth as a signal, has become incredibly noisy. In some areas it is still a strong signal, typically smaller companies and startups where providing value is a lot more closely related to what you make. And conversely, I don't agree with money generated being a signal of impact in itself.

Eduard• 2 years ago

The main reason being getting a standard corporate job tends to nullify all impact you could have (with a few rare exceptions).

"Impact" is an ambiguous term, so it's quite vague what you mean. I assume "positive impact on the world and knowledge".

While this mantra is indeed motivational, it can set you up for disappointment, both in corporate as well as research/PhD settings, at the moment you realize how many hurdles there can be (toxic colleagues, bureaucracy, ignorance, etc.).

Also, for this interpretation of "impact", a corporate job can be very impactful as well.

InkCanon15• 2 years ago

impact is ambiguous

This is the core of the issue (most replies usually involve some slightly different definitions). I take many definitions of impact, including societal use, contributing to knowledge, etc. But it's much clearer there are many things people do that are low impact, especially in places with a lot of bureaucracy, politics etc.

A corporate job can, but it seems to me as a result of various incentives corporate jobs tend to be compartmentalized, low impact and repetitive. We're also at a down cycle where tech, the historical haven for impact in a job, is scaling back a ton of things to focus on stock prices. If you know of any corporate jobs that do have impact by some definition of it, I'd love to hear it. In my experience these have been mostly startups.

noelwelsh3• 2 years ago

Understand that a PhD is an apprenticeship to become a researcher. You are not expected to do career defining work as a PhD student, and indeed that is unlikely.

Your relationship with your advisor is very important. It seems like you already have that sorted out.

Most successful PhDs (in CS) involve tackling a relatlively small and easy project, usually suggested by your advisor, early on, and then expanding and iterating on this. Once you make some progress on a topic you'll easily find more directions to take it.

Working with other people is one of the easiest ways to increase your productivity. All the great groups I saw had a lot of collaboration. Don't fall into the "lone scholar locked in the library" stereotype.

Avoid bad people. Avoid getting stuck in your own head. Realize a PhD is a project like many others. It doesn't define you. You start it, you work consistently on it, you finish it.

Doing a research Masters is usually a waste of time. Doing a taught Masters is a lot of fun, but something quite different to a PhD.

InkCanon15• 2 years ago

Thanks for the reply!

A PhD is an apprenticeship to become a researcher That's a good way to look at it. I suspect one of the biggest possible benefits of a PhD is that you're put in an environment structured to and pressuring you to develop something new, which is the opposite of most other human work.
Start a relatively small and easy project and collaborate Sound advice, it's the general approach I've taken for my undergrad thesis.
A research masters is a waste of time, a coursework masters isn't Really? It looks the opposite to me. A research masters let's you collaborate with different people and work on new things. A coursework masters is taking advanced classes.

EvgeniyZh3• 2 years ago

Hear a lot of bad things about the academic rat race, pressure to public even at masters/PhD level

Strongly depends on the advisor and your goals. If you want to stay in academia, some amount of publications is required. Your advisor, especially if he pays your salary, may also push you to publish. If both are not an issue, I guess you can even finish without publications.

I could probably hack out some paper into journals but whether I could have any real impact "on demand" (versus say spontaneously coming up with something) is a big question mark, especially within the deadlines given in the program

Nobody comes up with good ideas on demand. As you progress in your academic career the rate of ideas (theoretically) grows. That's why you need the advisor: he can come up with ideas at rate sufficient for his students

InkCanon15• 2 years ago

advisor might push to publish

That's fair. I'm just cautiously eyeing the likelihood of coming up with something publishable that's not a going through the motions kind of thing.

sega_sai2• 2 years ago

As a professor many years after the PhD my advice is to do the PhD only if you are genuinely excited / cannot stop yourself from doing research. Only then it will outweigh the negatives of difficulties of getting the jobs, somewhat low pay etc. At least from my point of view I always tried to work on what was interesting to me and what I was good at/or it was interesting to learn vs optimising what is more high profile/sexy. I don't think it is a universal advice but at least I always enjoyed what I did

InkCanon15• 2 years ago

What do you mean by cannot stop doing research? I certainly haven't discovered anything new, but I love learning new things, reading about ideas, coming up with them.

skalarproduktr4• 2 years ago

I can only second this after having advised a few students from bachelor to PhD level. The ones who do well are (usually) the ones who are genuinely excited. Not only about the thing they're doing, but in general. It really helps getting over the lows.

