The Ph.D. Problem

http://harvardmagazine.com/2009/11/professionalization-in-academy

by RyanMcGreal • 17 years ago

89 68 17 years ago

foldr10• 17 years ago

This is just what professional disciplines tend to be like, as the author notes. You might just as well say that "the main product of structural engineering is not the production of bridges but the reproduction of structural engineering." It's probably true in the same sense that it's true of academia, but so what?

Gupie• 17 years ago

Structural engineers produce bridges, even if they are arguably just a side produce. In the worst case academics only produce academics.

mquander• 17 years ago

Academics also advance humanity's knowledge in their field through research and writing, so that others may stand on their shoulders and see further. Perhaps you don't believe that things like critical literary analysis are providing us any actual benefit, but I disagree and I'm sure that any humanities professor would disagree too.

Agathos• 17 years ago

In the worst case, structural engineers don't produce bridges. I'm sure you could find some poor soul who spent a career drawing up proposals for bridges that were never built.

rbanffy• 17 years ago

Well... The absolute worst case here is a structural engineer producing something that looks like a bridge for some time, then becomes a very dynamic and contorted structure of concrete, metal, automobiles and mostly dead primates.

gruseom3• 17 years ago

There's a principle associated with some famous sociologist that says "The purpose of any institution is first to perpetuate itself, and only secondarily to pursue its specified goal." I wish I could remember who said this. It's an idea with explanatory power.

amichail3• 17 years ago

In a related way, the purpose of a student is to maximize his/her grades and in so doing learn a few things along the way.

yummyfajitas• 17 years ago

You could make the corresponding argument for structural engineering, but it would be harder.

The corresponding statement for academia would be: "the main product of academia is not the production of ___ but..."

But what do we fill in the blank with? With structural engineering, the answer is obvious. With academia, particularly humanities academia, not so much.

foldr10• 17 years ago

It's true that research in the humanities tends to have less definite "results" than research in the sciences, but it's daft to use that as a criticism. _Of course_ literary analysis produces less definite results than chemistry. But that doesn't mean it's not worth doing.

scott_s4• 17 years ago

"Academia" is not shorthand for "Humanities Academia." Maybe this author's argument is true for the humanities, but I know some academic researchers in science and engineering can move into industry. That is, their skills are valued by people outside of their academic circle.

amichail3• 17 years ago

But maybe humanities academia has the benefit of giving you more freedom as your research is not evaluated as objectively as in science and engineering?

scott_s4• 17 years ago

Maybe. That makes it less interesting to me, but I wasn't trying to make a value judgment.

Although the rest of the article is worth reading. I don't think the author confuses humanities academia with science or engineering academia - I think the submitter did. I think the assumption with his essay is that what he says applies to the humanities, unless explicitly stated otherwise.

msluyter• 17 years ago

Well, the author's credentials and the preface do suggest a focus on the humanities.

scott_s4• 17 years ago

I agree, the confusion is with the submitted title.

RyanMcGreal2• 17 years ago

> "Academia" is not shorthand for "Humanities Academia."

Good point. Unfortunately, I was squeezed by the 80 character title constraint. :)

bbgm• 17 years ago

In fact, in the life sciences, the back and forth is getting more common, and will increasingly get so as the models for research, esp in large scale biology change. On the CS side there are any number of examples as well.

davi3• 17 years ago

As a grad student in neuroscience I think there's some validity to the argument, though. Academic research in my field can be tightly circumscribed by 5 year grant cycles, competition for tenure track positions, etc. I wrote about numerology of this here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=470181

I believe this numerology may be a source of generalized conservatism and incrementalism in academic science. And academic science has a different set of objectives than industry, and perhaps also a larger long-term payoff, when done well.

buugs• 17 years ago

It also works in the reverse order as my professors who fill in for those who take sabbaticals are those that work at the national labs near here as well as the engineering companies. Though these professors are a bit harder to reach than full-time professors.

joe_the_user• 17 years ago

I don't see how the article applies only to the humanities. It seems to be about supply-and-demand and self-regulating professional bodies.

I think a lot of the considerations of the article apply to, for example, mathematics.

Science and Engineering is the area with the most immediate application but even here, there's quite divide between theoretical CS and what's practiced in the field.

timwiseman6• 17 years ago

Could you elaborate?

You bring up an interesting possibility, but it is not intuitively obvious. In mathematics it is relatively easy to break into the field with the backing of an institution (I mean easy relative to doing the same thing in say English or History, not in an absolute sense). In fact, there is a long tradition of amateurs making some significant contributions, with Fermat being the crown (if now somewhat dated example.)

Also, one of his major complaints is how long it takes to get the PHD. At least at UNLV (where I am currently seeking a master's in Math) most of my peers that are seeking their PHD expect to get it within 6 years after starting their graduate studies. While this is still longer than a usual JD or MD program, it is at the very low end of the 6-9 year spectrum that was discussed in the article.

And while there is certainly a divide between theoretical mathematicians and their applied counterparts (or scientists who us mathematics) it is almost solely in choice of topic, not about disagreement over real facts, which you can see in some topics in the humanities between the professors and the general public.

scott_s4• 17 years ago

For researchers who can go into industry, the supply-and-demand dynamics are different.

philk• 17 years ago

Academia in the humanities field is particularly calcified and corrupt because it's so hard to measure the quality of the output (or even if anyone wants it at all).

