[HN Gopher] 'Hard' skills from our PhDs remain relevant beyond a... ___________________________________________________________________ 'Hard' skills from our PhDs remain relevant beyond academia Author : nabla9 Score : 127 points Date : 2021-12-28 16:04 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.nature.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com) | karaterobot wrote: | Coming out of academia, I would say the biggest thing I had to | internalize was that nobody in the for-profit world cares about | your interesting findings, unless those interesting findings | result in more money. So, apart from just being able to write to | a format, I don't think grant proposal skills are transferable, | and in some sense they may hurt you if you forget that the case | you're making is not about research, it's about generating | profits. | | FWIW, I don't think this a bad thing in many cases. I left | academia after I realized that our 4-year NSF project to build | collaborative software was never intended to actually improve | anyone's life, or even to ever be used outside of our very | limited study. It didn't have to be good, or useful, or get | adopted by any community in order to succeed. The motivations | were completely different: it was to write more papers, and get | the next grant, and fund the next set of grad students, so they | could build something else that would never be used. Grant | proposals all the way down. | | Yes, basic research is valuable, obviously, my point is just that | it's an entirely different, and largely non-transferable | worldview from the private sector. | counters wrote: | IMHO an important point here is that in much of the story as | you've described it, there are incredibly valuable skills that | just need to be re-dressed. As an academician who was lured to | industry by an interesting startup and has worked the gamut of | positions from IC to executive, I'm reasonably confident in | telling folks that it's all about perspective. If things look | upside down, then turn yourself to match! For example: | | > I don't think grant proposal skills are transferable, | | Well, they actually probably are. If you work as a domain | expert on the business or technical side of an organization, | you may need to directly engage with funding agencies, other | companies, or some other agent where your ability to (a) | understand the audience and what is required to persuade them | to support your idea, and (b) quickly execute on the content | required to generate the proposal. Extra points if you were one | of those pre-tenure faculty who needed to submit a half-dozen | grant proposals every quarter, because you've likely built some | intuition as to where it's safe to cut corners in your writing | and pitching. Sure, in most jobs you may not be writing NSF | proposals every week, but the general skill of effective and | succinct technical communication is beyond valuable across a | wide swath of applications you'll find in industry. | | > The motivations were completely different: it was to write | more papers, and get the next grant | | ... but that's, in a sense, the same thing as the start-up | hustle, is it not? Build the MVP, get that one extra client - | not because this next iteration of your product is going to | change the world, but it's one more notch on your belt that | will look good in the next funding round. Hell, maybe the | majority of what you're building on any given iteration is | throw-away work, but it's towards an explicit goal. I don't | really see the start-up rat race as much different than the | grant rat race (for better or for worse - I'm not making a | judgment call here). | karaterobot wrote: | Thanks for the thoughtful response! | | > the general skill of effective and succinct technical | communication is beyond valuable across a wide swath of | applications you'll find in industry. | | I did not feel that academia rewarded succinct technical | communication in any way, and the criteria for evaluating | effectiveness were very different than in the private sector. | The kind of cases you need to make to pitch to investors (or | even product owners) are different than the kinds of cases | you need to make to pitch to a grant committee. | | In both domains, there is a language you need to learn to | communicate effectively, and I suppose that's partly what I | was thinking of when I cryptically mentioned "writing to a | template". But, the languages are not the same, and in fact | you have to _unlearn_ some ingrained concepts when you move | from academic to private sector -- or vice versa, I 'm sure. | At least I did. | | > ... but that's, in a sense, the same thing as the start-up | hustle, is it not? Build the MVP, get that one extra | client... | | No, I don't think it's the same. They both have incentive | structures, but the incentives are different. It's good for | private businesses to be judged on whether they make more | money than what was invested in them, but it would be pretty | catastrophic to our culture if academic research projects | were. | timr wrote: | This is easy to mock -- and others already are -- but there is | some element of truth. I've always said that the PhD gave me two | valuable things: | | 1) the demonstrated ability to complete a large, self-directed | project from beginning to end, starting with ambiguous, poorly | defined goals. | | 2) a herculean tolerance for bullshit. | | Both can be earned elsewhere, but the PhD was definitely a fast | path. The first one is still quite rare, in my experience, and | I'd call it a "hard skill". | wott wrote: | > the demonstrated ability to complete a large, self-directed | project from beginning to end | | I am not sure this (both the self-direction criterion and the | 'complete to the end' criterion) applies to a majority of PhDs | . | timr wrote: | Yeah, I hesitate a little there. There are a lot of PhD | programs and doctoral students. Most of them are bad. But | that's true of everything. | | If we focus on the positive outcome for a good student, those | are the two things I think distinguishes someone from a | doctorate from someone without. | lmeyerov wrote: | Yep. Professors are not only able to get an answer, but able | to define the problem. It varies by region and domain for | when that is meant to be true, so you need to understand the | system a bit better. | | Ex: US CS PhDs from the Top 30 are generally like this and a | quick CV scan and conv can help verify they achieved that. | Conversely, many EU CS PhD stage programs are shorter and for | more prepackaged concepts, so the same level of experience | does happen.. but later. | | Ex: US bio fields often are 'one big paper' for a PhD, so you | can be assured of grit and uncertainty tolerance. But for the | same reason, you don't know independence until the post doc. | faangiq wrote: | There are a lot of trash PhDs out there. | analog31 wrote: | Indeed, and this is an outgrowth of the fact that PhD education | is relatively unstandardized. If you let people chart their own | course, a few will figure out how to slide through without | doing anything. Also, it's quite possible for someone to be | capable of doing the research and producing the dissertation, | but with such abysmal personal skills that they render | themselves unemployable. | | On the other hand, HN is where I learned that employers think | so highly of CS graduates that they find it necessary to give | them an exam to find out if they actually learned to program. | So I don't think it's unique to PhDs. | searine wrote: | Lots of snarky comments in this thread are missing the point: a | lot of academics get tunnel vision. | | If you've spent 10 years studying ion transporters in mushrooms, | it can feel like you are way over specialized and that getting a | job outside of your narrow expertise in academia is impossible. | It is not. A trained scientific mind is a valuable commodity in | the job marketplace, regardless of your speciality. | honkycat wrote: | I have a buddy who is a lab tech at a university. He is under- | paid and under appreciated. | | He has a masters in physics. Really smart guy! | | I keep telling him: The math background he has would be a huge | asset in CS. He should change careers! | | He is very skeptical. He feels like he is too old to start( 35 ). | | At the end of the day, if he doesn't want to change that is his | business, and I don't want to badger him. I just feel like he | would be great as a ML/Data engineer. | ajkjk wrote: | He'd be fine at anything non-specialized in tech. Regular | application programming is so much easier than physics that | it's laughable. | antishatter wrote: | 1) seems like a fuckin "duh" 2) obvious conflict of interest, | PhD's writing about how useful PhD's are? | spamizbad wrote: | My wife has a PhD and I've always been impressed with her | skillset. Although she's not quite ready to join "the industry", | there's truly a massive gulf between the quality of research, | writing, organization and analysis she can produce compared to | what I've encountered in the workforce. | geebee wrote: | I think this article makes sense and makes a strong case for | valuing a PhD _if you have already completed one and don 't plan | to enter academia_. You haven't wasted your time. But it doesn't | make a strong case for choosing to pursue higher education beyond | a proper, legit masters degree. | | I know MS degrees have been somewhat cheapened, as they are a | quick and easy degree that qualifies for the much higher federal | loan limits. A university can enroll lots of MS students, | supervise them poorly, and profit. But there are still MS | programs with a lot of integrity, where you can learn (provided | you seek out the opportunity) to write a grant, publish, and do | intense data analysis. In STEM, many masters programs also tend | to offer RA and/or TAships, which means you can graduate with | minimal debt, and you'll have the opportunity to present at mini- | conferences or seminars. | | You won't be as good at this as you would if you pursued a PhD, | but if you get a job and keep working on it, you will be better | off in 4-5 years. That said - if you want to go the academic | route, a PhD is so close to essential that I'm happy to give a | half hand wave and call it essential. | gwerbret wrote: | Perhaps I'm definitionally-challenged, but