Furthermore, do not underestimate the importance of sheer luck. Exaggerating a bit, deep learning was just another subfield of ML, until GPU-powered DL really took off and made the researches behind the most fundamental ideas superstars. This is not a given, and it might take years or decades until it's really clear whether you're making an impact or not.

I wish you the best of luck, InkCanon, and stay excited!

nikolayasdf123• 2 years ago

And after that I could get a job, become a professor, turn my research into a startup etc.

chances of getting professor-ship, tenure, or even a post-doc is close to nil, due to extreme competition and limited seats. academia is the most slowly moving enterprise, some folks in their 80s still around, when young grads kicked out.

getting a job after PhD may also be very hard. you would be very over-qualified, likely huge ego, and very narrow skillset in your domain, that is likely lagging behind industry. managerial (or even just "work at corporate") skills will be lacking. unemployment of PhDs is wildly high, even higher than if you did not do PhD.

turning research into startup may be much harder than you would expect. milking government funding for years (and surviving jungle of academic politics to get its cut) is very different from market outside of it (i.e. venture capital, startups, tech, etc.), at the time you would want to make startup you would have to learn all from scratch, or even un-learn, as many would be detrimental.

then there is toxic academic culture (funding, publishing, power dynamics). and in recent years academia become pit of wild woke left agenda, even more oil on fire.

tbh, if you want to do something special, academia as we have it today is not the best place.

if you still want to do it, guess best strategy is to "do it quick and get out". some smart people I know doing exactly that. doing accelerated PhD asap and getting the hell out of academia. (but then, it depends all on your professor power dynamics. in some places they would not let you graduate unless they wish so.)

andrepd• 2 years ago

changes of getting professor-ship, tenure, or even a post-doc is close to nil

What an extreme exaggeration. Yes academia is competitive, yes tenure is hard to get (obviously). But the chance is not "close to nil" for that at all, and it's certainly not "close to nil" for a postdoc lol.

getting a job after PhD may also be very hard. you would be very over-qualified, likely huge ego, and very narrow skillset in your domain, that is likely lagging behind industry. managerial (or even just "work at corporate") skills will be lacking. unemployment of PhDs is wildly high, even higher than if you did not do PhD.

This is just not true x) There are no numbers where PhDs have worse unemployment than grads.

Conversely, it does open a lot of doors for industry jobs (think ML, quant finance, to name a few)

InkCanon15• 2 years ago

getting a job in academia is really hard

In my side of the world its a little bit better, the CS department has plans to double headcount in the next few years. They've got whole new faculty apartment buildings set up and everything, and the funding situation is quite generous (I'm told). Although I have also read in the USA the bar for even stipend paying masters/PhDs has gotten incredibly high.

Milking government funding for years

There are special programs for startup oriented funds, so it's more like VC pitching to academics with equity free grants (although naturally there's the whole university research IP issue). But I'm quite willing to put up with it to do something meaningful (at a decent number of jobs you put up with it just to keep your job). I do keep an ear on startup-y things, I don't think I'll have it any easier than an undergrad but I think I won't be too disadvantaged.

Do it and get out

I don't place too much emphasis on the PhD per se but the real value of it.

If you want to do something special academia is not the place

Ten years ago tech would've been a good place. But now especially for a new graduate its a bloodbath, not to mention there's been huge layoffs. Academia seems like the better option nowadays.

jltsiren• 2 years ago

Getting a postdoc position is usually easier than getting into a PhD program in the same university, especially in top universities. And the chances of getting a tenure-track faculty position or similar are probably something like 1/3.

