[HN Gopher] PhD Simulator ___________________________________________________________________ PhD Simulator Author : Smith42 Score : 649 points Date : 2023-07-05 08:39 UTC (14 hours ago) (HTM) web link (research.wmz.ninja) (TXT) w3m dump (research.wmz.ninja) | sarosh wrote: | Looking at | https://research.wmz.ninja/projects/phd/rulesets/default/eve... | provides most of the key 'game loops', i.e. | | # idea -> prelim -> major -> 2 figures -> submitted paper | | interesting to see the hypothesis about reading more papers being | borne out: | | # increase the success rate as the player reads more papers | probability: 0.60 + player.readPapers / 100 - itemCount('idea') / | 20 | | Also interesting to see that passing the qualification exam | provides the largest player.hope boost (+10) | | Was fun to see the TooManyIdeas random event - now to actually | get it to trigger. | lusus_naturae wrote: | Unrealistic because it doesn't have enough inter-dept. politics | and other phd/msc students in-fighting. | drdunce wrote: | ...and the final step where having succeeded no one actually | cares and you are now unemployable. | lusus_naturae wrote: | Ah yes, the coup de grace. Or you do find employment and then | find that your major result paper is being challenged and | have to submit a retraction. The fun is endless. | eagleseye wrote: | I notice a lot of negativity and "do not recommend" regarding | pursuing a PhD on HN recently. That raises the question: Why | _would_ you go for it? | sonzohan wrote: | This illustrated guide explains it quite well: | https://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/ | ikrenji wrote: | if your family is wealthy and money is not something you need | to ever think about then, sure, go for it. | glomgril wrote: | As painful as it can be at times, it is a truly beautiful phase | of life during which your main obligations are to become an | expert in something that interests you and to make enough money | to not starve and have a place to live. If you are single, | coming directly from the "broke college student" lifestyle, and | end up at a university with a good stipend, it won't even feel | like you are "poor" and the money is mostly enough. But the | life of a grad student in a large public university can come | with much more financial instability and heavier teaching loads | from day one, with less time for slacking off and letting ideas | marinate. Less so if you are in a field/have an advisor with | good/consistent funding. The devil is in the details. | | Wouldn't change it for the world though, and anecdotally most | people I know who ended up finishing the PhD feel the same way. | | Main shortcoming of the (American) grad school experience imo | is lack of preparation to join the corporate workforce (in my | field, there are easily >10x the graduating PhDs each year than | there are available university jobs). Academia has done a | terrible job preparing grad students for the harsh reality of a | non-academic career. Keeping this in mind throughout grad | school will help a lot -- you can see the difference in non- | academic career trajectory between people who had a backup plan | and those who didn't. | whatever1 wrote: | 1. If you manage to get through it, you will be a world expert | in a niche that can be valuable. $$$$$$$$ | | 2. You will develop the invaluable skill of not giving up even | when all the odds are against you | | 3. You will be able to swim by yourself, parsing enormous | amount of literature, identifying what is useful and useless | and solve problems that no one else before you has solved. | | 4. Access to academic positions that offer stability | | 5. Access to academic network that provide infinite talent | waveBidder wrote: | doing a PhD for the earning potential is hilarious. you'd be | better off getting a normal job, living frugally, and pumping | as much into savings for the same amount of time | whatever1 wrote: | Same can be said for a startup. | waveBidder wrote: | the long tail of profit in a startup is wildly higher | than a PhD. To be clear, I say this as one who's gone | through a math PhD; none of my fellow graduates make | significantly more than they would've made bypassing the | PhD for industry, especially when you consider the | opportunity costs. Academia is very much for people who | either prefer ideas or prestige to money. | whatever1 wrote: | Well I am bit biased because 2/14 of my PhD class, 10 | years after defending, they are >50M worth, by leveraging | their expertise. | | I can accept the argument that a unicorn startup might | have higher tail monetary benefit compared to a PhD. But | a startup job will not open as many research job | opportunities as a PhD. These are typically the highest | paid individual contributor jobs in companies. | | Of course if managerial track is your thing, you should | probably not waste your time doing a PhD. | [deleted] | Ultimatt wrote: | > 4. Access to academic positions that offer stability | | This one reads like a bitter joke :/ not sure where you live | for this to sound true to you! But the rest are good takes. | bityard wrote: | > If you manage to get through it, you will be a world expert | in a niche that can be valuable. $$$$$$$$ | | This depends highly upon your field, the current needs of | industry, and your own work ethic. For example, if you want | to write or architect software for a living, a PhD in | computer science really doesn't get you much. Neither is it a | good idea to go for a PhD just because you can't think of | anything better to do to further your career. But if your | goal is to make new discoveries in a field you are passionate | about, then that would be a different story. | | Also I have met a lot of PhDs who are absolutely not experts | on anything at all, except for knowing how to thrive in the | socio-political academic system by being "book smart," and | writing bullshitty articles/papers. | | > You will develop the invaluable skill of not giving up even | when all the odds are against you | | Are you saying people don't wash out of PhD programs all the | time? Even if this was somehow true, you don't need to throw | money at a PhD program to learn this! | Ultimatt wrote: | I have a book upstairs I authored that I can go to and be | reminded there was a moment my mind was like a samurai sword | for one very specific problem. I solved it by holding a thought | in my brain consistently for ~3 years straight, and trying | everything known and new tricks to solve it. I can barely read | my thesis anymore, let alone understand it, the quality of what | I did feels almost super human compared to what I've been asked | of by the world outside academia. A lot of people who never | spent any time post undergrad think its all nonsense, mostly | because they meet slacker types. But if you really challenge | yourself you will produce something singular and at the best of | your ability. It's extremely rare you get that opportunity and | support in time to do that anywhere else. Unless your PhD | translates to commercial application directly! Perhaps artists | with healthy commissions get to feel it. Startup life is | similar I guess, but the pressure of commercial success is a | very different driving force vs intellectual curiosity and | understanding something new in the world. Post PhD I know that | if I felt like it I can operate at an incredibly high level | intellectually, that I choose not to post PhD is also the other | confidence PhD gives you. Most people I know are pretty down to | earth post PhD and leaving academia, its ultimately a humbling | experience especially if you had fun with mental health during | getting it done. You know you can do something, but you also | know at what cost to yourself and people around you. | blackbear_ wrote: | A PhD is one of those rare periods of life where you are | completely on your own, navigating unknown territories without | anybody telling you what you should or should not do, where | your professional success depends entirely on your own ideas | and decisions. The reason to try a PhD is that you are truly | free to test your limits. It can be liberating, but also | daunting. And definitely humbling. | | In some ways, it is not so different from being an | entrepreneur, as in both cases you are forging your own path | trying to do something new that a certain community likes. | gorjusborg wrote: | Interesting that you point out the symmetry between pursuing | education and entrepreneurship. | | One of the tough things about the education route is that | winning at entrepreneurship can result in huge tangible life | changes, but it seems like the effects of winning at | education is harder to visualize. | | I get to put PhD after my name, but what else? | xyzzy3000 wrote: | Sometimes hotels and airlines mistake PhDs for medical | doctors and give out upgrades... just keep your fingers | crossed that there won't be an in-flight medical emergency. | Ultimatt wrote: | Dr at the front? | 78124781 wrote: | I actually really like the analogy. You are running a | "business" of ideas. You are competing against a lot of | other very smart people who are also trying to start their | own ideas business and competing for a very limited pool of | support (funding, postdocs, tenure-track jobs, etc.). The | professors you are trying to impress in grad school are | "investors" and having their imprimatur on your business | will help in both advice and in obtaining more funding and | convincing others that your business is worth supporting. | | If you can run a successful ideas business for 10+ years in | multiple locations and convince several gauntlets of | committees to keep supporting you, then there's a great | deal at the end for choosing this education route--your | business gets a significant degree of permanent support and | protection (tenure)! But to get to that point, you have to | sell your ideas and develop a product that will get buy-in | and support from others in your field. | | There are no limits on how hard or how much you can work. | There are also no guarantees that working hard will pay off | either. There's a lot of luck and sometimes the market just | isn't buying what you're selling at that time, even if your | product is great. | Derbasti wrote: | Very much on point. Where else can you get payed for doing | essentially whatever you like for a few years? | | At least for me, that was actually worth the hardship. | Although there was