none of the skills | listed strike me as "hard" skills. I see a hard skill as being | one for which a person receives domain-specific training, e.g. CS | major at $SCHOOL learning to program in Rust. In contrast, the | soft skills are those obtained in the process of achieving the | hard skills, e.g. aforementioned CS major developing teamwork and | time management skills while working on a group project. | | In this vein, none of the skills listed in this article (grant- | writing, data analysis, information synthesis, data presentation) | are domain-specific. | tpoacher wrote: | It is a rather soft definition of hard, yes. | whatshisface wrote: | It borders on saying, "it takes general intelligence to do | this, and it takes general intelligence to have a job, | therefore people who can do this often can do a job." | mcguire wrote: | "Specific training", as in learning to program in $LANG, is | essentially worthless, and if that's all you got from a CS | degree, I'd recommend asking for a refund. Teamwork and time | management may well be skills that you learn while getting a CS | degree, but they're not the focus and not going to be _taught_. | humanistbot wrote: | The hard/soft distinction is a bad metaphor that we should stop | using, especially when talking about science. Both soft and | hard have other meanings that come with so many implicit | cultural assumptions. Domain-specific vs domain-independent is | far more precise. And if you want to refer to | social/communication skills, why not just say that? | Jensson wrote: | Hard means it is easy to measure as they have rigid shape and | form. Soft means it is hard to measure as soft items doesn't | have shape or other properties similar to hard items. | | So a hard skill could be "this person knows how to code basic | programs that works". A soft skill could be "this person | knows how to write code that others find easy to understand | and modify". The first is much easier to test and measure, | the second is really hard to test but is still valuable. | | Note that hard/soft has nothing to do with how difficult they | are to acquire. | | Thus the hardest of skills are when the job requires | licensing or similar. If you want to hire a doctor then you | need someone who is licensed for it. This requirement is 100% | rigid and it is very easy to test if they have a licence, the | candidate absolutely needs it so there is no compromise to be | done. | graycat wrote: | (1) Financial Math. Some of the comments here have to do with | _mathematical finance_ , e.g., the Black-Scholes model. | | Mathematical finance done with theorems and proofs has some | strong prerequisites of _measure theory_ with sigma algebras, | Markov processes, Brownian motion, the Radon-Nikodym theorem, | conditional expectation, stochastic integration, e.g., Ioannis | Karatzas, Steven E. Shreve, _Brownian Motion and Stochastic | Calculus_ , Robert M. Blumenthal and Ronald K. Getoor, _Markov | Processes and Potential Theory_. Can also want parabolic partial | differential equations and stochastic dynamic programming. | | In my experience, with a pure/applied math Ph.D. and as a prof in | an MBA program, nearly no MBA students or profs have those | prerequisites. And with my experience in finance, nearly no one | in finance has those prerequisites, either. | | The people in MBA programs, as students or professors, may have | gotten such a background from Cinlar, Shreve, or one of a few | more. | | Bluntly, not many people, a tiny fraction even in pure math, and | a good background in pure math is a prerequisite, actually study | stochastic processes and stochastic optimal control with a | measure theory prerequisite. | | Anyone X with anything like that math background might want to be | careful or that background will scare nearly all potential | employers, in finance or anything else, and result in X being | ostracized and fired or not hired. | | (2) Math in MBA Programs. When I was a prof in an MBA program, | all the math used was undergraduate level, e.g., with hardly even | a calculus prerequisite. | | (3) Advanced STEM Educations for Non-Academic Jobs. It appears | that an advanced education, e.g., in computer science, can help | in getting a non-academic job, but the real _help_ is just | passing a filter, having _proved_ oneself, and not aiding in | doing the job. | | This situation should not be a surprise: Having exceptionally | good qualifications will make a person X exceptional and rare, | that is, one out of 100+. Then the other 99 can be afraid and | resentful and gang up on X, sabotage X with gossip, keep X _out | of the loop_ , etc. | | (4) Jobs and People with Exceptional Qualifications. It is common | for someone X with exceptional qualifications to attempt to use | those qualifications to get and do well in a job as an employee. | That would mean that person X has a supervisor Y who created the | job. But as we can anticipate, it is rare for a supervisor Y to | have the exceptional qualifications or to create a job that needs | such qualifications. Moreover Y could be uncomfortable, feel | threatened by, a subordinate X having and using qualifications Y | did not have. In simple terms, commonly Y hires X to apply | routine _muscle_ to work conceived by Y. To borrow from a James | Bond movie, X is not hired to think and, instead, is hired to do | what they are told. | | (5) Potential of Exceptional Qualifications. For a person with | exceptional qualifications that might be powerful and valuable | for a career, don't look for a corresponding job created by | someone else and, instead, create the corresponding job for | yourself. E.g., do a startup. | | (6) Financial Success. If person X works as an employee, then the | supervisor of X knows to the last penny just how much money X is | making and usually will do their best to keep down the amount. | However, if person X owns a business, then for X the customers | replace the supervisor, and it's common for the customers not to | know even roughly how much money X is making. | | So, net, for X with exceptional qualifications that seem powerful | and valuable, start and run a successful business and make use of | those qualifications. There X can be making a nice fortune, with | no supervisor at all and with customers who neither know nor much | care how much X is making. | | (7) Academic Research Jobs. In academic research, the prof is | essentially begging a little money from sources with big money, | working hard, and then begging journals to let them give away the | results of the work for free. So, we might anticipate that such | jobs won't pay very well. I concluded that broadly academic jobs | were, for someone who wanted to support a family with financial | security, financially irresponsible. | analog31 wrote: | I have a physics PhD from 30 years ago. | | I think it's just too hard to generalize. PhDs are still | relatively few and far between, come from different disciplines, | have different interests, strengths, weaknesses. We're not | exactly children when we start a PhD program, so our trajectory | is influenced by what we've already done. We come from 100 | countries. | | An odd thing about physics is that we don't have a lot of our own | tools or techniques. We're opportunists and we borrow ideas from | everywhere. My thesis involved nascent laser technology, | mechanics, electronics, theory, programming, data analysis, and a | bit of chemistry. Historically, physicists were often the | pioneering users of those things before they became branches of | engineering. | | Today, my work still tends to be multidisciplinary. I do a lot of | programming, but I've never wanted a software development job per | se. I'm willing to work on problems that are ill-defined, that | don't fall into anybody's field, and that might not be solvable. | Almost all of my work is heavily quantitative. I interact | regularly with management, customers, academics, etc. The people | at my workplace who are doing that kind of stuff are, by and | large, PhDs. They are not necessarily the highest paid employees | -- the coders probably have us beat. | | What I don't know (if I were to anticipate reasonable skepticism) | is whether this is a special feature of PhDs, or if we move into | this role by necessity due to the _lack_ of marketable hard | skills. I don 't know if any of my skills, taken in isolation, | would be enough to get me a job. | matmatmatmat wrote: | Physics PhD from about 7 years ago. My impressions are the same | as yours. | bmitc wrote: | None of these arguments are contained to just PhDs and just | further propagates that PhDs are somehow special. | barefeg wrote: | Most of these skills are not so useful as an individual | contributor, but rather for someone in leadership/c-level. But | taking those roles as a fresh graduate is very hard. Most | established companies would much rather hire someone with actual | experience in those roles | q-big wrote: | > Experience in grant-writing, data analysis and presentation | will serve you well, say Samantha Baggott and Jonathan McGuire. | | These are in my opinion also soft skills from a PhD program (not | 'hard' skills). The hard skills are the scientifically deep | results that you learn and/or investigate as part of your | research. | quanto wrote: | Premise: A person spends 5 - 6 years doing a focused task; and | the resulting skills are transferable to other fields. | | This premise is not surprising. As others pointed out, you can be | doing anything and learn something that is valuable and | transferable. | | The real question is whether a PhD program is the most time- and | energy-efficient way of learning those transferable skills. If | you were doing your own startup for 5 - 6 years, would you have | learned less transferable skills? How about 3-year tenures at 2 | of FAANG? What is the opportunity cost of a PhD? | ModernMech wrote: | It's really best to think about a PhD as an apprenticeship to | run a research lab. If you go into it with that expectation, | you're not bound to be disappointed. Any other perceptions may | leave you a bit disillusioned. | | The true value of a PhD is that you get to spend about 8 years | or so learning under the close tutelage of a distinguished | individual in some field. And really, that's how you should | pick your program -- more than the school or the program