The biggest obstacles to getting an academic job are personal. The jobs are wherever they are, and your (or your partner's) preferences cannot change that. If you are willing to relocate, your chances of getting a good academic job are much higher than if you restrict your search to a single city / region / country / continent.

MeteorMarc• 2 years ago

And now imagine this as a hypersphere in 10 dimensions. The choice of two dimensions in the post is arbitrary, isn't it?

jokoon• 2 years ago

I also like what Dyson had to say about the PhD

Can't find it now

Sid950• 2 years ago

Can't deny tbh

ioblomov2• 2 years ago

Dyson is the (super) rare exception of a full professor without a PhD. But then again he did unify quantum electrodynamics.

https://www.ias.edu/sns/dyson

kowlo2• 2 years ago

I would show this to all prospective PhD students, and then again on their first day if they were selected.

BlueTemplar• 2 years ago

I was expecting https://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=2031

fastneutron4• 2 years ago

Most discussions I see online about whether or not someone should do a PhD tend to assume:

- The student becomes hyper focused and pigeonholed into some esoteric and unemployable domain, destined to run on the postdoctoral treadmill for decades.

- The PI is a control freak who only cares about publications, and considers students who leave for industry jobs after graduation to be failures.

These stereotypes can have an element of truth, but there are more enlightened PhD programs and PIs that understand the value of cross-cutting and commercializable research than you’d expect from the discourse. Not everyone is stuck working on a pinprick of knowledge, and if you choose your program and PI wisely, you can go much further and do many more things than you would never have access to with just an undergraduate background.

hikingsimulator• 2 years ago

One big issue is that industry jobs in some areas increasingly expect academic excellence in the shape of "publishing in top 3 conferences" for example.

Over2Chars15• 2 years ago

An obviously totally arbitrary barrier. Why not 4 or even 5?

Someone who only published in 2 top conferences is obviously not worth anyone's time. But 3, now we're talking.

Over2Chars15• 2 years ago

I'm not saying you're wrong but...

Elon Musk skipped his PhD program and did many more things than spending time in school would have allowed him to do. Of course, most people aren't Elon (probably a good thing).

Other than preparing you for a career in academia or some highly regulated environment where education is erected as a barrier to entry, it's hard for me to think of "many more things" that are open to a phd holder than to someone who is not.

fastneutron4• 2 years ago

Celebrity exceptions are exactly that; exceptions. Those people knew an opportunity when they had one, and were able to generalize their early successes into other domains by leveraging the financial, social, and intellectual capital they accumulated. People who fit this description aren’t the ones reading this thread.

In some fields all you need is a computer and an idea to be impactful, but in plenty of other fields you’d be hard pressed to make any credible, let alone meaningful impact without significant intellectual preparation and tacit knowledge. These things only come through experience, and for many people, the PhD program is that experience.

InkCanon15• 2 years ago

I never understood point 1. Your PhD thesis will almost definitely be on a very specific topic, you don't have the time or knowledge to cover multiple distinct fields.

xanderlewis17• 2 years ago

I'm starting a PhD — essentially from tomorrow. It's a shame to see so much discouragement here, but at this point I'm no longer surprised. I also don't care because if left to my own devices I would do research anyway.

In the kindest possible way: screw all of you!

Over2Chars15• 2 years ago

@xanderlewis I don't think anyone's comments are meant for you specifically, nor to discourage you or anyone particularly.

If anything, take it all with a "grain of salt" and reflect on whether or not anyone you meet might resemble these comments. Hopefully, not your future self.

Good luck in your career.

megaloblasto• 2 years ago

Most of these people have never been in a PhD program, so take their words with a grain of salt.