a lot of hardship. It was still an | incredible, and ultimately empowering, experience. | jacurtis wrote: | I really love what you said, and this is why I did it too. | | The journey is long and hard and there are a ton of bumps | along the way to complain about. But the overall journey is | worthwhile. | | I think it is similar to marriage. If you meet someone who's | been married for 50 years, and you ask them how it has been | they will say it was wonderful and then immediately start | telling you about all the tough times them and their partner | went through. THey might tell you how hard it was when they | both lost their jobs or when they almost broke up 10 years | in, but they still love the other person and are happy to | have had them. | | To an outsider it feels like these aren't compelling reasons | to get married, but the married person has other feelings | that are hard to quantify like the joy of being next to their | partner during the hard times, the ability to share in the | joys of that new job, the ability to offload some of their | stress, or even the joy of waking up next to them each | morning. Those outweigh the shitty things, but the shitty | things often get mentioned the most because they stand out. | | I think the same thing is true for the PhD. It takes most | people 3-7 years (averaging around 4.5) to get a PhD. This is | a significant journey that will have ups and downs. You hear | all the shitty things on here. But there are joys of learning | something you truly love at a detail of focus that is not | possible with any other degree. There is the joy of breaking | new ground with research and the satisfaction of being the | shoulders that future generations will stand on with their | own research. The joy of having a paper published or the | networking that you get to be a part of. The journey is worth | it. It is unique for everyone and you are in control. Its a | ~5 year journey that will inheritly have ups and downs. Do | you need a PhD to succeed in life? Certainly not. But can it | be one of the core pillars of your life if you choose to do | it? 100% Yes. | mizzao wrote: | I wrote about that overlap with entrepreneurship here: | https://twitter.com/mizzao/status/1505529213612609536 | PakG1 wrote: | Me? I just realized I'm not motivated to get up to work in | industry. I just can't get up to chase and achieve goals that | serve the needs of shareholders or any other stakeholders. In | academia, I probably still won't care about the stakeholders, | but I'll at least get to explore stuff that interest me. Well, | that's the hope anyway! Haha! | | Reminds me of how many entrepreneurs don't become entrepreneurs | to become rich. They do it to become free from having bosses. | Except for me, I'm not sure I'd be able to make it as an | entrepreneur if I only chase what interests me instead of what | a market wants. If I chase what the market wants instead of | what interests me, my motivation drops. Been there, tried that. | So... here I am. Even though it's painful right now. | glomgril wrote: | Savor it while you can. As a former academic, for me the lack | of intrinsic motivation to "create value for shareholders" is | the hardest part of working in industry. | ylow wrote: | A PhD is one of the hardest, yet most rewarding time of my | life. Its perhaps the only period where I have the opportunity | to do nothing else, but "think"; where I can spend many months | just reading papers, learning and attacking what seems like one | little problem. It is very hard work, no doubt. Going back in | time, I would still do it again. And in fact, I have seriously | considered doing another PhD in an entirely different field. | | But still I generally do not recommend people do it. You have | to be in it, because you are very interested in the field. You | have to feel rewarded by learning, and by solving problems. And | also there is a lot a lot of luck involved: advisor, topic, | ideas etc. | kiwih wrote: | I wanted to go into academia to do research and teach, so I | went for a Ph.D. and got it in 4 years in computer engineering | without much burnout or issue. I was always cheerful and | enjoyed my journey. I did have a great advisor and while I was | at a top-100 university, it was outside the USA and maybe that | makes a difference. | | You should really only go into a Ph.D. because you really want | to, which sounds tautological but basically you need to want to | go into academia or get the kind of industry R&D job that | requires one (several of my graduating colleagues). If you're | on the fence about doing Ph.D. - don't. There's a very real | opportunity cost. | toast0 wrote: | A PhD, preferably from your destination country, is helpful for | immigration. | ncraig wrote: | Because tenured faculty members at research universities often | have lovely careers. The road there is long and challenging, | but the result can be exceedingly rewarding. | Jhsto wrote: | If you have a cool idea which is novel in your field, a PhD | might allow you to work on it without selling out to VCs. There | are still people to convince, but the time horizon for results | is longer than with an average seed funding. | elashri wrote: | As a current 4th year graduate student, I opened the link and | found the choice to accept or decline the admission offer, I | don't know why I clicked decline without thinking. | ketzu wrote: | I was secretly hoping it will tell me "you win" when I clicked | decline. | moffkalast wrote: | "That is unfortunate." | computomatic wrote: | I did the same. The only way to win is not to play. | diracs_stache wrote: | [flagged] | Derbasti wrote: | That was my first inclination as well, although my PhD is now | already a few years in the past. Talk about PTSD. | WaitWaitWha wrote: | reading papers --> idea | | This is not exactly how it works in STEM, at least not around me. | Ideas tend to come from working on real-world projects, which | then shows the lack of understanding and need for research. The | project forks to do the research and merge back to implement the | findings. Thereafter, someone on the team will put it into a | cohesive academic format, and use it for a PhD. Of course there | is reading papers and such, but it is not the source of the idea. | | edit: I am also curious, how many really stop research because a | similar or tangential topic was explored? "There can be only | one"?! | | that said, the game is fun! Thank you. | Frost1x wrote: | I'd say this is where more engineering approachable ideas come | from or ideas that might be considered translational (or near | translational). If you work near the bridge of theory and | application, this is probably more the case. A lot of funding | agencies are pressuring even theoretical or basic research to | look at translational application anymore though (capitalism is | all about immediate ROI) so I'd say this is increasingly | shifting towards many research domains but in the past, there | were a lot of pure theoretical areas you could work on where | there are plenty of unexplored ideas you could build out _and_ | get paid to do the work. | | Application is certainly a great driver though because you have | a demand signal to look at vs throwing darts at the board in | work that may never manifest to anything solid. | sweetjuly wrote: | > This is not exactly how it works in STEM, at least not around | me | | You might want to take a different approach to reading papers | then. No paper ever concludes by saying "yeah our method is | perfect and no further work is needed" [1]. Instead, every | solution has its quirks and questions which need to be explored | further. Maybe their method has limitations which make it | unusable for your applications, maybe they make somewhat faulty | assumptions that don't always hold, maybe they wrongly ignore | some technique. Seeing how other people approach a problem can | often give you inspiration for how to take it another way. | | [1] https://xkcd.com/2268/ | PakG1 wrote: | As a current PhD student, the stress of this simulator felt way | too real to be comfortable. | synergy20 wrote: | nobody is going to take on PhD after running the simulator I'm | sure about that. | [deleted] | 1270018080 wrote: | The text is too wide. It gave me a headache to read somehow. | AndrewKemendo wrote: | This is as engrossing as MUDs from the 90s! | | Maybe an endless generation of MUD + LLM are actually the future | of gaming | liendolucas wrote: | Some time ago I watched this movie: | https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0416675/ (Dark matter). I don't know | how accurately captures the essence of getting a PhD, maybe | someone who went through it can expand on that, but I've always | wondered if it's actually how is depicted in the film. | stolenmerch wrote: | This film is a fictionalized depiction of the real-life 1991 | University of Iowa shooting. A PhD student murdered his | advisors, VP of Academic Affairs, and a fellow student for | being passed over for a prestigious prize. There were other | geopolitical influences on this event that I'd say make it | unique. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Iowa_shooting | foobarbecue wrote: | Goat simulator is better | WirelessGigabit wrote: | I got the most anxiety when I got cloud storage. | glomgril wrote: | This is just brilliant. Brings back memories, some fond others | less so. Only addition I'd suggest is a subplot involving | teaching/TAing duties and/or money problems. | | Good to be occasionally reminded that slacking off is a | legitimately important part of the scientific process. Wish this | view was more popular in the industry. | mrcaosr wrote: | This is so sad and pretty much captures the PhD experience. | nrabulinski wrote: | Can't get time any lower than 3 years and 12 months but it's fun | trying to speedrun this | imsaw wrote: | Shout out to other last year phd students out there! The storm | will pass | hospitalJail wrote: | Didn't reach the roadblock I ran into: | | >Professors demand you do exactly what they want for your thesis. | | Also, what qualifying exam? It seems like as long as I was worker | for my professors, they couldn't give a crap. (Although I was | quite credentialed, so maybe they didn't care) | | If I do get a PhD, it will be on a topic I want. So far, I have | done that better independently and have gotten a bunch of press | on the topic without needing academia. | zelos wrote: | I think some unis require students to start as an MPhil student | and then transfer from MPhil to PhD via some kind of | publication/presentation? | jebarker wrote: | That's what I did (~17 years ago). I was registered as MPhil | then transferred to PhD after submitting a mini-thesis after | about 2 years. In the end the mini-thesis actually contained | all the most significant results that formed the PhD thesis | and the latter just explored some applications. | whatever1 wrote: | This is so brutally accurate | warent wrote: | I've never gone for a PhD, so I can't relate to the experience of | this simulation, but found this game was actually really easy. | | I completed my PhD in 4 years and 11 months, which feels quite | reasonable. My "hope" never dropped below 45, and by the end, | hope was 76. | | If anything, this simulation just made me think getting a PhD | would be a fun opportunity to do a lot of study, and didn't put | me off at all. | | EDIT: Why downvote? haha I'm just sharing my experience. | johndhi wrote: | My experience was: damn, I need to do tons of reading and | research and writing. Like a full time job, not just chilling. | | Which is a bummer. I was hoping I could just chill. | recursive wrote: | If you just want to chill, you definitely don't need any of | the phd stuff. Pretty much everyone chills occasionally. | Derbasti wrote: | That's actually sort of accurate. Some PhDs are lucky early, | and can build on that success. Good for you! Good for them. | | Most PhDs aren't so lucky, regrettably. | spacemanspiff01 wrote: | Wait... There was only one month where I was working on "finish | your thesis" | JaceLightning wrote: | I declined. Best decision ever. | ketzu wrote: | > Your submission to [...] was REJECTED. The reviewers were not | convinced of the significance your [preliminary!] results. | | Thanks for the flashbacks. At least we didn't have any qualifying | exams. | Lk7Of3vfJS2n wrote: | [dead] | spencerchubb wrote: | Tip for everyone bothered by the font | | document.getElementById('message_window').style.fontFamily = | 'Times New Roman' | voxl wrote: | I was able to easily graduate in 5 years, only one false start | because the simulation seriously overvalues preparing for the | qualifying exam. Also, it doesn't consider that you usually get | two attempts at such an exam, not just one. | HelloNurse wrote: | I find one month per turn quite coarse: much more fine-grained | misery could be added with variable-length activities, waiting | anxiously for something, real life commitments, or randomly | wasting time. | | For example, 2d4 days to read some papers, 1d6+1 _consecutive_ | days to think about a new idea, a 50% chance per day of being | busy teaching, resource contention with colleagues running their | simulations, etc. | KnobbleMcKnees wrote: | The idea of a D&D campaign centred around this is hilarious | NooneAtAll3 wrote: | after graduation you become lvl 1 wizard | | that explains low hp stats | JBorrow wrote: | This is great! The ending phase really gives you the same feeling | of "screw everything else, I need to finish this paper" rushing | to get the final stuff out. | xp84 wrote: | By that time I had already grinded so long and lost so much | hope that I HAD to slack off but couldn't because every time I | tried, my advisor caught me and reminded me of my progress. | Repeat until I lost all hope! | dekhn wrote: | Holy cow, I just played the rules I used when I did my PhD (1/4 | time slacking off, 1/3 on developing major ideas and collecting | results to support it and resubmitting the rejected papers) and | graduated in 7 years. Exactly like real life. | joshcsimmons wrote: | Pretty good but needs more Machiavellian power games | dktnj wrote: | This sounds less stressful than an average half a decade working | at my current position. It is actually motivating. Whether or not | that was the desired outcome, I don't know. At least I get to | travel to half decent academic conferences and not large vendor | marketing conferences. | dchftcs wrote: | The stress comes from constant and abject failure, not really | the life style. Travelling is also like 2% of the total time. | dktnj wrote: | I haven't done any productive work for about 5 years so doing | something and failing would be an improvement. | aiisjustanif wrote: | Depends on the subject matter. | _madmax_ wrote: | It is as boring as getting a real PhD, good job to the dev lol | armchairhacker wrote: | That was...a lot more straightforward than I thought. | | First try: Year 4 Month 5 | | Second try: a lot more things went wrong. Year 5 Month 11. | | Third try: Year 5 Month 11. | | I just followed these rules: | | - Study for the qualifying exam until I'm "very confident" | | - If I have no ideas, read papers | | - If I have an idea, work on developing it. If I have a | preliminary result, work on developing it. If I have a major | result, conduct experiments etc...if I have a rejected paper, | revise and resubmit. Prioritizing whichever option gets me closer | to an accepted paper (because presumably the ideas get outdated | quickly) | | - Whenever I get the "ask my advisor for a break?" say yes. | Whenever I get "I am tired" and no "ask my advisor", "Slack Off" | for one month. | | Fortunately I got no abusive advisor, rejected papers usually end | up getting accepted later, no extreme life circumstances or cut | funding. But my computer crashed way more often than I'd expect, | especially since backups are so common nowadays. | whymauri wrote: | I followed this strategy + parallelized developing preliminary | ideas and wrapped up in 3 years, 11 months with 100/100 Hope. | If it only it was that easy! Haha | fallingknife wrote: | Nice, but judging from what I have heard about academia, I | think I beat you and won in month 1 by rejecting the offer! | womenintech333 wrote: | A bit disappointing it doesn't go into other details like being | a women. As most PhD candidates are in their mid 20s and often | by the end of the beginning of their academic careers they | immediately have to decide to either have a family or pursue | academia. | jvvw wrote: | Didn't realise at the time but you have made me appreciate | that that was one good thing about the British system - I was | 24 when I submitted my PhD which is fairly typical so still | time before such decisions (it was another 11 years before I | discovered the challenges of combining a career with | motherhood!) | womenintech333 wrote: | Reducing a PhD program to 4 years can help but in many | fields this is still a problem. For many fields and form of | absence of leave can be the end of your academic career. If | I recall correctly the average PhD graduate is still 26-27 | years old. Which doesn't help much too much even though the | average US grad is 31. For many field though this would | help a lot. In tech and stem not so much. I remember some | of the female faculty I knew telling me exactly how and why | so many women end up filtered out. Simply because they | wanted to have a child and by the time they came back their | research was outdated and their works published by others. | They themselves never having children. It's why many women | often leave academia for industry jobs. | | I personally believe how we conduct research and academia | is outdated and does not allow for the proper inclusion of | women. And does not allow men to be proper fathers. Sorry | for the long talk. | | Edit: Got the average age for PhDs in UK wrong it's mid | 30s. Even if they started right at the age of 22 it's a | wall they will face almost immediately. | fractallyte wrote: | How should the system be changed to accommodate women? | (And men/fathers?) | nikvaes wrote: | In my opinion, a first step is to equalize maternity and | paternity leave. It should be equally disrupting for men | to have children as for women (from the perspective of an | employer). I like the Swedish implementation of this | model, where partners get 480 days of leave per child | which they are free to divide among themselves, with a | minimum of 90 days for either. | michaelt wrote: | _> I was 24 when I submitted my PhD which is fairly | typical_ | | Good for you - that's very fast. According to [1] the | median age for _starting_ a PhD in the UK is 24 to 25 for | full-time students. So you actually graduated around when | the typical student _starts_. | | [1] https://www.hepi.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/PhD- | Life_T... | afterburner wrote: | I basically followed this approach but my paper kept getting | rejected from the conference which really put a ceiling on my | hope; ended up quitting the PhD after just under 5 years. | | Second try the conference paper got accepted right away. | Advisor even asked me if I needed a break after I'd had some | success (never happened on the first run) and was getting | tired. Wrote my thesis in 5.5 years. | bogtog wrote: | > Whenever I get the "ask my advisor for a break?" say yes. | | I thought that was a trap, and I was surprised my initial | strategy of "say no but then slack off" didn't work | dheera wrote: | That depends on how good your advisor is and whether they | understand mental health. | imsaw wrote: | I did this and was warned, but got some progress for work | during shower | Ultimatt wrote: | There is also a hidden variable about being tired too, and if | you don't slack off you waste months in forced situations with | asking for breaks with the supervisor or burning out. | azangru wrote: | I lost all hope and quit. Something that happened to me in real | life as well. | ryandrake wrote: | Every time I tried the game (using OP's described steps) I | "lost all hope and quit". I thought that was the joke / funny | commentary: that all paths through the game involve you | ending up losing. Didn't know there was a path to actually | win the game until reading the HN comments. So I kept trying | it over and over doing the same steps and finally won once. | | I guess that's an even funnier commentary on how it's pretty | much entirely luck based. | 19h wrote: | I actually got the PhD so it's not all ways leading to | failure -- just accept when your advisor offers you to take | time off. | 93po wrote: | i won on my first try at just under 6 years and my hope | never got below 65 i think, maybe i got lucky | Derbasti wrote: | LOL, wrote the thesis in one month. Very funny. | trojan13 wrote: | Now imagine this, but with a "LinkedIn feed" that shows updates | from your peers, showing their