or the | research topic, you have to pick a researcher you want to work | with; your brain is going to end up working a lot like theirs | by the time you defend your dissertation. | | Because what they are going to do is teach you everything they | know. It's incredible, you will feel like a novice at the | beginning, but there comes a point a few years in when you | realize that actually, you know about as much about this topic | now as someone considered an expert in the field. In fact, you | are writing their papers that they are publishing. And | actually, you disagree with some aspects here and there. Then | suddenly, you start having ideas of your own, ideas that you | know no one else has thought of before. So you write them down, | and that is how a researcher is born. | | At this point the idea is that you are kicked from the nest and | you will set up a research startup at some other university. | This is much like running any other startup but the product is | research papers and the revenue is federal grant money. | | So to the questions at hand: | | 1. Are there skills you learn during a PhD that you can learn | elsewhere? | | Of course. And maybe sooner. A great deal of time is spent on | the dissertation. You may have acquired the necessary skills | only a few years in. Many people in CS acquire these skills | outside of a PhD program (and wrongly assume they have | therefore obviated the degree entirely). | | 2. What are the opportunity costs of getting a PhD? | | Well, quite a lot of money although not as much as you think | (due to stipends and tuition remission). But there is a lot of | financial upside afterwards depending on the field. But I think | if you look at peer groups in their early 30s, PhDs would be on | average much poorer but some ramping up to much higher | earnings. | | 3. What are the opportunity costs of not doing a PhD? | | You will be locked out of some opportunities for good. Or at | least, a PhD is an easy way of unlocking some opportunities. | For example being an expert witness. It's easier to immigrate | to some countries if you have a PhD. It's easier to get visas. | There are certain grants you can only qualify for if you have a | PhD. | | Also people treat you like you know everything about | everything. This is a blessing and a curse, because if you're | like me you are wrong a lot. Then people will make remarks like | "you have a PhD? How do you not know this?" The flip side is | your relatives will love to brag about it and it will make your | aunts very proud to tell their peers. | | And finally, there is really no other way to get that | apprenticeship experience. If you really want to get into a | topic, spend the better part of a decade obsessed with it, with | no other responsibilities or distractions, then I know of no | other place to do that than a PhD. Some startups could be close | but really would need a lot of funding and be okay with little | to show for 7 years. I don't know many investors that would be | cool with that but maybe there are. | foldr wrote: | The parent post has some great info, but it's worth noting | that it's very specific to lab sciences. PhDs in lots of | other fields are quite unlike this. | mellavora wrote: | The weirdest thing for me was that after my Ph.D., people | started coming up to me on the street and asking directions. | The scary thing was I usually knew the answer. Even when I | was in a new city. | temporalparts wrote: | 'Hard' skills from working as a McDonald's cashier remain | relevant beyond restaurant business. | | 1. Understanding customer relationships | | 2. Creativity on the job: figuring out how to deal with edge | cases for positive outcomes that were not in the corporate | training manuals. | | 3. Understanding highly optimized and dynamic ordering systems, a | workflow systems engineering marvel for delivering hot food fast. | | 4. Create financial wealth above and beyond most PhD students. | tomrod wrote: | As someone who spent time in both worlds, true except (4). | Personal knowledge capital investment has higher expected | returns. | yummypaint wrote: | Same here. There is something about practicing customer | service in a human-facing job that conditions ones mind for | immediate agressive problem solving. | rovr138 wrote: | Specially if you add a timer and need to solve things | quickly before you're the problem. | dekhn wrote: | The one thing I learned as a mcdonald's cashier was how to | compute change from a $20 in my head, quickly. | | There was nothing about the workflow system of my mcdonalds | that delivered hot food fast. There was a ton of inefficiency | in it. I made a number of recommendations to my manager who | told me I needed to attend Hamburger University lectures of why | what McDonalds did was so great. | inputvolch wrote: | Those were the only `hard` skills they could come up with? This | reads like someone who is trying really hard to validate their | life decision to spend many, many years in higher education. | | I mean: | | > we still say (and write) things such as 'heuristics', | 'confirmation bias' or 'family-wise error rate' | | If you came out of a PhD and think these are challenging concepts | to pick up, or that they somehow make you more valuable than your | average technical employee, well, I don't know what to tell you. | | I generally avoid hiring PhDs onto my teams unless the problem | I'm faced with is PRECISELY what they researched. 9 times out of | 10 a highly motivated generalist is far more valuable than a PhD. | barefeg wrote: | Do you have examples of how hiring PhDs can go wrong? I have a | similar feeling that generalists are usually better unless the | problem is exactly what they studied. But I don't have number | nor stories to back this claim | rovr138 wrote: | I'll only comment on this, | | > Do you have examples of how hiring PhDs can go wrong? | | Not so much wrong, but there's a curve IMO. This is biased | and based on my limited experience. | | Writing code or working on production systems sometimes they | have trouble working the code bases. They can code, but don't | necessarily have developed yet the skills to dig into code. I | think everyone has this issue starting. There's also a big | difference in code from academia to industry. | | Same with problems. We need a solution and a usable one. It | doesn't have to be THE theoretical best thing always. It has | to work. For example, you can't just not consider constants | in complexities in production. Those constants take time. | | An example can be Netflix's challenge, https://www.techdirt.c | om/articles/20120409/03412518422/why-n... | | ---- | | I don't necessarily agree with the generalists part. I think | we all specialize over time and have some of the same issues | changing language or even frameworks. We just don't have or | know the best way of doing things within it yet. | wallscratch wrote: | As a current PhD student in computational neuroscience, I think | most of the academics I interact with tend to drastically | overestimate the value of their "data science" skills to real | jobs, and underestimate the value of software skills beyond | prototyping. | epgui wrote: | My impression is that most companies don't know how to | appreciate and take advantage of these data science skills, so | it's not so much that the skills aren't as valuable as | academics think, it's more that they're not utilized in an | effective manner in real jobs. | N1H1L wrote: | I spent my Ph.D. coding in MATLAB, as my Ph.D. was experimental | and MATLAB was mainly used for data analysis and plotting. On | the other hand, I had a full conda package with complete | documentation up and running by the end of my postdoc. Though | this was a side project, the time spent on this was incredibly | valuable. I did not have to prove to anyone I was proficient in | Python; my GitHub was enough. Additionally, the vast majority | of researchers' extent of Python expertise was limited to | disjointed Jupyter notebooks - while I had a running package | with extensive documentation. | | I got 3 job offers just based on my package itself - while very | few non-academic jobs were interested in my publications. The | fact that I had a few first-authors in reputed journals was | enough; nobody was interested in their contents. | analog31 wrote: | At my workplace we assume if you're a good Matlab programmer, | you can teach yourself Python in a jiffy. What's a bit tricky | is that every resume mentions Matlab and Python. Having a | public repo is a useful way to show what you can do. | N1H1L wrote: | This is the key. Everyone claims Python/MATLAB proficiency, | yet there is honestly a vast competency spectrum. A | polished public repo, in my experience, will really help | you stand out. | mlac wrote: | Industry is still moving from excel / spreadsheet modeling to | tableau and python and alteryx in the workplace. Knowing python | today is knowing excel 20 years ago. | | Most companies aren't ready to do real data science, and the | transition is as much an organizational problem as it is a | technical one. | nabla9 wrote: | What makes difference is the autonomy in the job. Are you hired | to work as a cog, or do you have power to influence what you | do? In the latter case, data science skills multiply the amount | of impact your work has (assuming you have ideas). | | It's the difference between, _" I explored these 5 scenarios | last night, none of them is pans out"_ vs. _" This idea seems | interesting. We need three weeks, and small team to explore | this idea that might have potential."