If you have a good advisor, your passionate about your project, and you got some good funding, you'll have a wonderful time of exploring interesting ideas and becoming a competent researcher. Good luck!

xanderlewis17• 2 years ago

So far, I seem to have all three. Let's see how it goes! Thanks.

liontwist11• 2 years ago

All that’s true, and that is completely different than what’s advertised in this article.

j_maffe• 2 years ago

I also started my PhD last week and honestly from my talks with the people there thus far I'm much more optimistic than the general HN view of PhDs. You still have to be realistic however. Best of luck!

xanderlewis17• 2 years ago

Great! The view of almost anything hard is gloomy online, probably because the conversation is dominated by those who either wish they'd tried and now have a chip on their shoulder or who made the wrong choice for them and are self-therapising by writing about it. Those who thrived in a PhD programme likely don't have a reason to bang on about their experience in quite so many words.

You still have to be realistic

I'm expecting it to be very challenging. But that's the point — isn't it?

Good luck to you too.

bowsamic6• 2 years ago

I just left academia (after one three-year postdoc). Good riddance. For myself at least. I do think one can thrive in it, if you are a good salesman, don’t mind sucking up to those with money with lies and exaggerations, and don’t mind isolation

xanderlewis17• 2 years ago

What kind of area were you in?

It's hard to believe this 'sucking up to those with money' thing applies everywhere, though it's easier to imagine it applies in certain domains.

yodsanklai3• 2 years ago

I don't think there's any reason to be discouraged. There's a lot of bias against PhDs for various reasons (good and bad).

I have a PhD, got an academic position and then worked in various companies (startups, big tech company). These paths aren't exclusive.

I'm glad I did the PhD.

- it gave me time to work on a variety of interesting topics. In my company, I always feel rushed and don't have time to learn as much as I'd like to.

- I had more than one career. Working only in industry after graduation would have been pretty sad I think. Not that it's bad but it's great to see something different

- I developed some skills (for instance talking in front of audience, write scientific papers) and got to meet a lot of interesting people, and worked in different countries.

I also learned that research wasn't for me but it was worth doing the PhD anyway. If I had to do it again, I would pick my topic more carefully, and go straight to industry rather than pursuing an academic position (which I actually didn't like). Also money wise, even though I'm not materialistic, the pay was too low. Certainly enough to live, but not enough to secure my future and retirement.

CaptainFever• 2 years ago

This is the best possible answer to Internet-based negativity! I wish you luck in your PhD :)

austinjp• 2 years ago

Care to share any details? What country are you studying in, and what's the subject area?

xanderlewis17• 2 years ago

UK; more specifically Scotland. And mathematics; more specifically (algebraic) topology and (differential) geometry.

monadINtop• 2 years ago

Good luck

samantha-wiki• 2 years ago

if left to my own devices I would do research anyway.

Then you're going to have a great time during your PhD, good luck and have fun!

screw all of you!

"Disregard!" https://stepsandleaps.wordpress.com/2017/10/17/feynmans-brea...

JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B• 2 years ago

I've worked with PhDs all my life in various industries and it has always been a fun and enjoyable partnership. Have fun.

skalarproduktr4• 2 years ago

Please consider that not everyone has the luxury of having (had) a PhD advisor who really cares. There's a wide spectrum, ranging from micromanagers, to people you see once during your PhD, to advisors that are genuinely great (intellectually and as a person) and caring.

I wish you the best of luck for your PhD, a caring and supportive advisor, and great results!

fastneutron4• 2 years ago

Disregard them. A lot of people fixate on the 1 in a billion celebrity exceptions like Musk, Thiel, Gates, Dyson, et al and go “look look you don’t need a PhD!”

Yes, a highly motivated college dropout with a computer, a strong financial safety net, and the right social connections can be in the right place at the right time to seize big opportunities. Most people are not in that position. Many high-impact technologies need more than what just a computer can do.

The main thing is to be self aware enough to know the path you’re on, what paths are available to you, and how to make the most of the connections and resources you have available to you. The second you start to get pigeonholed, wrap things up and move on.

xanderlewis17• 2 years ago

The second you start to get pigeonholed...