professional accomplishments and | current salary. | gonzo41 wrote: | It should also have a picture of you, Like a current one that | slowly degrades over the course as you start eating crap and | stop exercising. | dhimes wrote: | haha that would be perfect. Receding hairline, expanding | waistline... | drdunce wrote: | don't forget the back hump! | 1323portloo wrote: | I remember my advisor's most relevant advice, "Keep | working toward your thesis, and one day, you, too, shall | have a mighty hump!" | SomewhatLikely wrote: | Reminds me of the early Duke Nukem games that showed your | health as an increasingly beat up avatar. | Aeolun wrote: | That was surprisingly stressful | akomtu wrote: | What's the typical motivation of getting a PhD? The desire to | discover something novel? The need to look and feel better than | others? | chriskanan wrote: | This is reasonably accurate as far as the average PhD experience | goes. I do always encourage my PhD students to take some time off | during holidays and after major deadlines, rather than berate | them when "slacking off" (unless that's all they do). | | Stuff missing: holidays and deciding whether to travel home or | study / read papers (I missed holidays myself during my PhD), | feeling envious of peers from pre-PhD living great lives, having | kids during one's PhD (that would be hard mode), drama in | authorship of collaborative papers, etc. | | The last year anxiety is accurate for most. It is also missing | the job search in the final years. For many disciplines, 3 strong | papers is the minimum for graduating, but if one really wants to | get a faculty position or even a job as a research scientist at | more prestigious institutes, probably 6 papers is better. | maxmalkav wrote: | "The only winning move is not to play." | jannw wrote: | seems quite accurate to me - reflects well my own experience. | tibbon wrote: | I find this highly unrealistic. Advisors do not notice nor care | for your mental health. Breaks and rest are not offered nor | advised. Back to the lab! | gradstudent wrote: | Claim your free time. No sane advisor would ever say no. | blitzar wrote: | That explains a lot about my advisor then ... | wpietri wrote: | Yeah, that's one of the things I was looking for in this | game. A friend of mine had an absolutely bonkers advisor | who stopped answering my friend's emails. For a while they | basically had to stalk their advisor, who would come in at | erratic hours and quickly lock their office door, just | ignoring any knocking. It was so wild to me, as my friend | was just incredibly nice. My friend only graduated because | other faculty sort of clubbed together as unofficial | advisors. | | I get that if you select only for smarts, you're going to | get some odd ducks. But I've heard so many stories from | PhD-seeking friends about the level of dysfunction that | gets visited upon grad students. | BeetleB wrote: | Many advisors are not sane. Many will definitely not tolerate | multiple leaves of absences (i.e. vacations) due to stress. | People lie and make up family emergencies to get the time | off. | | Highly dependent on the advisor. | moab wrote: | You had a terrible advisor. I'm sorry. | klysm wrote: | All too common it seems | jldugger wrote: | > UNIVERSITY NEWS: free cloud storage now available to all | students and faculties. Your data are now safe on the cloud. | | This is a trap! | stusmall wrote: | I slacked off until I failed the first year exam. I escaped a PhD | program and was left full of hope. I consider that a win. | [deleted] | jebarker wrote: | I'm interested in how specific this PhD experience is to the US, | certain subjects or recent times. My own experience doing a maths | PhD in the UK in the mid-2000s was not like this at all (but had | a different set of challenges for sure). | dotnet00 wrote: | I'm about to wrap up my PhD in a few months here in the US, I | find that while it's kind of close, it's a bit on the cynical | side, as is most of the HN discussion about PhDs. | | Yes, my advisor emphasizes papers a lot, but there aren't any | requirements for number of papers for graduation. While there | are extremely busy periods of forgoing sleep to work (eg right | before a major deadline), my advisor also constantly reminds us | to take breaks and enjoy life. There was also the anxiety about | graduating on time, but that too was sorted out by just having | a meeting with my advisor and understanding how things work. | | On the other hand, the situation with the qualifying exam was | the opposite, I had to constantly remind my advisor that I | needed to get that done. It involved a 50 page report on the | current status of my research and a thesis defense style | presentation to my committee, so that was a bit of a challenge | to make time for between normal research. Passing it didn't | feel like much of a challenge, just meeting the 50 page | requirement did. I had enough data, but it was still a lot of | writing. | cpp_frog wrote: | I'm a chilean maths grad student and save for the qualifying | exam, it's quite accurate. So much so that I think I made a | mistake clicking on this because as it progressed I started | feeling dizzy. Other commenters here also have their relatable | experiences, which doesn't make me feel so bad. | geigco wrote: | Confirmation that I was right not to get my PhD! | [deleted] | joewferrara wrote: | This game is exactly like graduate school in a PhD program! Love | it! | aiertlaijrilej wrote: | I completed the game the same way I completed real life. I left | early with a MS instead of a PhD. | | Based on my experience, there needs to be a chance that your | advisor is a narcissistic child who pushes you repeatedly to | spend your entire PhD either fixing the mistakes in their own PhD | thesis (without changing anything they did) or doing unpaid | unpublishable production work for their half-assed startup. And | hobbles your attempts to establish connections outside of their | control. And also does a lot of things that could be termed | "fraud" and "embezzlement" if the university cared to investigate | when you and others before and after you complained about it. And | probably some more mess involving petty politics with post-docs | and competing professors. | | I loved grad classes and research, but I hated academia. | jacurtis wrote: | > I loved grad classes and research but I hated Academia | | Truer words have never been spoken. | | I went back to get a PhD after a solid career where I was in a | prominent leadership position at a respectable tech company (in | my mid-thirties). I was bored, not motivated with work anymore, | and wanted to do something that really pushed me and motivated | me in ways that I hadn't felt in years. I also wanted to truly | learn some advanced concepts through Grad classes. | | I really loved the grad classes (although they were much much | much easier than I expected). That is why I moved into | research, to really stimulate myself and do something | interesting to me in my specific area of expertise. I really | enjoyed doing the research too. I was personally motivated and | curious on the topics I was researching. It gave me a lot of | new-found motivation in life and I really flourished. | | But academia: the drama and games you need to engage in to do | such simple (arguably trivial or non-important) tasks is | ridiculous. I succeeded in my business career because it was | results driven. If you produce results, people don't care how | you got there exactly. But in academia I felt like it was a | board game of "chutes and ladders", mixed with Risk and | Monopoly where you had to own parts of the board that other | people deem important, you hit chutes that set you back for no | apparent reason, you were constantly collecting personal | referrals and clout from other professors so you could get | their blessing or IOUs. There's a lot of favors and ceremony | around trivial tasks and the actual produced value often gets | overlooked or forgotten about because you didn't march to the | same drum as someone else. | jack_riminton wrote: | Now do an arts PhD! | jack_riminton wrote: | lol at the downvotes, you know it's true. Most of the made up | papers in the "Sokal squared" affair that made publication are | considered PhD level within those fields and they're literal | nonsense https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair | birdyrooster wrote: | I like declining the offer and going on with my life. Relaxing. | cosmic_quanta wrote: | Very cool! | | I was surprised that writing the thesis was an immediate success. | I've seen many PhD students struggle at this point, taking > 12mo | to submit. | logifail wrote: | In the sim, at "Year 3 Month 9" I apparently "lost all hope and | quitted your PhD". | | In my real one (20+ years ago), I submitted my thesis after 3 | years and 6 months, by which point I was no longer on speaking | terms with my supervisor and was hanging on to my sanity by the | skin of my teeth. | | My viva went surprisingly well, after which I did the minor | corrections that were requested, handed in a copy of my thesis, | packed up my stuff and left that hateful group behind me. | b555 wrote: | if given a chance to do it all again, would you? | ikrenji wrote: | absolutely not lol | logifail wrote: | > if given a chance to do it all again, would you? | | Yes, definitely, but maybe(?) in a different research group. | ccppurcell wrote: | The proportion of slackings off for which you are caught by your | advisor is unrealistically high, but exactly as high as it | _feels_. I definitely got my fair share of those emails... | lqet wrote: | This is great and exactly captures the PhD experience. Both in | the simulator and in real life, I mostly survived until the end | by slacking off frequently, and needed around 5 years. | | Some highlights: | | > INBOX: Based on the reviewers' comments, we regret to inform | you that your manuscript has been REJECTED for publication. One | of the reviewers pointed out that there is no comparison with a | state-of-art method. | | > You came up with a bunch of ideas. However, upon further | searching, you found that they have already been done before. | | > You found the missing piece during a shower. You develop one of | your preliminary results into a major result. | | > You found one of your ideas appears in a recently published | paper. You can no longer work on it. | | > Three years passed. You have witnessed many