At least with things like maths or computer science research can be verified and has utility to the broader world.

foldr10• 17 years ago

On the other hand, the claim that the humanities are not "practical" has become virtually a tautology, because "practical" has become almost a synonym for "scientific". Nowadays, people don't seem to think that work on love or ethics or aesthetics has practical value. I am not sure why, since actual human lives are intimately concerned with these topics.

miloshh2• 17 years ago

Focuses very much on a Ph.D. in English, which is in some ways the worst rather than the average case.

However, the argument that getting a Ph.D. is getting harder while its (financial) value is decreasing seems correct to me. That might not actually be a bad thing, and is very much to be expected - the market value of doing cool and interesting things goes down as the value of tedious or dangerous jobs goes up. I think we will see even more of that in the future.

We keep complaining about people maximizing their profits rather than happiness. But then, when some choose to pursue their interests and get PhD's in areas that aren't so hot in the industry, we criticize them for bad career decisions. Maybe everything's OK with the system, after all.

m0th87• 17 years ago

Thank you! IMO, the smartest thing to do in life is to pursue the options that maximize happiness. Money has a weak causal relationship with happiness[1]. Consequently, those getting a Ph.D. in English, for example, should do so if that's what makes them happy, but they should know there will be little returns from it.

It's the same reason why many of us on HN pursue independent employment: there's been plenty of articles here indicating entrepreneurialism means lower incomes than employment, and it most certainly has higher risk. But the real satisfaction comes from being independent!

[1] http://www.physorg.com/news70817137.html

oldgregg• 17 years ago

The academy is really no different from mega-corporations like Wal-mart, both revolve around money and power. Both are government subsidized. The republicans fund their pet industries (military complex, healthcare, corporate interests) until democrats seize power, yank their government subsidies, and routes all that money into the academy, unions, etc (and doing a pretty damn good job of catching up to republicans in terms of being corporate shills).

chasingsparks3• 17 years ago

The article briefly touched on something I find more dangerous: systemic conformity in academia. If you want to be influential, your best bet is to become allied to academia. As the article notes, "independent" researchers are viewed with suspicion, if viewed at all. Since there are incentives to conform (albeit loosely) to some norms while perusing a PH.D. there is a lot of hill climbing and not a lot of long jumps.

chasingsparks3• 17 years ago

P.S. Can someone with sufficient Karma post a poll asking level of education completed. Or maybe level of education desired would be more interesting. I'm curious about HN's academic demographics.

daniel-cussen• 17 years ago

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=917219

Alex3917• 17 years ago

I think you are right that this is the real story. The article itself doesn't make a whole lot of sense. If the reason you are getting a Ph.D. is because you want to teach college kids or get a 'BGN' job, you are doing it for the wrong reasons. The only reason to get a Ph.D. is because you want to publish academic research. And if you show up without already knowing what you want to be researching, you're probably not ready to get a Ph.D. yet.

That's not to say that academia isn't horribly broken, it is, but in some places it really seems like the author is going off in the wrong direction.

miloshh2• 17 years ago

Which independent researchers did you have in mind? One example I can think of is in politically sensitive areas, where think-tanks bypass the peer-review process and try to get their "research" straight into media, through good connections. I think that is rightfully viewed with suspicion.

If your point was that researchers unaffiliated with universities have a harder time to get through the peer-review process - I don't think that's true at all. Often I do not even remember if a paper I read in the past came from a university or an industry lab. For example, in computer graphics, one of the most prolific institutions when it comes to publishing papers is Microsoft Research Asia.

psranga• 17 years ago

"Long Jumps" is a myth imho.

What appears to be a long jump to a non-expert on first glance, on deeper inspection will usually turn out to have involved multiple small incremental steps culminating a final discovery. Since we have to acknowledge somebody we usually pick the guy/gal who finished the job. I'm not saying that all work is equal, but imho planning for long jumps is impossible (it's not like researchers don't want to make big leaps in understanding).

Examples which have changed my mind about this: Andrew Wiles' Fermat proof, evolution of RISC, quantum theories. I am pretty sure that if I dig into it, I'll find that relativity and evolution also built upon previous work.

chasingsparks3• 17 years ago

I don't necessarily disagree. Instead, I would modify what I said originally. There are structural factors that make taking large risks less profitable to the researcher than taking small incremental ones. The small incremental steps are important, but the large risks are also important. I think that the portfolio of research that results from "professional academia" tends to underweight risky projects. I am not claiming that it shift towards a total random search; I only claim that we need more risky investment compared to what we have now.

npk• 17 years ago

> "Long Jumps" is a myth imho.

You are 100% on point.

The parent's poster's point on conformity is well taken. Still, "independent" researchers are viewed with suspicion because research is hard. As psranga points out, to make a long jump a researcher has to stay on top of the incremental steps. Unfortunately, for 99.9% of people, to do this they must be fluent with the literature and much more importantly talk with other researchers. No one works in a vacuum (and don't bother bringing up counter examples like einstein or newton).

Conformity is a big problem. It might arise when too many PhDs are hustling for a small pie. I'm not sure.

stcredzero2• 17 years ago

The argument that they need the training to be qualified to teach undergraduates is belied by the fact that they are already teaching undergraduates.

But often: badly. (I was perhaps a prime example.)

Shana• 17 years ago

This is a conversation dominated by science majors.

I'm an art major. As in studio. Classic humanity major.

If I said "You should worry about what Adorno thinks about cultural production when you make a web object, since it means potnetially you end up with a more passive than active population: When you build an object on the web, how do you plan on activating the population, because of his critique?"

Most people here would go huh? by the sound of this conversation. In Practice, what humanities students say, especially when they sit down with engineers, is important. It is a pity that there is no practical humanities anymore. It is really useful to learn to think critically in that way about the world.

The Ph.D. Problem

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