That seems like good advice.

mattmight5• 2 years ago

Good for you!

foobarbecue• 2 years ago

I did my PhD (mapping and studying the physics of caves in the ice on an antarctic volcano) purely for fun, and it was awesome.

I hope you have a similarly rewarding experience. You will encounter unfair systems and unscrupulous people, and it will be frustrating. The data will be confusing as hell. My only advice is stay true to yourself. Maybe look into some of the new trends that could fix academia -- pre-registration, open access with public comment periods, reproducible code, etc. For inspiration, I cheer for crusaders like Data Colada who are trying to save the academic system.

richrichie5• 2 years ago

That is the way. Not long ago, most of Science was done by rich people as a hobby. We need to get back to that system.

analog313• 2 years ago

"PhD Envy" is a real part of office politics outside of academia. Remember that the naysayers are just jockeying for their own status. On the one hand, you can ignore it. On the other, learning to manage it is a good starting point to navigating the social and political side of any career.

Also, this is HN, which revolves around an occupation -- computer programming -- that is unique in terms of having high demand while remaining flexible about how and where people learn their skills. Not all fields are that way.

I got a PhD in physics, in 1993, and have worked in industry since then. There are a couple of "negatives" that I still think are wroth pointing out:

1. PhD programs have very high attrition, and you bear most of the risk on your own shoulders. It's worth going in with eyes open, and knowing the risks. Getting out with your PhD may require some compromises along the way. I won't necessarily call them ethical compromises, but perhaps compromises to the (typically) idealistic views that many students start out with.

2. The little nub of specialized knowledge shown in TFA is your research, not your brain. You can do specialized research without becoming a specialized person if you want. This is a personal choice (academic freedom and all that). My dad, who also had a PhD and a good industry career, always told me to avoid hyper-specialization.

Don't forget to learn how to code, just in case. ;-)

liontwist11• 2 years ago

PhD programs have very high attrition, and you bear most of the risk on your own shoulders.

How many people do you know who “failed to meet the standard”? Zero. If you do the time and work for your professors you will get the reward. There is no risk.

PhD Envy" is a real part of office politics

The most vocal critics are not bachelor degree holders, but those who did it and had a bad experience.

richrichie5• 2 years ago

PhD now is an expensive way to signal that you can persevere longer than the average human.

Unfortunately, that is not always a positive as many real life situations require you to make decisions under extreme paucity of information and reverse or change course at short notice. For such professions and roles it is a liability.

xanderlewis17• 2 years ago

I can see why you might think that; in some cases I'd agree. But there are parts of science — indeed of human knowledge in general — that are very difficult to break into if you don't have the opportunity a PhD affords. These disciplines also require perseverance longer than the average human. Without this system, we're not going to make fundamental progress.

I'm pretty sure that without the research done by people with PhDs and people who don't give up at the first hurdle, we wouldn't be able to be sitting at our keyboards now having this conversation. Of course, it's not for everyone. Maybe it's not for most. But I don't think you should write all of it off as 'signalling'. Some research simply cannot be done without several years of focus, outside of industry or 'the real world'.

j_bum• 2 years ago

Good luck with your PhD. Stay focused and enjoy this time, you will have a freedom to explore and study that’s almost unparalleled in post-grad life!

hdjjhhvvhga• 2 years ago

It's more or less that except the scale - the inner circles are far too big and the "ray" of the particular branch too wide. What actually happens is a small dot in the middle with very tiny branches going in various directions, some just a bit wider and longer than others.

worldmerge• 2 years ago

Is it possible to be a professor without a PhD? I would like to teach at a college level but the PhD path seems so risky to me to take a pay cut for years and you might not get the degree, and not a get a job.

enum3• 2 years ago

In the U.S., in most fields, it is virtually impossible.

ioblomov2• 2 years ago

The only exception would be community colleges, which still require at least a masters.