graduations. You | began to worry about whether your can graduate on time. | | > The simulation took a much longer time than you expected. The | results are not available yet. | | What was missing: | | 1.) Growing feeling of getting too old | | 2.) Growing family obligations (marriage, kids, trying to write a | thesis at 3am with a crying baby next room) | | 3.) Questions asked by friends and relatives regarding progress | | 4.) Teaching obligations | bluedevilzn wrote: | Was it worth it? | smodad wrote: | _> You found one of your ideas appears in a recently published | paper. You can no longer work on it._ | | This is one of the things I thought of right away when ChatGPT | got released last year. "God, there's probably so many PhD | candidates right now in NLP feeling despair like all their work | was pointless ...as if million of voices cried out in terror | and were suddenly silenced." | | It's hard in the moment to know whether what you're working on | has any utility. So just do your best and keep chugging! | 93po wrote: | I met someone recently who finished their PhD in computer | vision related work a couple years ago and she said all of | her specialization now felt useless, but that her PhD was | still useful for understanding the fundamentals for a job she | now has but does absolutely nothing with her research | experience. | hgsgm wrote: | Math is pointless from start to finish, but that doesn't stop | them. | | PhD is granted for novelty, not practicality. | libealistand wrote: | > Math is pointless from start to finish | | And this attitude, my friends, is the reason why so much | software out there is so bad. | | We need more of a math mindset when developing software. | What can we be sure about, what are the invariants, what | can we prove? There is so much crap out there that somebody | lacking understanding just tried to wing, and I'm | constantly ashamed of it. | | Computer science is applied math. | Aeolun wrote: | Why is this the case? Wouldn't having more than one paper | proving/discovering the same thing be good for confidence in | either of them? | markus92 wrote: | In theory yes, in practice many journals are only | interested in work with a clear novelty factor. | tsumnia wrote: | Its sort of a mix of a lot of small things - 1) The coming | conferences will be flooded with LLM analysis, so the space | will be heavily saturated and more difficult to find a | significant contribution; 2) LLMs are a new model that you | might need to include in your analysis, which means | learning about and becoming familiar with them; 3) your | work might get overshadowed because its now obsolete in the | land of LLMs | | A slight equivalent I can think about would be the | emergence of neural networks. When I was working on my | Masters on face recognition, neural networks were not the | major force they are now. Facial landmarks used a | combination of haar features and edge detection. These | methods weren't outright abandoned, but if NNs had taken | off during my research, then I would have had to restart my | work. | [deleted] | khazhoux wrote: | This is also missing the part where your friend in your same | class drops out for a startup, and you can choose to join him | or stick with PhD. | | Then give you the option a year later to congratulate him on | the startup's multi-billion exit. | chias wrote: | One dynamic I experienced that also isn't in the simulation: if | you focus too much on classwork early on in order to pass your | RPE, it can actually be hard to find an advisor. Classwork is | basically dead-end work and the more you focus on it the less | you have to show for yourself when trying to convince an | advisor to work with you. Your goal should be to optimize for | doing _just well enough to pass_ your classwork. | | Also, random catalysmic events, like in year 4 your advisor | accepts a job at a different university in another state. | 78124781 wrote: | Generally, the focus here should be on: 1) Not bombing any | classes (i.e. A/A- in all, maybe a B+ in one; a B or below is | failing) 2) Doing very good work and trying to write an | original paper for professors that you want to work with | while doing just enough to get by in other classes [this is | in part how you figure out who you want to work with] 3) | Being good enough with the literature to pass the | comprehensive exams (or, as another comment points out, have | some kind of protection from a sponsor; it is not uncommon to | have profs use comps as a chance to take out students they | don't like for various reasons, even as small as "they do X | field, which I don't like" or "they work with Y, who really | gets on my nerves). | | Of course there's plenty of additional ways to derail this as | well, including advisor moving, advisor getting into a fight | with the rest of the department, advisor giving poor advice, | advisor deciding that they don't like you, etc. | lumost wrote: | It really makes you wonder if the university should just | have a mechanism to "fire" a grad student rather than | pretending that these events aren't simply a mechanism to | "fire" someone because they didn't pass X hurdle. | | If the advisors can vouch for, or strike a student | regardless of their qual performance - then why not simply | have an end of year performance review? | 78124781 wrote: | Most depts do have some kind of official review, but it's | more of a formality. I think they're also concerned about | how students would react if they suggest that academia | isn't for them directly. So instead they resort to more | passive-aggressive or arbitrary measures. | | On the other hand, not all departments are good fits with | students and there's a very wide asymmetry in information | between many new students and programs, even if you "do | your research" beforehand, given just how specialized | these disciplines are at a high level. It would be nice | if transferring programs was made easier and if more | departments would just agree to help students "master | out" and look for jobs rather than discard them like | roadkill. | krastanov wrote: | This would be incredibly bad advice in half of Physics and | most of Math. An adviser would simply not trust a graduate | student with middling grades to be competent enough to work | with. | jacurtis wrote: | I think this depends on the field. For example in CS, my | advisor straight up told me multiple times to stop worry | about class work. His exact statement is that "There isn't | anything more that you will learn in classes that you won't | learn in greater detail doing research". | | His logic is that when you are doing research, you are | pushing the envelope into new territory that can't be | taught in a classroom. When you are in a classroom you are | learning old material that is already well-known and | established. | | This is very true in CS. But far from true in Math and | Physics where there probably is a lot of advanced learning | available in classes. The few classes I had that he | actually endorsed being "worth your time" were Math classes | focused around encryption (of which I took 3 different | ones). | | But my advisor was unique because he was 100% there for the | research. He only taught because the university forced him | to. He lived and breathed research and that was the only | reason he was in academia. He was truly passionate and | worked 10+ hours a day on research, but thats why he was | there. He had a very low opinion of classroom teaching. | Aeolun wrote: | I was thinking, this sounds very much like a person with | a vested interest in getting you to do more research. | KeplerBoy wrote: | That's not very unique of your advisor. Most researchers | are there for the research, not for the teaching and it | shows. | rprospero wrote: | As a counterpoint, I knew a physics prof that would drop | any grad students who got above a B average, since it meant | the student had bad time management. Bad time management | being defined by spending more tine outside the lab than | strictly necessary. | | Then again, knowing that that @PS&$EURY= would drop you | might make it a good plan. | ke88y wrote: | IME it's more that the advisor doesn't trust the student to | make it through the annual layoffs (quals culling), and | only wants to invest in people who they know will be around | long-term. | | At least in the poor (and honestly mostly useless) parts of | Mathematics. Maybe Physics is less poor. | | (Fortunately I was in CS, where the research output is | actually needed by society and usually not pure | masturbation, so the attitude toward coursework was "do | well at what you need, enjoy what you want, and ignore what | you don't need or want" | libealistand wrote: | [dead] | dazed_confused wrote: | Or your advisor retiring in year 2... | joshvm wrote: | Every department I've worked in mandates 2 supervisors to | mitigate against this, because it's reasonably common for | people to move departments, go on sabbatical or just quit. | Even with tenure, life happens and people need to leave | their jobs. In theory, the department shouldn't allow | advisors to take on more students if they're close to | retirement though. | amwales wrote: | oddly specific | Lk7Of3vfJS2n wrote: | Or your advisor accepts a job at a company in another state | in year 2... | peteradio wrote: | Buddy of mine, his advisor _died_ in like year 4. | [deleted] | fugue88 wrote: | I had picked my advisor at the start of my PhD. I also had 2 | backups. My pick was on sabbatical my first year. He and I | agreed I'd load up on the required classes that year. | | He e-mailed me right before the year ended saying he had | changed his mind and didn't want any more grad students, | basically dumping me. | | Right around the same time, my first backup decided to | retire. | | My second backup passed away. | | I was left no longer making "sufficient progress" and no path | to do so, losing my financial aid. | cushpush wrote: | sorry this happened to you, wishing you success in spite of | the setbacks | PakG1 wrote: | This emphasizes how much you need to know before you even get | into a program. If you don't know that much, you NEED those | classes to just catch up to your peers as to understanding | what the world even says about various things at a | foundational level. The weight is so much easier to carry if | you go in with a certain level of knowledge so that you can | slack in classes if you need to rest. | 78124781 wrote: | This. Most grad school