_ | artemisyna wrote: | The thing articles like this miss is the problem is not _will | there be_ some set of skills gained on a given path, but _what | skills are gained (and at what opportunity cost) versus | alternatives_. | lordnacho wrote: | Honestly it sounds a bit desperate. I'm not dissing the idea of | getting a PhD, I think it's a big achievement. But this sort of | argument is the kind of thing I heard when I finishing my | undergrad, and it wasn't convincing then either. | | Grant Applications: | | Very specific academic "skill" which is intimately tied to the | bureaucracy of the university system of your particular country | or region. It also has a lot to do with things that aren't even | in the application: who you know and what they think of you. | Whatever org you join later will have some other way for funding | to come down, and there are so many varieties of org that you'll | just have to learn on that job. | | Analyzing Data: | | That's definitely useful, but there's general and specific. There | are lots of people who can't do it, and by doing a PhD you | definitely show people that you are capable. But, and it's a huge | but, you will be spending a heck of a lot of time poring over the | evidence on some very specific area of science, with its own | conventions and paradigms. When you go and do something else, | that won't be relevant. People will of course see that you are | generally intelligent, and that's great, but you'll have to learn | whole new fields at your next gig. Your issue then is that it's | possible to show general intelligence and ability to learn deep | material without doing the whole PhD. In fact plenty of people | will look at a Bachelor's and conclude the person is smart enough | to learn how derivatives work, or how the advertising business | works, and so on. | | Presentations: | | There's simply no less efficient way to learn presentation skills | than to do a hard science PhD. It doesn't make any sense, a PhD | takes a lot of work and how much of it is actually doing | presentation specifically? Yes, I know they do presentations as | part of it. But the kind of presentation skill you want is what | your typical smooth talker is good at: confidently being able to | talk about something that everyone can relate to. Think Obama or | one of those Apple-guy-on-stage things. Are you going to learn | that on your PhD? From what I hear, science fields are very very | specific and although you are presenting, there's a fair bit of | focus on the substance, plus you are presenting to people who are | also insiders. If you want to just be less nervous and uhm-and-aw | less, there are better ways to practice. | | There are of course good reasons to get a PhD, such as a desire | to learn that specific field. But the cost/benefit of doing it in | order to learn generally applicable skills seems off to me. | throwawaygh wrote: | I generally agree with your thesis that the case here is | desperate. However, | | _> a PhD takes a lot of work and how much of it is actually | doing presentation specifically? Yes, I know they do | presentations as part of it. But the kind of presentation skill | you want is what your typical smooth talker is good at_ | | Step zero of "smooth talk" style rhetoric is to start with the | audience and work backwards to the speech. | | Doing/understanding something complex and difficult, and then | digesting it down to something that a diverse (if specialized) | audience can understand, is quite different from what "typical | smooth talkers" do. In fact, it's literally reversed. Your | message -- the unvarnished complicated truth -- is fixed. | | Giving an eloquent speech to a friendly general audience on an | easy topic is a good skill, particularly in | sales/fundraising/etc. But it's quite different from the | communication skills one learns during a phd. | | There are many jobs in which the phd-style communication skills | are more important than sales-style communication skills. | Generally positions where there's a team of folks working on a | "hard" and rigid truth that doesn't care about you. E.g., | leading/helping/consulting with a team of technologists to | understand and solve a hard problem with a physical device or | piece of software. "Uhms" and "ahs" don't matter, eye contact | is optional, but cleanly communicating about complex ideas with | other experts is necessary. | hyperbovine wrote: | > Grant Applications: Very specific academic "skill" which is | intimately tied to the bureaucracy of the university system of | your particular country or region. It also has a lot to do with | things that aren't even in the application: who you know and | what they think of you. | | Honest question: how many grant applications have you written, | and to which funding agencies? Your experience does not | resemble mine at all. | lordnacho wrote: | Absolutely none, just looking over the shoulders of friends. | Happy to hear what you think. | selimthegrim wrote: | My friend in physics who has written multiple federal grant | applications supporting multiple people tells a similar story | to GP. | rbartelme wrote: | "Grant Applications: | | Very specific academic "skill" which is intimately tied to the | bureaucracy of the university system of your particular country | or region. It also has a lot to do with things that aren't even | in the application: who you know and what ? they think of you. | Whatever org you join later will have some other way for | funding to come down, and there are so many varieties of org | that you'll just have to learn on that job." | | I think the country/region part you mention is most relevant | here, but I disagree with the overall assessment of grant | writing being irrelevant. If you work in a start-up or the R&D | division of a company, there's still grant money to be had. | This lets companies pursue high risk projects while not | jeopardizing overall revenue. | lordnacho wrote: | > start-up or the R&D division | | Well certainly a large R&D division is similar to a | university, but if you go that way, of course it makes sense | to have a PhD. The question is whether the skill is | applicable to things that aren't basically the same thing. | | For start-ups, getting funding does not look like a | university grant application, surely? At least I've heard | many many versions of what people did, and none of them | sounded much like what my PhD friends did. | mlac wrote: | Public speaking, writing, networking, reading primary sources, | and independence are all useful. | | I've met really good PhDs, and awful ones. Awful ones wanted | respect because they had the PhD. Really good ones realized how | much they didn't know and acknowledged that. | | A PhDs can be a requirement to get very highly specific jobs (ml | at google or robotics at Argo AI) but it's rubbed me the wrong | way when PhDs are a bonus for stepping into leadership, which | sometimes seems to occur in government / research labs tied to | academia. | | I think PhDs often experience a dysfunctional work environment in | their formative years during the PhD and then try to translate | that to the work place, implementing almost a caste system with | an over-emphasis on education and power concentrated at the top. | | Also I've seen some PhDs discount MBAs or other degrees that | aren't hard science because it's not what they chose to study | (physics or pure CS or Chemistry). I guess the point is that | someone can get a PhD and be missing some basic core | competencies. | jbluepolarbear wrote: | The only people that have ever had problem with me (no degree) | training them were PhDs. Most have had a superiority complex of | their education over mine. I'm like "sorry they feel that way, | but I built most of the software you're gonna use". Some PhDs | have been super humble and they tend to be the smarter people | I've met. | black_13 wrote: | crispyambulance wrote: | I think folks are getting hung up on what is or is not a "hard | skill". | | It doesn't matter. | | Lots of people leave academia with/without a PHD and go to work | in places where their degree and the skills/knowledge gained by | that pursuit aren't specifically required. How relevant your | degree actually is (how much it "helps" you) depends on where you | end up and how much you're willing to adapt. | | Whatever the case, with some things you're going to be just as | novice as a 22 year old entry level candidate (in my case, | probably even worse). | | I recall leaving my phd program and months later in "a job" | encountering my first "project manager". I literally didn't know | that this job title even existed. I blurted out to some co- | workers "Who is this person and why did they ask everyone to | estimate on the spot when they would be done with their piece of | the project, and anyway, how could we even estimate something so | uncertain?" Everyone just laughed! | | ...and so began my years long reality-check where I discovered | exactly how green the grass was on the "other side" working in | corporate jobs. | FpUser wrote: | >"'Hard' skills from our PhDs remain relevant beyond academia" | | And the sky is blue. | runeblaze wrote: | One "useful" skill PhDs seem to learn is how to manage a busy non | 9-5 schedule while earning grad-school wages. This is a non- | trivial and probably useful skill to have for many people, but if | I were to earn an PhD and quit academia I sure hope that I would | have a 9-5 job with high pay... | edw519 wrote: | _'Hard' skills from our PhDs remain relevant beyond academia | | Experience in grant-writing, data analysis and presentation will | serve you well, say Samantha Baggott and Jonathan McGuire._ | | You can say that about anything. My version (which I firmly | believe): | | 'Hard' skills from McDonald's remain relevant beyond foodservice | | Experience in showing up on time, being trained and prepared, | caring about customers, and getting done what must be done will | serve you well, says edw519 | | Edit: Oops, I just noticed a similar (and much more insightful) | McDonald's reference in this thread from temporalparts. :-) | omarhaneef wrote: | This comes up a lot: everyone has some "skills" that transfer | from one domain to another. Read an interview with a titan of | industry and they will invariably bring up the willingness to get | up early and work hard that s/he "learned" from the paper route. | The CEO of the studio "learned" to network from being in the | mailroom and so on. In theory, almost any job can give you some | transferable skills. A PhD may give you many more than most. | | I know if you have PhD you (probably) worked really, really, | really hard, were able to focus on a single problem for years, | can communicate, analyze and so forth. I have enormous respect | for PhDs, and believe they can deliver enormous value. But they | are not the same kind of hire as an MBA. | | What is the difference between a PhD and an MBA? I think to me it | captures the single most important attribute that you cannot pick | up directly: what people care about. | | The thing about an MBA is, they really enjoy this "business | stuff." They like thinking about markets, the