At my university, my favorite professor’s title was “senior lecturer” because he only had a bachelors. This was despite being a Times bestselling author. (He taught literature and writing.)

gtmitchell2• 2 years ago

In the US at least, it is entirely possible to teach at a university without a PhD. Community colleges are full of instructors with masters's degrees, and tons of classes offered by major universities are taught by graduate students or adjunct faculty without doctorates.

Your job title probably won't be 'professor', but you'll be doing basically the same work as one.

lapcat3• 2 years ago

Graduate students teach classes at their own universities as part of their departmental funding. This is only a temporary situation and exists only while they're enrolled. It's not a career path.

As a former graduate student myself, I'm actually not aware of any non-PhDs who are adjuct faculty or community college instructors. I'm not claiming that they don't exist anywhere, but given the number of PhDs and the number of available academic jobs, the competition is fierce, and non-PhD candidates are likely to lose out to PhD candidates.

paulpauper2• 2 years ago

Just make a youtube channel and start lecturing or substack. Obviously not the same thing, but the barriers to entry to content creation have been eroded, and if if you have the chops not having a doctorate won't be an impediment.

disambiguation• 2 years ago

I have a non-phd friend who did this. About a year ago he was caught up in the layoff wave and decided teaching would be a good way to earn money, stay productive, and pad his resume while interviewing. A great idea in theory, but his experience was less than ideal. Here were the highlights from his short tenure:

- The university sets a schedule and you are assigned to classes that are otherwise short staffed - there's little consideration for your interests. Basically you get bottom of the barrel courses and inconvenient hours.

- The students can barely program and do not care. I know it's a cliche, but it can't be understated. These "masters" students could not handle the equivalent of leetcode easy problems. Get ready for a lot of late submissions, half-assed homework, and begging for extra credit. Oh, and the final is open-book and you're not allowed to fail anyone.

- The student body is largely H1B visa holders. Anyone that's been paying attention to the H1B story knows that part of the visa scheme is funneling students into masters programs to improve their chances in the lottery. Nothing against visa holders, but this is obviously a cash cow for universities.

- Academic personalities and elitism. You are an outsider and will be looked down on. In my friends case, the Dean started getting very bossy and started dumping responsibilities on him that he really had no business being apart of. Ex. Being a judge for someone's thesis defense. My friend got a lot of satisfaction out of submitting his resignation after just 2 semesters.

I personally have a fondness towards teaching as well and tend to romanticize it, but my friends story really turned me off to any interest in that line of work. Of course this is just my friends anecdata, YMMV.

stared• 2 years ago

The illustrated guide (which I had known during my PhD) focuses on progress—however, niche progress. Yet, PhD students' life experiences are usually not centered around progress but frustration, disillusionment, and depression. If you want to compare it with anything else, it may be like creating pieces of novel art with great effort, with one's identity tied to it. Yet, even in the case of success, it is unlikely to be appreciated by contemporary people.

So, I prefer a narrative guide to PhD - "The Lord of the Rings: an allegory of the PhD?" by Dave Pritchard, http://danny.oz.au/danny/humour/phd_lotr.html

skalarproduktr4• 2 years ago

Matt has also written a great follow-up, "How to get tenure", see https://matt.might.net/articles/tenure/

Highly relevant for the aspiring researcher, and it describes really well the nonlinearities of (academic) life.

0xTJ• 2 years ago

I'm a bit confused about why the Master's degree is set before "reading papers". I had to do a whole lot of reading (and be at least involved in the writing of) papers in the research of my Master's.

mattmight5• 2 years ago

Original author of the guide here. Wonderful to see these little illustrations still making the rounds. I first published them in 2010!

To those in the comments who mentioned you are just starting your own PhD: Good luck to you! And, I hope you, like I once did, find a problem that you can fall in love with for a few years.

To those just finished: Congratulations! Don’t forget to keep pushing!