classes are poorly taught and the | professors indifferent or discouraging to actually helping | you learn. PhD students are assumed to be capable of | learning these things on their own or already knowing them. | If you are encountering things for the first time, you'll | likely be behind. | | In contrast, if you come in mostly ready to go and these | classes are just refreshers, you can spend time in that | class working on actual research and impressing the prof as | well as not panicking if/when you realize you don't | understand what's going on. | ke88y wrote: | This also depends on the field. I think this is good advice | in fields where grad students are primarily there to help | with grant-funded research. In those fields, the course and | prelim requirements are reasonable because professors need | warm bodies doing work. Eg, CS. | | It's less good advice in fields where grad student research | output doesn't matter as much, and where students do more | teaching instead. Those fields tend to make much more | aggressive use of weed-out exams to ensure that they have | enough young grad students to meet teaching demand but not so | many older (>=3yr) grad students that they saturate advising | capacity. Mathematics in particular comes to mind. | waveBidder wrote: | > Classwork is basically dead-end work and the more you focus | on it the less you have to show for yourself when trying to | convince an advisor to work with you. | | nearly half of my year didn't get this and had to master out | when we got to quals. | hgsgm wrote: | You mean they passed quals but couldn't get an advisor? | | Or failed quals? | ke88y wrote: | Are those different things? At departments where quals | have high failure rates, it's really more of an annual | layoff than anything else. | | In many programs, the department aims to admit far more | people than will pass the quals. They need the Calculus | and Pre-calculus TAs but do not have the advising | capacity. | | Even if everyone gets a 95% on the quals, the majority | will "fail" _by necessity_ because the department simply | does not have the advising capacity for the number of TAs | they need. Of course, the department typically designs | the quals to these needs either explicitly or implicitly. | | This is usually at least implicitly understood by the | faculty, who will navigate it when absolutely necessary. | For example, I've seen it happen that if a professor | really needs a student and vouches for/protects them (eg | because the research is computational and the student | came from 5 years at Google), then the student gets more | goes at the plate on quals than is typical. | waveBidder wrote: | er, right, what other people call quals we called | prelims. our quals were a presentation of early stage | work, so when the deadlines rolled around, they didn't | have an advisor, or hadn't been working with them long | enough to have any results. | fho wrote: | > Growing family obligations (marriage, kids, trying to write a | thesis at 3am with a crying baby next room) | | Oh ... I felt that one :-/ | mjfl wrote: | at least you have a family. | aiisjustanif wrote: | Teaching obligations are assumed, had students break things | multiple times. | rewmie wrote: | > What was missing: | | n) Your old college friends have secured their material needs | while you barely make rent. | | n) a PhD student that joined the program after you just | surpassed your number of publications. | | n) your thesis supervisor just bumped you off primary author to | contributor in your own paper. | Balgair wrote: | > your thesis supervisor just bumped you off primary author | to contributor in your own paper. | | I mean, woah. Even that's a little too far for phd-land | cycomanic wrote: | I would also add that the hope trajectory is quite right in the | simulation. You really should start quite high and it starts | dropping until your first conference, but then towards the | middle of the PhD it gets very low. It only really goes up | again when the end is in sight. | | In the game it pretty much continously went up. | NooneAtAll3 wrote: | > Teaching obligations | | any advice for people aiming for teaching instead of all the | publishing stuff? | toxik wrote: | Yeah don't do a PhD | gs17 wrote: | Tried that, the university considered lecturers to be | disposable if there was a chance to replace them with a | tenure-track who could get grants, and told me I could come | back if I got a PhD. | tsumnia wrote: | Agreed. I found I loved teaching, but with only a Masters | I was limited to adjunct hell. I took the pay cut and | made the push for my doctorate. | NooneAtAll3 wrote: | what to do instead? | a1o wrote: | But how to get hired then? | AnotherGoodName wrote: | This should be obvious but never sign up for a degree in | a field where only PhDs can get jobs. | jacurtis wrote: | In academia, your Resume/CV is basically a list of what you | have published. | | Even if you are an awesome teacher, you are going to be | required to continue publishing a minimum amount every few | years and you will be hired based on what you published. | | Sorry, but that's just academia. If you want to teach without | doing research, then maybe look at Community Colleges, High | Schools, or getting a job at a corporate job and being an | Adjunct Professor for 1-2 classes a semester. | OkayPhysicist wrote: | There are also smaller (typically private) colleges and | universities that heavily focus on their undergrad | programs. The Jesuits seem to lean into this style with | both Santa Clara U. in the Bay Area and Loyola Marymount U. | in LA falling into this pile. Research at these | institutions definitely ends up taking a secondary role. | hattmall wrote: | A teaching university and not a research university. You can | / will still do some research but your job is teaching | students not doing research. The pay is generally better, but | of course, you will have to actually teach a lot and have a | lot of office hours. Maybe once every few years you can work | out a research semester. The initial pay is better but less | so the opportunities for advancement as you won't be | publishing much. That makes it harder to differentiate on | anything other than time. | 78124781 wrote: | I'm not sure the salaries are better. Most R1s are now | offering 90-120k starting in my field, but regional | teaching Us start around 50-60k, with liberal arts colleges | in the 50-80k range. | | The point about the lack of opportunities for | advancement/moving due to the course preps and teaching | taking up your time is very true. While your friends at R1s | are on pre-tenure sabbaticals, getting course buyouts, and | teaching a nice grad seminar for a semester, you might be | doing 3-4 new preps a year and likely getting piled with | service work. | krastanov wrote: | If you want to have a tenure track "professor" position | focused on teaching in a top-tier university, you need to be | a great researcher as teaching skills are not considered much | -- you just get to decide to focus on teaching after you get | tenure. Thankfully, many universities (even the prestigious | ones) are now starting to hire more semi-permanent teaching- | focused staff (and some even use the title professor for | these). You do not get as much independence in such a | position, especially if you want to make a class for more | senior students, but it is a good middle ground. Or you can | be a professor at a school that is not in the rat-race to be | "top-tier research institution" - you still need to have some | small research output (but that is actually an awesome way to | introduce a couple of undergrads a year to research) and you | get to focus on making awesome classes (of course, there is | still the expectation that you have a PhD to apply for these | positions, but at these places your teaching experience is | actually taken seriously in the hiring process). | | As to what to do during your PhD: find an advisor that is | happy to have one or two students focused on teaching and | outreach (they would like to have that because when applying | for grants it makes it easier for them to explain how they | have broader impact, pointing to your work). | davidgay wrote: | > If you want to have a tenure track "professor" position | focused on teaching in a top-tier university, you need to | be a great researcher as teaching skills are not considered | much | | Not completely true. UC Berkeley at least has tenure-track | lecturers, now apparently mostly referred to as "Teaching | Professors" (https://apo.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/t | eaching_profes...) | | A random (old) job post for this: | https://gsso.ce.gatech.edu/2022/01/12/tenure-track- | teaching-... | tsumnia wrote: | Source: Teaching Professor at NC State | | During the PhD, I was a TA and instructor on record for | several classes. Schools may have some form of mentor | teaching assistantship that lets you get experience teaching | while in the program. I think I taught ~6 courses by the time | I graduated. | | It can also help to position yourself in the "education" | research space for your field. There is a strong CS education | research space, so you can incorporate your classroom as your | "lab", though you'll want to study up on Cognitive Sciences | to ensure your findings support current literature. My | publication count is much lower than my peers, but I was | still able to receive several offers for teaching faculty | positions. | | Teaching faculty positions are available, though not in as | much demand as traditional research oriented profs. However, | I know at least in CS there are several universities looking | for them. Likewise, by situating yourself in the education | space, you can land a research prof position while still | focusing on education. If you get funding, then you can buy | out course obligations so you can specialize in teaching a | single class. | peteradio wrote: | > 3.) Questions asked by friends and relatives regarding | progress | | This one in particular had me temporarily cut off contact with | people who could not be bothered to remember that I had no | interest in answering this question! | sgt101 wrote: | It shocks me so much that publication has become the only metric | of a Ph.D. | milancurcic wrote: | It's been mostly like this for a long time, but it is slowly | changing. Open data repositories and scientific software | libraries/products are beginning to count more and more (at | least many of us are pushing for this). It also depends on the | target career past graduation. Papers matter a lot for tenure- | track positions, and much less for science support (scientific | software developers, data engineers, lab managers etc.) in | academia, or most jobs in the industry. | | The 3 paper requirement in the game is also not a formal | requirement in most universities--it's more of an implied | requirement by individual PhD advisors. FWIW, my first lead- | author paper I published a year past my PhD. During my PhD, I | produced two relatively large scientific software applications | (one open and one closed source) and a few open datasets. I'm | now 8 years past my PhD and relatively successful in my field, | 90th or so percentile based on common metrics--papers, | citations, and funds raised. | | Bottom line, papers are important but not the only thing that | counts. Outside of tenure-track careers where they are crucial, | it's possible to establish yourself as a scientist and be | respected by your peers by publishing software and data. | bogtog wrote: | In what fields is 3 papers expected? In my field, Psychology, | 3 first-author papers sounds like a reasonable lower bound, | but that seems like it would be a lot to expect out of | Biologists or hard scientists. | milancurcic wrote: | Ah, good point. I'm in Earth sciences. 