customer, costs, | finance, how to cross-sell, how to avoid dilution and the like. | Its not just that the skills are different (though they are), it | is that the interests are different. | | Source: comp sci PhD student who switched to an MBA. | BeetleB wrote: | > I know if you have PhD you (probably) worked really, really, | really hard, were able to focus on a single problem for years, | | Focus, yes. | | Hard work - not a requirement. Depends entirely on your | professor's requirements to get the PhD. Most of what I saw in | my time in engineering/physics: Just consistently do the work | and stick to it without getting too many distractions. Hard | work merely made you get the PhD quicker. | | Of course, if your advisor is fussy, this strategy won't work. | | The one other observation is that when you look at the output | and career trajectory, there isn't much correlation with the | value of the PhD and how hard the advisor makes you work. Most | of the value of the hard work slave driving professors make you | do goes to your professor, not you, | Moodles wrote: | Right. But are there are "hard" skills from an MBA that | transfer? Not to offend, but MBAs just seem like networking and | drinking degrees to me, for people that love business. I've | seen MBAs syllabuses: I've literally seen very basic things | like "profit = revenue - cost" on slides. It seems like with | MBAs it's almost entirely soft skills, no? | mlac wrote: | Good MBA programs have courses in linear programming and | optimization, complex financial modeling, and supply chain | that are quantitative in nature. | | There are also technology components that review basic IT | setups for a business. | | They teach you how to think about markets, and how to review | financial statements and understand a business' profit and | operations, and offer opportunity to get capital. The org | behavior courses teach about how to actually get an | organization to achieve its desired outcome. And that can be | way more powerful than a solo person working alone in a lab. | | An ideal MBA with experience post-school would be able to | look at an idea, figure out if it's a viable product with a | good market fit, have the contacts to get financing, the | connections to get it produced at the right quality with the | lowest possible cost, hedge against forex risks, work with | lawyers to negotiate the associated contracts (or know enough | to not get screwed), record and accurately report the profits | to governments and stakeholders, and get the right people | onboarded (these are the soft skills) to get the work done. | mlac wrote: | I wrote the above, but I think the problematic ones are the | "text book MBAs" (I just coined that) who go to mediocre, | money-grabbing programs and think they are good to go | because they read text books and have the degree. There are | too many of these in the marketplace. | | The other skill a good MBA imparts is solid written and | oral communication. | | I don't have an MBA, but considered it and chose another MS | program, cherry picking MBA courses I felt were relevant. | | But to discount an MBA as two more years of undergrad | partying is missing out on a lot of skills they can bring. | toiletfuneral wrote: | mcguire wrote: | " _I wrote the above, but I think the problematic ones | are the "text book MBAs" (I just coined that) who go to | mediocre, money-grabbing programs and think they are good | to go because they read text books and have the degree. | There are too many of these in the marketplace._ " | | This is essentially true for all college degrees at this | point. | hooande wrote: | an MBA involves a lot of case studies. that's breaking down | what happened with a given business over a period of time in | some detail. at least back in my day, MBA programs had a lot | of reading and writing them | | look up some examples of MBA case studies some time. they can | be very interesting and informative | omarhaneef wrote: | I have heard some version of this argument frequently over | the years: there is this "hard" skill in engineering or | physics or computer science that has real lasting value, and | there there are these other disciplines that don't really | have much of value. | | Now, let's unpack what people mean by "hard" skills. Do you | mean they are difficult to learn? Do you mean they are useful | in today and tomorrow's economy? What exactly does the hard | in hard skill mean. | | I think you can see how the deconstruction of the argument | works here. If by hard you mean difficult to learn, then I | can list a bunch of hard skills that are not directly useful. | If someone can rattle of all the major proofs in quantum | mechanics on a blackboard, they may be a genius, have worked | hard, and can do amazing things with their brain but that | effort may not directly make them more employable. | | If by hard skills you mean things that are useful to the | economy, then that changes. I could have spent 4 years | learning WAMP and then when I come out the economy has moved | on to some other framework. | | Maybe by hard skills you mean some skills that make it easy | to pick up the other computer skills. So I may have learned a | particular computer language, but along the way I know | conditionals, loops, computational expense and so on. Are | these harder to learn than presentation skills? Are they more | useful than financial statements? | | The example here of a slide that says "profit = revenue - | cost" is hardly fair. That's like saying I once saw a piece | of code on github that was very poor. Picking individual | examples of something you don't find challenging is easy in | any field. | | Explain what you mean by hard skills, and then we can talk | about whether a particular discipline has them or not. | q-big wrote: | > Now, let's unpack what people mean by "hard" skills. Do | you mean they are difficult to learn? Do you mean they are | useful in today and tomorrow's economy? What exactly does | the hard in hard skill mean. | | Hard skills are what is the scientific core of your degree | course or PhD program. | | So knowledge about theoretical physics of you study physics | or do your PhD in it. Knowledge of mathematics and ability | to do hard proofs for mathematics. | | For computer science, the situation is more subtle: Here | the hard skill is knowledge of computer science, being able | to understand papers about this topic (degree course) or | doing research (PhD program). In this sense, I would | consider programming knowledge as a (central!) soft skill | of a CS program. | alisonkisk wrote: | Hard skill is algorithmic, logical rigid, precise | computations and physical manipulations. | | Soft skill is social-emotional, communication and artistic | creativity. | mbot5324 wrote: | Just as a layperson often underestimates the true depth of a | PhD's expertise in their field of study, many people often | underestimate the skill of someone who has spent a similarly | long time meditating on the "soft skills" that actually glue | a good idea into a successful business. | Moodles wrote: | I'm not arguing for hard skills over soft skills. I'm | asking if MBAs actually provide transferrable hard skills. | mbot5324 wrote: | You could write an encyclopedic book of counter intuitive | organizational dynamics. While I don't know that this is | the case with all of them, perhaps MBAs could be | understood as internalizing the combination of such an | encyclopedia with a few others besides and gaining | insight into how they interplay with supply line | logistics. | | The insight mostly comes from experiences; the knowledge | of what to reference to find where to find where to find | what to find could be (boringly) boiled down to rote | memorization and distributed through your standard | classroom practices. | bmeski wrote: | They don't. All MBAs I've met in my career have been | replaced easily. | mlac wrote: | You haven't met good ones, and that's likely why they | were replaced. | [deleted] | pasiaj wrote: | That's not an argument against MBA's having hard skills. | It's an argument for a finely standardized product. | | MBAs are a commodity, but they do or at least can have | hard skills. I've wasted plenty of time and money on | subpar market entry and expansion that could have been | saved had I worked with people with some theoretical | background on those. | wittycardio wrote: | Soft skills are very valuable but you tend to learn those | with experience not classes, MBAs are just as unlikely as | PhDs to have them | ArnoVW wrote: | What I'd expect in an MBA : accounting, finance, marketing, | basics in legal, management, business strategy, etc. | | Sure. It's not higher maths. But they are real skills that | are 1) hard 2) are not 'natural'. | | Yes. It's _also_ a good way to meet other people like you. | But then the same thing goes for any 'skill'. How many | businesses weren't founded by comp Sci students from the same | uni? | analog31 wrote: | I have friends who earned MBA's, typically through | "executive" programs attached to major universities. Their | training was being paid for, and they were looking for the | more prestigious programs. | | These programs did not accept students straight out of | college, and so the people going into them already tend to | have some business experience, and have already sorted | themselves according to their math ability. They're already | known to be diligent, organized, and satisfactorily literate. | | The ones who went in with strong math skills found the | quantitative courses to be a breeze. Everybody learned | accounting and finance principles, which are useful for being | conversant in that language. They took a course in business | communications, and came out with a fairly standardized | approach to writing memoranda and reports. I think they | learned how to write and critique a business plan. There were | one or more courses on business law, including HR. | | I call these "hard" skills because they are technical in | nature. I believe that these are all good skills for entry | into middle management. | alisonkisk wrote: | High level MBAs are for networking. But the degree is in | Business Administration which is a bunch of broad spectrum | lightly technical work in accounting, logistics, etc, which | lots of businesses or entrepreneurs need and not everyone can | self teach like