To those many years out: You have to keep pushing too, but there can be tremendous value in starting all over again by pushing in a different direction. You have no idea what you may find between the tips of two fields.

skalarproduktr4• 2 years ago

Thank you, Matt! Loved your guide when I started my own PhD in ye olden days, and I've shown it to a lot of people since then.

mattmight5• 2 years ago

Happy to hear that! Thank you for sharing it with others. :)

azhenley• 2 years ago

Your blog really helped me during the early years of my PhD. Thank you!!!

mattmight5• 2 years ago

So happy it helped! Thank you for the kind words!

gtmitchell2• 2 years ago

Any advice for PhD dropouts? I spent years and years pushing against that boundary in an obscure corner of my field and it never moved. What little funding I had dried up and I left grad school with a half finished dissertation, no PhD, and giant pile of broken dreams.

I'm sure over the years you've known students who have started a PhD and not finished. What (if anything) have you said to them? Do you feel their efforts had any value?

lapcat3• 2 years ago

I'm a PhD dropout myself. Serious question: what kind of advice are you looking for exactly? This is not intended as an insult, but it sounds like what you're looking for is not advice but rather consolation, which is natural and understandable given the circumstances.

m348e912• 2 years ago

I'll give you advice. Success in pursuing a PhD isn’t just about the discipline or the degree—it’s about finding the right environment to support you. If earning your PhD is still a dream, focus on identifying a program that aligns with your needs and strengths. Look for a school with the right resources, a program that’s well-structured, and, most importantly, a supportive advisor who believes in your potential. Combined with your dedication and passion, these factors can make all the difference in achieving your goal. Don’t lose heart—sometimes, the right opportunity can change everything.

Disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm talking about. I've never participated in a graduate program.

gcanyon• 2 years ago

Reading the original post led me to this article on your site: https://matt.might.net/articles/my-sons-killer/#full

This is just to say I found it incredibly compelling and moving; I hope mentioning it doesn't make you feel bad.

mattmight5• 2 years ago

Nothing to feel bad about. Thank you for sharing that too.

My son’s life changed my own in profound ways, and even though he died four years ago, he is still changing my life in profound ways. I am always grateful for the reminder and to reconnect with the purpose that his life gave to mine.

That post also reminds me that while he was alive, I did the best I could for him under my abilities, and that’s all any parent can do in the end.

If you want to know more about his life, I wrote on it here: https://bertrand.might.net/

drdude• 2 years ago

Matt thanks for the encouraging words... enjoyed your compiler class and sad that you didn't end up in my PhD committee... done 3 years now but stuck lol.

orochimaaru• 2 years ago

>> but there can be tremendous value in starting all over again by pushing in a different direction.

This rings true for me at this time. Done about 10 years now, never went into academia but direct into industry. Things seem a bit stale, maybe its time to pick and research something new. I've been hesitating on the "going back to school" thing. But quantum does show promise, for curiosity and potential rather than immediate impact.

diablozzq• 2 years ago

When I was interviewed for starting my PhD and asked what I knew about a PhD I referenced this example by name.

Thanks for the articles!

I’ve read through them and they are timeless.

Also the finding cures pivot from CS was inspiring how I could start one problem space and pivot. Definitely a top computer scientist story.

croissants• 2 years ago

My fairly generic PhD advice, as somebody who did one, graduated a bit early, and is happy about the process and where it's taken me:

* Choose your advisor with care. This is not very easy as an applicant looking at professors' websites, but if you are admitted, any good school will probably have an in-person or virtual admitted students day where you can talk to current students out of faculty earshot. Take advantage of these times to ask about your potential advisor. A truly bad advisor will probably produce at least one person who will warn you about them. If you can't do this in person, try to get a quick phone/video chat -- something off-record where they can be honest. I was always happy to do these for my advisor, because I liked him and wanted him to get more good students. Conversely, I know people who were warned off specific advisors during these events, for good reasons. A bit of subjectivity: a good advisor at a decent school is usually better than a bad advisor at a good school.

* The financial niceness of doing a PhD in field X seems to correlate pretty well with the current job market value of a masters in field X, at least partially for reasons of leverage -- if you can leave and transition into a cushier job, advisors have to provide a bit more value. Computer science scores highly on this metric.