3 papers before PhD | is reasonable here, just not a formal university | requirement. | fht wrote: | Current 4th year in Biology. Generally, 1 paper is | expected, but it is not strictly necessary to graduate. | Highly doubt that the PI will let you go without finishing | your project though. | crawsome wrote: | TIL month-long breaks are required to pass a PHD | geysersam wrote: | Thanks for the ptsd relapse. | mjfl wrote: | one issue is overemphasis on qualifying exam. Most advisors, at | least for experimental disciplines, value publishing papers much | higher than jumping through these academic hoops, and make sure | that either qualifying exams are easy to pass or can be retaken. | jszymborski wrote: | This is great but it's missing one thing: having to apply for | funding each year (time consuming!) with the statistical | expectation of not receiving it. Then having to TA to help | towards making-up the difference (it does not). | | Then, spend egregious amounts of time each year filling out | expense reports for conferences you attended. Also, take-up more | part time work because it takes 4-6 months for the reports to get | processed and you need to pay off your credit cards. | Ar-Curunir wrote: | Do PhD students tend to apply for funding where you're at? In | most CS PhD programs it's the advisors job to do that. | ketzo wrote: | n=2 but my friends in humanities PhDs both have to do all | their own funding work. sounds exhausting. | LASR wrote: | I wanted to go all the way to a PhD. So did my classmates. We | were going to change the whole world. | | But after an internship at a FAANG during my 2nd year undergrad, | the money was too good. Got some return offers and basically | slacked off the rest of my undergrad, just waiting to graduate. | | I was not born into wealth. I am a 1/2-generation immigrant. My | parents struggled to keep me afloat during my undergrad years. | Even my internship pay was more than my parents' income at the | time. So really I had no choice but to sell out early. | | Now 10 years after undergrad and a couple of FAANGs later, the | baby crying in the other room at 3AM, parents retired and | vacationing around, I think I made the only choice for me. But I | cannot help wonder how life might have been different, and if I | really did have a chance to change to world. | rewmie wrote: | > But I cannot help wonder how life might have been different, | and if I really did have a chance to change to world. | | You made the right choice. Life as a PhD student is ultimately | a life of poverty and uncertain future. You might get lucky and | be able to explore a meaningful research topic, but more often | than not you would end up in a miserable path with no future, | and with the best option at securing your material needs to be | in an ungrateful and very hard to reach academic role. | mebassett wrote: | or after a few years of postdocs and job security that comes | in 12-24 month bouts, you might have moved into industry | anyway and just starting making 60% of what you're making | now. | godelski wrote: | I think the most realistic thing here is the luck element. You | have people around you passing and making it look easy and saying | to do exactly what they did and those people make it all out to | be a skill game. But you follow their exact method and still | fail. And keep failing. Making you think there's some secret | sauce that they aren't telling you about. But in reality the | difference was just luck. That in one game you can slack off half | the time and graduate just fine and the other half of the time | you can't even get a single paper submitted. The tyranny of the | stochastic system is probably one of the most damning things in a | PhD. | laewirjtlawejtl wrote: | Reminds me of the poem The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. | Initially it seems like it's a poem about working hard and | taking risks, but it's actually about old people lying to | themselves, trying to forget that their success was actually | just luck. | | About half the professors I worked with were responsible | adults, and half were narcissistic children who would do | exactly what you described, "just do what I did", and when it | doesn't work they quickly changed to personal attacks and | insults. | | And of course, the professors who had PhDs from MIT or Stanford | just breezing through, getting approved for everything they | applied to on the first round, even when their past | deliverables and future proposals were garbage, and people who | went to second-tier schools having to fight tooth and nail | every incremental gain. Just a pile of crap. Couldn't stand it. | godelski wrote: | There's a saying I really like "the harder I work, the | luckier I get." It being about how the time you invest makes | you able to take advantage of more opportunities. BUT it also | recognizes that the luck element exists. I think Veritasium | also had a video along the luck+work lines. Basically if you | just are unlucky you just have no opportunities and you'll | fail no matter what work you put in. But if you don't put in | work, you're also passing up possible lucky opportunities. | Either way, it is a combination of a stochastic process plus | skill (think about the design of any good {video,board} game. | They require both skill and luck, just like life. | | You definitely need both, and I think this is what people | forget. Work is incredibly important, but you can do a lot of | good and hard work and just be unlucky. That honestly is | probably one of the more distinguishing differences between | students/faculty at top institutions vs mid. Especially since | success is a compounding event, thus an early success can | catapult someone forward. We shouldn't diminish their hard | work by saying it is all luck, but neither should they | diminish others hard work and frustration as a lack of | working hard enough when luck plays a significant role in the | system. Neither is failure strictly due to luck. It is messy | and we need to accept that this is the reality of the world, | especially if we want to make the system more efficient and | more "meritocratic" (quotes because previous comments and | their relationship to Goodhart, the difficulties in | evaluation and necessity to embrace noise). | | Though your last point about the top tier breezing through, I | can completely relate. I see a lot of low quality papers from | those institutions get high marks and it is very surprising | and definitely not consistent with a blind evaluation | system... but I think most of us already know that. | spidersenses wrote: | For some reason I found the font really hard to read. My brain | has the impression that the text is vertically compressed, | squished even. Just that no amount of resizing the window changed | the strange effect. Is that only me? | spencerchubb wrote: | It is vertically squished. I had to modify the CSS myself in | the dev tools because I couldn't bear it | amir734jj wrote: | I took qualifying exam on the last semester after I finished the | thesis. They [university officials] thought in their system I | have left the program. I had only 4 weeks to study for the exam | because my advisor gave me a ultimatum after he thought I took | the exam already. I was working full-time at this time and | couldn't take 4 weeks off. After so much praying, I got the | highest score, and I ended up becoming a Christian because of all | the praying. It worked out at the end. | jmercan wrote: | Sounds like this is how my life will be like for a couple years | if I get accepted :p | fwsgonzo wrote: | I'm doing it right now and I kind of envy my colleagues that | are doing normal work. There are times when I enjoy the ability | to focus on things that really interest me, but the paper | writing and publishing processes really suck. Also, the random | stuff from the university that I have to jump over sucks fun | out of the process, for no gain to anyone. | [deleted] | gus_massa wrote: | A very important part of the work of the advisor is to pick a | subject that is not been researched by other group, so you can | work on it without the fear of been sniped. It not foolproof, but | if three or four ideas get sniped, it's probably better to kindly | consider an advisor change. | moffkalast wrote: | > An item in your cart was on sale, you bought it immediately and | felt much better. +5 hope | | Feeling personally attacked. | Lk7Of3vfJS2n wrote: | Looking forward to a Job Search simulator. | ryandrake wrote: | You could adapt the same game logic to a lot of things in life: | Job Search, Career Success, Startup Founder, Stock Investor. In | most life situations, it is possible--even likely--to "make no | mistakes and still lose." | xbkingx wrote: | lol I wish it was this easy. I got through the simulator in 6yrs | 11mos on the second try. At no point was hope above 40%, except | once early on (ended at 33%). | | The funny thing is that I had 1 conf paper, 1 major result, and 1 | figure left over. That's a good year extra, so I assume a perfect | game would be to get the 3x