individualist programmers do. | dxbydt wrote: | > are there are "hard" skills from an MBA that transfer? | | You are asking a genuine question that has a lot of backing | research. Before I became a Quant, I was a student at the | University of Chicago, getting the Masters in Financial Math. | So the professor who taught the Options course at MSFM told | us one day - Now I have to teach this same material to the | MBA class, but at a 10,000 feet level. | | One of the students asked him to elaborate. So he says - If | you have a scale of 1 to 100, with 100 being the hardest, | then a UChicago Finance PhD is like 100. A UChicago MSFM is | about 50. A UChicago MBA is like 10. A regular (non-UChicago) | MBA is a 1. | | More concretely, someone like me, the 50, can put up the | Black Scholes on the blackboard from memory. I can derive it, | solve it, code it up in C++ and price your options on a real | equity & tell you whether you should buy/sell the damn thing. | But that's as far as I was taught. | | The Finance PhD i.e. the 100, can derive and solve not just | the BS but a whole family of models - the Heston, Derman, | SABR, BDT, HJM, HW etc etc - there's like a dozen of these | PDEs & it gets seriously complicated very soon. So supposedly | this Finance PhD can do all of that & more. | | The UChicago MBA, which is the 10, knows Black Scholes, knows | what the Greeks are & can eyeball the value of the Greek & | tell you whether the option is overpriced or not, but can't | derive/solve/code up the PDE. | | The non-UChicago MBA has heard of something called the Black | Scholes but that's about it. | | Ofcourse that's his opinion & you should take it with a grain | of salt. That said, during my time in the investment banking | industry, I have worked with a boatload of MBAs, some | quants(MSFMs) & a few PhDs - his opinions bore true. | Moodles wrote: | My experience too (in a completely different field to | finance). | in3d wrote: | This sounds like something a biased physics professor who | values his own field more than others could also say about | teaching quantum computing to financial math students. You | don't need more than an overview and it's hard. What | percentage of MBAs will need to analytically solve PDEs? | dirtybird04 wrote: | Yes, it's entirely soft skills. But they work very hard at | using their soft skills to solve trivial business problems. | | Every worked a marketing or revops job? It's mind-numbingly | trivial, the likes of you and I wouldn't last a day. But | these MBAs do it all without blinking, and do it | passionately. And I, for one, appreciate them for that. | throwawaygh wrote: | I don't think these articles are written for CS PhDs, who are | an exceptional class of PhDs. | | First, CS PhDs can _ALWAYS_ get tenure-track academic jobs. | Maybe not at a top R1, but getting a university teaching job in | CS is not some sort of prize. Quite the opposite. Most non-phd- | granting institutions with sub-billion endowments struggle to | hire CS faculty (they pay sub-100K, sometimes as low as 65K... | if you go that route in CS, your undergrads are making 3x your | income at their first gig). So there 's no "oh no plan B" fear. | You don't need to be reassured your PhD wasn't a waste after | failing to get any sort of academic post, because if you lower | your expectations enough you _will_ get an academic post. This | is NOT true in nearly any other field. | | 2. CS PhDs, with a few exceptional subfields, are in high | demand. It's pretty reasonable to expect 300K out of a top CS | PhD program; the total comp number for top-tier MBAs is about | half of that. CS PhDs who choose industry don't need to be | reassured that their PhD has value. It's reflected in their | compensation. | N1H1L wrote: | Even in non-CS STEM fields, there are a ton of industry jobs. | Many of the students in my doctoral cohort went for industry | jobs, and almost all of them are making good money (over 120k | annually) and are generally happy in their careers. The | problem from what I hear from them is the tendency to be | slotted into super-technician roles where you are in charge | of a single piece of specialized equipment. People tend to | stagnate in such jobs (even though the compensation is often | really generous), and such people often find themselves | struggling after a decade. | | However, I think it's not the Ph.D. that is not the problem - | instead, it's the postdoc. While a Ph.D. is a terminal degree | associated with prestige and career advancement, the outcome | of postdoctoral training is far more diffuse. It ostensibly | prepares you for academia yet often fails to teach essential | academic skills like writing grants as the sole PI. The | funnel is also really narrow, and many postdocs transition to | industry after a few years - often in a very similar role and | salary that they would have got straight out of their | doctoral training anyway. | valarauko wrote: | As a postdoc, I really feel this comment. However, a lot of | people I know do postdocs since its essentially become a | requirement for many industry jobs, and getting a job right | after PhD is becoming harder & harder. I know people who | got industry jobs (pharma) at the salary band you mentioned | after 6 years of postdoctoral experience. | chrisseaton wrote: | What's the stigma against postdoc in the US? I don't get | it? | | In the UK a postdoc is the first job after your PhD. You | obviously aren't going to get a professorship for a | couple of decades, and will be too junior for a | lectureship as well, so you have to do something in | between. What do you do if not a postdoc? | N1H1L wrote: | The thing is, a postdoc is a classic case of credential | inflation. You don't _really_ need a postdoc, especially | if an industry job is your goal. The purpose of an | academic postdoc is to strictly increase the items in | your CV to make you more marketable for academic | employment. Industries are hiring senior postdocs | strictly because more postdocs are applying for such | jobs. And this is a side effect of poor mentorship in | academia in general, with freshly minted PhDs drifting | into postdocs just because. | | Very few graduate students think seriously about their | destination during their doctoral program and are happy | to be in the lab all day meeting goals their advisor sets | out for them. And advisors are also happy to let this be | the state of affairs since you are getting highly | trained, motivated workers for pennies. This passivity | starts dissipating only during a postdoc and not always. | Poor mentorship can be excused in industry, but this is | inexcusable when academics are paid to be mentors; it's | literally in a professor's job description. NSF/DOE/NIH | grants all have significant mentorship sections - and | they are there for a reason. | nextos wrote: | Exactly. But this is very variable across fields. In CS | or Math, it is feasible to get a tenure-track position or | the equivalent in industry without a postdoc. | | In Biology for instance, inflation is so insane that most | tenure-track positions _demand_ you have significant | postdoctoral experience. Same applies to many industry | jobs. | _Wintermute wrote: | In my experience, if it's research that gets you up in | the morning then a postdoc is the sweet-spot - you're | experienced enough to make good progress but not too | senior that you're sat in meetings all day. It's just a | shame the salary is so bad you're almost forced to move | on. | N1H1L wrote: | > It's just a shame the salary is so bad you're almost | forced to move on. | | UC Berkeley, for example, pays its postdocs $60k to $65k | per year. It's challenging to live in the Bay Area for | that money. Also, remember many postdocs have kids or are | planning to have one. Child care is at least $2000 a | month in the Bay Area. Asking bright, motivated | individuals to delay their life decisions in pursuit of | ill-defined scientific ideals is something I have a tough | time defending. | HansHamster wrote: | Another issue (at least here) is that most positions are | limited to 3-4 years and permanent positions in academia | are quite rare and hard to get. | N1H1L wrote: | This is why I am so pissed off at academic hypocrisy | currently. Labs were shut down for months. For what? To | protect whom? The senior faculty who did their Ph.D. in | the early eighties and refuses to transition to emeritus | status? | | Junior researchers were absolutely shortchanged in the | pandemic shutdown, and nobody is bothered about it. For | all the talk about keeping people safe, why were younger | scientists denied access to experimental facilities, and | yet almost no funding agencies extended grant contracts? | Almost zero institutions extended their timed postdoc | contracts too. And to add insult to the injury, most | academic institutions had hiring freezes in 2020, | effectively kiboshing careers of young scientists caught | in this trap. | | Honestly, I am disgusted with university faculty right | now - all fancy talk, no action. | throwawaygh wrote: | Higher ed is an industry in crisis. Get out and be happy | that you realized this before it was too late to leave | that hell hole of a sector. The grass is greener. I | promise. | valarauko wrote: | An example of the hypocrisy: a prominent university in | the Boston area that announced that they will suspend on | campus childcare from January. Labs are still open, and | the population of lab workers most likely to have | benefited from on campus childcare were postdocs. Now | they have to find at home childcare at their own expense. | Postdocs also tend to be overwhelmingly foreign nationals | who want to avoid rocking the boat. | jorpal wrote: | The problem is we train way more PhDs than there are | tenure track positions available. Most PhDs won't be | lucky enough to get one of those academic positions, and | a postdoc is just delaying the inevitable transition to | an industrial job. Postdocs are for all-star students | with a good academic pedigree and publishing track record | who have a good shot at tenure. People who were less then | that (such as myself) are often better served starting | their career outside academia. | | From a pragmatic perspective that is how the calculus | worked for me. It's probably where the stigma arises from | as well. Although I wish it weren't like that, I never | thought the purpose of a college/university education | should be so limited to 'job training' (that's what trade | schools are for). That's the American perspective, | anyways. | justin66 wrote: | > your undergrads are making 3x your income at their first | gig | | Why are you making stuff up? | | These sorts of careless lies, which are all too common, can | be hard on young people in college, or considering college, | or otherwise. They're either trying to value their potential | education or wondering why the fuck they aren't getting the | job offers they should be getting because so many are telling | them their degree is the gateway to instant riches, and | you're not helping. | | > the total comp number for top-tier MBAs is about half of | that. | | Wrong in a very different way here. You should stop. | mcguire wrote: | If you listen to USNews, Stanford is the top business | school and tied with three others for top CS school. | | Average base salary plus expected performance bonus and | signing bonus for Stanford MBA's: $270,394. Base starting | salary $159,544, signing bonus $32,551. | (https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/files- | fpp/2...) | | Average salary of a Stanford MS in CS: $153,400 | (https://www.collegefactual.com/graduate-schools/stanford- | uni...) Signing bonuses from 2016-2017 averaged $26,952. | (https://wxkcg.com/content/234918) Plus stock. | throwawaygh wrote: | _> Average salary of a Stanford MS in CS_ | | We're talking about PhDs. | throwawaygh wrote: | _> > Why are you making stuff up?