* There is a ton of negativity about PhDs in places like HN. This isn't unjustified: doing a PhD with a bad advisor can be a very bad experience. At the same time, I think "person who had a bad PhD experience" is also "person who writes comments on the internet" with higher probability than "person who had a good PhD experience".

resiros• 2 years ago

That's a way of looking at it. Another way is looking at it inwardly, as a journey of self. Personally, a PhD for me was being punched in the face every morning (i.e., experiment failed) for years, yet getting up to try again.

It's the archetypal hero's journey where you dive into the deepest darkness, discover yourself, and emerge triumphant.

At the end, you get a hat.

scaradim• 2 years ago

Nice! but... are these graph steps roughly at scale e.g. area of initial blue circle compared to all of human knowledge circle? or the small PhD pimple compared to the blue circle?

If not then can someone (original author or someone else) try to review the steps with roughly realistic average scales assuming surface represent knowledge volume and color complexity spectrum from advanced (indigo) to advanced (red)?

Any candidate to make another pimple on the outer circle?

jofer2• 2 years ago

My wife rather derisively calls this the "penis pimple model of science". It's a great article and a great set figures, but folks sometimes push it a bit too much, especially in grad school.

It has a lot of truth to it and it's been making the rounds for well over a decade. Unfortunately, sometimes it can set folks up to feel bad about themselves if what they do doesn't line up well with whatever is in vogue as the boundary of knowledge that's currently being pushed.

There's a _ton_ of value in more pragmatic parts of fields that focus on applications or combining relatively well-know parts of different sub-fields. Those parts of science often don't feel like you're pushing some "boundary". It's more layering on top of, filling in holes, and building up than building "out". Sometimes what you do is to use multiple things that lots of folks already knew, but the people who knew X and the people who knew Y didn't talk to each other, so no one thought about how to combine them. It can also be hard to get papers published because reviewers will consider one part obvious/well-known and the other part irrelevant because they come from one sub-field and not both.

It will often feel like you don't belong because your work doesn't look like these figures. Applied and interdisciplinary fields "feel" different. However, this type of integrative work can be among the most valuable parts of modern research.

Don't feel like what you do has to fit into the "penis pimple model" of science. There's also nothing wrong with pushing some known boundary of a field, either! Both are valid.

tbrownaw• 2 years ago

But this isn't a model is science, it's a model of what different kinds of academic credentials mean.

Sure there's plenty of ways to contribute to society without publishing academic research, but that's not what a PhD is.

jofer2• 2 years ago

Not all PhDs push boundaries of knowledge in quite that way. Often what you do was already known, but no one really figured out how to correctly apply it. Alternatively, it's often combining different things that were already well known, but no one had combined.

It's novel work that makes a PhD. Novel work is distinct from pushing the boundary of knowledge. Often what you do doesn't change what "humanity knows" in any way.

Both my wife and I have PhDs. Neither of us did things that look like the figures there. It's not a good mental model for what all PhDs mean, though it is a good model for some.

I combined fields and reinterpreted a ton of things that had already been done to draw very different fundamental conclusions about what was going on in a particular location. I put out alternative hypotheses for observations that had already been collected. It's not new knowledge at all and I didn't add to what we "know". I just added an additional hypothesis to the set of multiple working hypotheses that will hopefully be tested decades from now.

My wife worked on how to actually apply well-known methods in other fields to our field. Her work was half engineering, half field experiments. Lots of folks had been working with fiber optic strain gauges for decades. However, no one was using them to measure in-situ strain in rock masses yet (which has since become common). The application was broadly "known", but actually doing it and demonstrating that is novel.

kkoyung• 2 years ago

I read this article before starting my PhD. A few months ago, I successfully defended my thesis and completed my PhD. Even though it was just a small contribution, I’m proud to have pushed the boundaries of human knowledge.

The Illustrated Guide to a PhD

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