papers and GTFO (which is the second | best outcome, after not enrolling). There were a couple folks I | knew that made it out in 5 years, but more that took 7+. Our lab | was notorious for taking over 10, which I skirted by. | | Like others said, this was lacking outside events | (social/political junk). Hopefully version 2 will take into | account: at least 1 family death and 1 additional tragedy, at | least two months lost to helping or waiting for help from another | grad student or post doc (they did have the lab equipment | breaking, which was good to see, but missed the lobbying for | every little purchase), at least one scope change, a half dozen | favors to gain some political cache, a few experiments and/or | rewrites to satisfy faculty members that just read about a | technical issue they should have known, but didn't so they're | highly sensitive to it, at least 6 months of arranging the | data/results in a way that faculty can understand, 3 months of | arguing that the lab standard procedure for some basic component | is a decade out of date, a few months worth of preparing | premature data for unnecessary meetings, one (and it better be | just one) instance of an offer to help getting waaaay out of | control, the hope boost after your first big conference and | subsequent conference hope drops, the drops with each thesis | defense from folks a year younger, etc. There's more, but that's | off the top of my head. Oh, and that slight boost in hope when | you hear someone else has a worse problem than your current one. | That's a fun one. | | Tip for those interviewing - ignore all the year 1-3 folks. 1 and | 2 are basically undergrads plus some extra classes. 3 probably | hasn't hit the first pile of bullshit yet. Find a year 5 or 6 in | your field and talk to them alone. There's a reason they | generally don't have senior grad students at recruiting events, | and it isn't because they're too busy. Talk to them long enough | to get to their exhausted attempts to rationalize some aspect of | the experience. If their demeanor doesn't change, you might be | safe. If they start hemming and hawing, that's a problem. They | haven't even gotten to a specific, non-personal problem and | they're having trouble keeping up the facade. The layers are: 1) | Hey, social event, I get to take my mind off lab problems. 2) | Getting a little boost by talking to someone still excited. 3) | The quiet whisper, "Let me give you some advice." 4) The | realization that there's nothing but lab to talk about. That's | the threshold. 5) The rationalization alpha - The view from | 30,000 feet isn't terrible. 6) The rationalization beta - The | rundown of broad problems they're having. This is the point where | they will probably, as if by magic, remember that thing they were | going to do needs to be done now. (I've got some analysis running | I need to check, I need to feed some lab animals, I promised my | parents I would call, I told a lab mate I'd help them with this | thing and will be up all night, etc.) 7) The rationalization | gamma - Specific cases of major problems they're seen other have. | 8) The rationalization delta - Specific problems they're having. | rwxrwxrwx wrote: | Too real. | bradreaves2 wrote: | As a former PhD student who is now faculty, I have to say that | the pace of the game is one of the most realistic aspects. Every | small step forward takes about a month, it may or may not pan | out, but it passes in the blink of an eye. | | It's a game, so it can't model everything. But I thought the | biggest missing thing was "leveling up." As you accomplish more, | you should have a higher likelihood of future success, and your | hope should increase as you gain confidence and experience. | | That's how a PhD works -- those who can get early wins (or stick | through a lot of bad bounces) can build on success will finish | well. | | To rip off Tolstoy, "Happy PhDs are all alike; each unhappy PhD | is unhappy in its own way." | TremendousJudge wrote: | I have never heard of a "happy PhD" | tnecniv wrote: | I heard of one but the guy went back to do his degree when he | was in his late 30s. He came in with a game plan, executed, | got out. | CSMastermind wrote: | It's interesting because I know maybe two dozen people with | PhDs and every single one of them has a story about a moment | of hitting rock bottom during the process and losing all | hope. Obviously they all pulled through and make it out to | the other side but it really doesn't sound like a pleasant | experience. | dragontamer wrote: | My sister is the opposite. | | She's got her bachelors back in 2010 and got a Masters | while working full time. This part was brutal, but not | technically PhD yet. She's in Health Policy, a lot of | statistics and junk. | | Anyway, she works for some special interest think-tank for | a bit, works on insurance company some other bit, and | finally settles down in the CDC where her skills in | statistics / health policy were very much appreciated. | She's getting to a point where it takes a Ph.D however | before she can move forward with her career (she's already | surrounded by Ph.Ds, and she sticks out in a bad way by not | having one), so she's going for her Ph.D. | | From her side of the aisle, she's seeing a whole bunch of | silly 20-something year olds who don't even know what the | field of Health Policy is about, trying to create Ph.D | Thesis topics that have obviously no relevance to anybody | in any of the fields she's ever worked in (politics, | insurance, or CDC). | | Meanwhile, her first idea was basically "Think of something | CDC is blind at, which she can think of rather easily | because she's worked there for 5+ years and everyone at the | office is basically spitballing complaints about the CDC's | statistics every damn day", and propose it as a Ph.D | thesis. | | Granted, her day-to-day work is filled with constantly | interacting with Ph.Ds who are interested in improving the | CDC's statistical collection techniques / improving | accuracy / finding new ways to slice the data and | innovation. That's literally her job. And those subjects | just so happen to be very useful Ph.D thesis material for | advancing the state of Health Policy. | | -------------- | | How much blood, sweat, and tears are we setting up Ph.D | candidates for because they're straight-out-of bachelors | with no real world experience or knowledge of their damn | field? | | Some of these things _are_ easy to figure out after you've | got 5 to 10 years of real world experience. | | The treadmill of Bachelors -> Masters -> Ph.D is broken. It | probably needs to be Bachelors -> Real world experience -> | Masters -> Real World Experience -> Ph.D. | | This "Read paper -> Think of idea -> Woops, someone already | did it -> Read another paper" loop from the video game, is | that how most Ph.Ds try to come up with their thesis? Isn't | that obviously broken compared to other "life-loops"? | | ----------- | | Ex: her office solved the question of "how to report | statistics within one month to policy makers", because as | late as 2018 or so, CDC was still on a yearly schedule of | death statistics releases. | | Imagine if we were still on the yearly-schedule when | COVID19 happened, instead of the rapid schedule of monthly- | statistics that we actually had! Monthly statistics, much | like Inflation NowCasting, is actually a forecast / | prediction because not all the data is in. But coming up | with a forecast for this month (or last month) of data is | still a problem that needed to be solved, especially in a | way that policy makers would accept in a political | environment where everyone's nitpicking at the details. | | There's so many blind-spots and questions about how to | improve statistics and statistical reporting at the Ph.D | level in that field. But you are only aware of these blind- | spots if you actually work in the field for a bit. | bumby wrote: | > _It probably needs to be Bachelors - > Real world | experience -> Masters -> Real World Experience -> Ph.D._ | | This was my path and my experience largely mirrored your | sisters. I came to my program with a decade+ of industry | work and I think that was invaluable to understanding the | context of what problems are of interest. When I | eventually matriculated to a position that valued PhDs, I | now had a pretty concrete handle on what problems were | enough of a stretch to be useful to a thesis, but not so | far away as to be unrealistic. I also had a way to fund | my studies without the burden of teaching and while | making better pay. The younger cohort I worked with | seemed to struggle because they often lacked a grounding | in understanding real and feasible problems. So they were | left bouncing between one half-baked idea to the next. | That's what a lot of research is, of course, but it also | left many to be either dropped or leave the program | willingly. | | I think you're right that we do a disservice to treat the | bachelors >> masters >> PhD as a template to follow. | There's lots of ways to skin the proverbial cat. | ftxbro wrote: | I mean the bad part comes after you get the PhD. The lucky | ones it got bad during their study and they moved on. | [deleted] | tnecniv wrote: | Building on early success isn't even easy. I had some early | success in mine but then years of stagnation until I developed | enough understanding to iterate in a way that didn't feel like | a trivial waste of time. | | On the other end, the suffering paid off. I'm a much better | thinker and researcher for it. However, it was brutal getting | there. | | What I found interesting and I think is true for almost | everyone is that doing a PhD is hard, but it will likely be | hard for different reasons than you expect. Because of the PhD | students I knew as an undergrad and their experiences, I | expected to be grinding out work in lab 12 hours a day. My | advisor didn't push me that way (thankfully), and gave me a lot | of freedom, but that also meant having very few training wheels | and guidance (I liked him as an advisor and he cared / wanted | to help as he could, but I got into topics he didn't know much | more about than I did for a long time and I just had to figure | it out myself). As a result, my PhD was less of a death march | but more a constant battle with existential dread stemming from | the uncertainty of whether I'd ever figure things out. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-07-05 23:00 UTC)