_ | | I'm not. | | Serious question: how many students and faculty currently | at low-tier institutions have you talked with in the last | two weeks? Two months? Two years? Do you sit on any boards | or advisory panels at these types of institutions? Do you | actively recruit from these types of institutions? I do. | All of those things. | | I know what I'm talking about. Stop being mean to me. | | LACs pay junior faculty $65K and those faculty routinely | place students in positions with >$150K total comp. These | are facts, even at low tier colleges. | | Every student? No. Some students every year? Absolutely. If | you teach CS well and make $65K, almost all your students | will make more than you do at their first position and many | will make 2x-3x. More than enough that you'll start asking | "why the hell am I here?" | | _> These sorts of careless lies..._ | | This rant sounds extremely personal. Not going to touch | this. | | _> > the total comp number for top-tier MBAs is about half | of that._ | | _> Wrong in a very different way here. You should stop._ | | Total comp out of a _top_ CS PhD programs lately is around | 200K-300K range with some outliers. | | Total comp out of a _top_ MBA program lately is around | 100K-200K range with some outliers. | | Average outcomes vary considerably. That's why my original | post is properly conditioned on "top". | ModernMech wrote: | > LACs pay junior faculty $65K and those faculty | routinely place students in positions with >$150K total | comp. These are facts, even at low tier colleges. | | You're leaving out a key fact, which is salary for | academics is reported for 9-months, not 12. | | Anyway, these stats are tracked for CS. We don't have to | speculate or pull numbers out of the air. Here's the | latest survey: https://cra.org/wp- | content/uploads/2021/05/2020-CRA-Taulbee-... | | A 9 month salary of $65k would put you at the bottom 10% | of teaching faculty in the nation. The 50th percentile is | more like $82k, which is $109k annualized. If you start | at $65k, I think by the time you actually graduate any | students you should be making a lot more than that. And | if you're not, there's got to be some other reason why | you're not making a more representative salary. | | But yes, in general academics can make less than the | students they graduate. Many academics are okay with that | because: | | 1. It's really hard to put a value on not having a boss | in the traditional sense. | | 2. It's also hard to put a value on getting 3 months off | in the summer and 1 month off in the winter every year. | | Then again, I guess it's not hard to put a value on that: | it's whatever they forego in extra salary working in | industry. In that sense while the students earn more, | they don't 10 paid weeks off + 11 weeks unpaid vacation | in the summer. | justin66 wrote: | > If you teach CS well and make $65K, almost all your | students will make more than you do at their first | position and many will make 2x-3x | | "Many" is a weasel word that adds a different flavor to | your original assertion that "your undergrads are making | 3x your income at their first gig." What you're saying is | still crazy hyperbole. I simply cannot imagine what your | source of data is here. A randomly chosen google hit | shows that the average starting salary for a new CS | undergrad is around $68k, which seems about right. | | It is still, if we're being honest, probably a bit | humbling for a junior professor to be making the same as | a new graduate. But you had to lean into the "2x-3x" | hyperbole... | | >> These sorts of careless lies... | | > This rant sounds extremely personal. Not going to touch | this. | | Oh, _touch it._ Young people trying to gauge the | profession, higher education, and its ' costs are going | to read your comments. They are entering what is often a | lucrative profession but they are not going to be making | three times as much as their teachers. Why make stuff up? | It's not helping anybody. | | > Total comp out of a top CS PhD programs lately is | around 200K-300K range with some outliers. | | > Total comp out of a top MBA program lately is around | 100K-200K range with some outliers. | | This would be a lot more compelling if you provided | citations. The salary numbers someone else provided for | the Stanford MBA program, numbers which you were | dismissive of, included range, median, and mode, and | those numbers were higher. But the numbers I (and I | suspect, anyone involved in the profession) are likely to | be most skeptical about are the numbers you're talking | about for CS PhD new grads. Those people will often | gravitate towards postdoc and teaching positions, while | the Masters students will often gravitate towards FAANG | jobs. | | To be honest I would be _delighted_ to learn that newly | graduated CS PhDs from top programs are making, on | average, as much as those entering industry with a | Masters, since it would probably signal a lot more money | being put towards research. I 'm pretty sure the numbers | you're talking about would have them making twice as much | as the new Masters grads, which, again, great! I would be | delighted to learn it's true. | | [0] https://www.naceweb.org/job- | market/compensation/computer-sci... | p1esk wrote: | _CS PhDs can ALWAYS get tenure-track academic jobs. Maybe not | at a top R1, but getting a university teaching job in CS is | not some sort of prize._ | | You got to be kidding. Competition for CS tenure track | positions is insane. At my school, which is ranked around 50 | in the nation, you would have to be pretty outstanding to get | it (most candidates were from top-5 schools, in hottest | fields, with many strong publications). I've heard such | numbers as 100 candidates for a single spot. | chrisseaton wrote: | They need CS lecturers all the way down to the worst | college in the country. Hundreds and hundreds of | departments. Everyone applies to the top, but they filter | down, and if you look at who's teaching at the lowest they | clearly aren't superstars and it wouldn't take much to | compete with them. | _delirium wrote: | To give a different anecdote: at my school which is ranked | closer to 100, we got 40 applicants, of which about 15 meet | basic qualifications we're looking for (have a PhD, in the | right field, have any kind of publication record, have ever | taught a class). And I think we are doing pretty well | compared to some places, since we're in a major coastal | city and have a relatively light teaching load for a non-R1 | place (2/2). A lot of places have been outright failing | their CS faculty searches in the past few years, and I | think more than usual will fail this year. | throwawaygh wrote: | _> 40 applicants... about 15 meet basic qualifications we | 're looking for... 2/2 load... major coastal city_ | | Wow. Things are even worse than I thought. Your | institution sounds like the rare type of place that | shouldn't have a problem hiring. Good luck with your | search. | | _> have a PhD, in the right field, have any kind of | publication record, have ever taught a class_ | | Most places with a teaching load higher than 3/2 dropped | all three of those requirements from their job ads years | ago. | throwawaygh wrote: | _> At my school, which is ranked around 50 in the nation_ | | Top 50 on US News & World Report or CS Rankings means | you're at a very good R1 institution. At #50, your | institution is ranked _ABOVE_ places like Vanderbilt, Notre | Dame, RIT, Syracuse, Clemson, ... | | You do realize that the USA has nearly 4,000 colleges, | right? | | If you scroll all the way down to the bottom of the CS | rankings in US News, you reach Walden University at #186. | Which means the colleges that US news even bothers to rank | in CS constitute less than 1% of the total number of | colleges in the US. And you're at a place that's in the top | third of the <1%!!! | | When I say academic CS jobs are easy to get, I'm referring | to jobs at the >3,500 US higher ed institutions that _aren | 't even included in US New's CS rankings_. | | Again, in fields like Mathematics or Biology even TT jobs | at unranked/low ranked places are non-trivial to secure. | selimthegrim wrote: | That's funny because I'm at Tulane and they can't seem to | hire or retain worth shit. | throwawaygh wrote: | If I had to guess, OP is at an institution in the | northeast/west/Chicago. Academic CS recruiting in the | south and in mid-tier cities is typically more difficult | (some of that might be preference, but the big thing is | two body problems. I love New Orleans but can't imagine | solving an academic two body problem there is | particularly easy). | killjoywashere wrote: | > two body problem | | You mean a spouse also on an academic track? | throwawaygh wrote: | Yes. (Not just academic. Any specialized professional | track outside of Medicine/Law.) | ModernMech wrote: | For anyone wondering: the two body problem is a | phenomenon that happens when two academics marry. They | both want an academic job together, at the same | institution preferably, but there's usually only enough | room for 1. What many couples do to solve this is accept | postdocs at different universities (because there's a two | body problem for post docs too, so you can't usually find | 2 postdoc positions at the same institution), and then | wait around until they can find two assistant | professorship openings at the same institution. | | Sometimes if the candidate is really good, one department | will ask another to make room for another faculty there. | But that can be a political nightmare. Or if both | researchers are in the same field e.g. CS, then the | department might have to hire both even if they really | only would take the one. | | It's quite a problem for hiring. | ineedasername wrote: | If CS PhD's are an exceptional class then I think it's only | by virtue of supply & demand. There are a larger # of | opportunities in industry, and they often pay better. | | As for students earning 3x your income, it seems like you're | taking the lowest paid professors and comparing to the | highest paid grads. The truth is, if you're at a school where | the CS program only pays faculty $65k then you're probably | not walking into a $200k+ job on graduation except as an | extreme outlier. Those students aren't going to a school with | the name recognition required to easily open doors for entry- | level $200k positions. | throwawaygh wrote: | _> it 's only by virtue of supply & demand_ | | Absolutely. I never meant to imply otherwise. Worth | mentioning that this will be true for a while though. | | _> The truth is, if you 're at a school where the CS | program only pays faculty $65k_ | | I have first-hand knowledge about 3 such institutions, all | of which place at least one student in a position that pays | >$150K every year. Perhaps shy of 3x but higher than 2x for | sure. Averages tend to be around 90K (pulled down by people | who choose to go to grad school). | | _> Those students aren 't going to a school with the name | recognition required to easily open doors for entry-level | $200k positions._ | | But they do receive fantastic educations, because they are | at teaching-oriented institutions and get hand-held through | their pre-career years (internship placement, interviewing | skills, etc. are all coached 1:1). | | The basic issue is that administrators at lower-tier | institutions haven't yet flipped the switch where "CS = | Finance/Accounting". They continue to hope and dream that | their mathematics faculty can pick up the slack, as if it's | still the 80s/early 90s and CS hasn't blossomed into its | own highly specialized field. | echelon wrote: | > The truth is, if you're at a school where the CS program | only pays faculty $65k then you're probably not walking | into a $200k+ job on graduation except as an extreme | outlier. | | Only because they're not located in the "$200k+ starting" | job market. If they move to SF then they're immediately | worth that much. | | Thankfully the jobs are diffusing across America now. | simplestats wrote: | Many liberal arts schools pay everyone like they are | liberal arts professors. So they have impossible time | hiring people in valuable professional fields like CS and | statistics. They still can get solid students though. | Disproportionately locals and by offering scholarships. | Also prior hot areas like "data science" and security | indeed led to a lot of insane starting salary stories | ($300k+) for merely-above-average students from meh schools | with exactly the right skills. Even the median starting | salaries in hot areas have been surprisingly high for a | while. | | > If CS PhD's are an exceptional class then I think it's | only by virtue of supply & demand. There are a larger # of | opportunities in industry, and they often pay better. | | Well of course. What else would it be? Doesn't it always | work out in life that the jobs you can get are the ones | where they need you more than you need them? | dragonwriter wrote: | > Many liberal arts schools pay everyone like they are | liberal arts professors. | | Presumably, you mean something like "arts and humanities" | the second time you say "liberal arts", since the liberal | arts include the natural sciences (both life and | physical), social sciences, mathematics (including, among | other things, computer science), arts, and humanities. | throwawaygh wrote: | Nah, I think "liberal arts" fits the bill. Including | natural sciences. In contrast to the professional | colleges: Law/Business/Medicine/Engineering (which CS | should be at-parity with). | | Of course LACs don't have law schools or med schools or | (usually) engineering colleges, so the difficulty of | properly compensating CS is understandable with respect | to those fields. | | However, LACs do tend to have Finance/Accounting, and | often pay folks in those departments better, but for | whatever reason don't treat their CS faculty like their | Finance faculty. My own pet theory for this market | mismatch is that finance/business types tend to dominate | those college's boards. LAC boards have a lot of older | folks who still think of CS as code monkeying. | simplestats wrote: | You can be a "liberal arts" professor yet get paid like a | professor in a professional department. | | Many schools have CS under engineering which pays a lot | more. | [deleted] | loceng wrote: | And likewise an MBA is different than an entrepreneur who | trailblazes their own path, learning as they go vs. following a | more indoctrinating path. | algo_trader wrote: | Do you feel like the "search space" of MBA problems is somewhat | finite? | | Like, if you read 5 books and 20 blogs on VCs you are unlikely | to be mystified by anything that happens to you as you | seed/VC/pivot/exit whatever. There are only so many | possibilities. | | (MBA stuff is still hard, and sensitive to | luck/timing/networking/cultural factors..) | p1esk wrote: | _if you have PhD you (probably) worked really, really, really | hard, were able to focus on a single problem for years, can | communicate, analyze and so forth_ | | Correction: if you have multiple publications in top | conferences as the first author. Most phds don't have that. | Part of my job is to hire ML researchers. 90% of phds who apply | are quite pathetic as far as their publication record. | ThomPete wrote: | Any PhD worth their salt would know that a much more likely | reason why their hard skills were valuable had nothing to do with | PhDs and everything to do with them as a person being able to | complete a PhD. | | This is no different than anyone who spends all their time | producing a great album, or building a company or programming a | game and I could go on. | | The PhD if you want to talk about it in generalized terms has no | unique properties that can't be accomplished through other means. | rbartelme wrote: | > Any PhD worth their salt would know that a much more likely | reason why their hard skills were valuable had nothing to do | with PhDs and everything to do with them as a person being able | to complete a PhD. | | I often equate my Ph.D. with the ability to teach myself how to | do things. Ex. going from a wet/dry lab biologist with zero | experience in C-style languages, to learning Arduino's flavor | of Cpp and the PID control library to run process controls for | your wet lab biology experiment. | Moodles wrote: | Having obtained a PhD myself, I would say its definitely helped | in my career, though that is largely because my industry work is | related to my PhD; people tend to assume I'm an expert in this | super complicated thing and they just need someone around who | understands it as some kind of insurance or person to turn to in | a crisis, even though with the PhD itself I was working in a | niche within a niche within a niche which won't really help the | company. Obviously during the PhD I got a working knowledge of | the whole field, but I often feel as if a lot of what the company | uses me for is pretty obvious and googleable. Very, very rarely | do I actually use my PhD expertise. I definitely think if you | work as a software engineer in tech a PhD would have too large an | opportunity cost vs just working for it to be worth it, | especially in the US where PhDs typically last ~5 years. | | Aside from that, I think I was lucky to have a supervisor who | taught me how to make good presentations. I definitely think my | presentations are a lot better than most peoples in industry and | that's benefitted my career too. Though, I've also seen very many | terrible presentations in academia so I'm probably just lucky | there. I'm not sure its the case PhDs typically give better | presentations. My LaTeX CV looks incredible though :) (though I | highly doubt that will ever affect whether or not I get a | particular job). | Ar-Curunir wrote: | I feel going from a CS PhD to working as a standard software | engineer is probably a waste of the person's time, while also | resulting in lower pay. | | It's not like other fields where your area of research might be | very different from what you get employed for; in CS, your area | of research probably has a startup that could use your domain | skills. Eg: a CS Security PhD can find gainful employment on | the security teams of any of the big software giants doing work | that's not too dissimilar from their research. | frayesto wrote: | I will say that at multiple job interviews people have | commented and been impressed with my LaTeX CV. | | So it's a plus! | rcpt wrote: | Most important skill from my PhD is the realization that always | being wrong and nothing working for months at a time is actually | par for the course instead of something to stress over. | jll29 wrote: | When I hire a Ph.D., I hire someone that has undergone | something that I know from own experience requires a lot of | curiosity, perseverance, drive, self-motivation, self- | management, and an ability to communicate well in writing and | orally, to convince adversarial audiences, systematic thinking, | analytical problem solving skills - each one of them priceless | skills. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-12-28 23:01 UTC)