by andrewnc on 12/28/21, 5:52 PM with 130 comments
by xab31 on 12/29/21, 3:05 PM
- Even the most blatantly wrong and illogical published work can only be displaced by another publication that explains/does the same phenomenon better; i.e., people are going to keep believing in phlogiston until someone shows them oxygen. If you simply point out inconsistencies in phlogiston theory, in person or in writing, they may well make a variety of unwanted psychological deductions about you.
- Similarly, nobody actually enjoys being around critics or enduring criticism, and therefore you will observe many senior scientists partially avoiding the major downsides of being a critic by artfully concealing criticisms inside what sounds to the uninitiated like mutual affirmation sessions. You have to listen very closely and learn the lingo to pick this up.
- Never question a scientific superior (other than maybe a direct mentor or very close colleague) with any other approach besides "I have a helpful suggestion about how you can maybe reach your intended destination better/faster/more precisely". Regardless of where that destination might be, such as off a cliff or into a wall.
- The opinion/fact ratio you are allowed to have as a scientist is directly and very strongly correlated with seniority, H-index, and so on.
- The incentive structure of scientific publication is such that there are big rewards for being right on an important question, bigger the earlier you are to the party, and little to no penalties for being wrong, so long as the error cannot be provably and directly linked to fraud. There are a variety of interesting consequences to this incentive structure.
by pezzana on 12/29/21, 1:34 PM
In my experience, this fact was the #1 reason why some peers dropped out of PhD programs. They joined expecting a continuation of undergraduate education, which consists largely of recapitulating what appears in the secondary literature. Instead, what they got in graduate school was the expectation that they would be producing the primary literature. That's a very different game.
It was a game these peers discovered they hated playing. Nothing in college can prepare you for the isolation of spending your time becoming the world's expert on a narrow technical topic. Your usual reinforcement mechanisms of approval from family and friends gives way to slight comprehension at best. Then there is all of the alone time doing research requires. But I suspect the hardest part of all is the seemingly endless lineup of dead ends and false hope. Not only is success not assured, you often have no idea whether the result will have any utility even if you succeed.
Then, just when you've gotten the hang of this finding answers game you discover that the real expectation is to be the one who formulates good questions. The kinds of questions that, although they will certainly involve dead ends, will ultimately pay off in some meaningful way. Very little in a bachelor's prepares you for doing this. It's a hard-won skill that comes from a round or two (or three or four) of months (or years) spent answering questions that nobody cares about. A lot hinges on your relationship with your advisor on this one.
The PhD isn't just a bachelors degree but harder. It's a completely different animal. The skills in this article are very useful toward that end. But there's a lot more to the story when it comes to skills for finding answers to those unanswered questions, and formulating worthwhile questions without answers.
The benefit of all of this work and discomfort is that you come away with the ability to answer worthwhile questions that haven't yet been answered. And that's a highly transferrable and applicable skill.
by simonbarker87 on 12/29/21, 11:36 AM
1. Presentations aren’t really about conveying information.
I sat though so many dull presentations, they were very informative but I can read a paper quicker than they can badly present the same information.
The best presentations were the ones that covered the whys of the work, the applications, the next steps, the specific problem areas - often these aren’t covered in the paper but, armed with that extra insight I am far more likely to read the paper and remember it.
Presentations are (as the author says) about telling stories.
2. Show up. So many PhDs waft around not doing a whole lot, and so land up being on the program forever. This only benefits the uni and is detrimental to the student. I noticed in the first month of my PhD that most people did a lot more work at the end than the beginning - so I flipped it, worked consistently from day one and got done in just under 3 years.
Carry this over to your daily life and it’s almost a super power for getting stuff done. Consistently showing up and plugging away in something reaps rewards.
by teekert on 12/29/21, 11:27 AM
I think many of these points come down to confidence. When you are in the trenches, you really, really do know a lot, and you know it in incredible detail. In fact, in your career, if you leave academia you will probably never know a unique small "thing" in such detail ever again simply because you will have to make something as opposed to studying it. Not even your professor knows everything about what you do, and so she may give advice that seems to contradict what you think. It is vital that you trust yourself enough to speak up. Yes, the professor is really smart, and knows more than you, but she didn't spend 3 weeks in the lab wrestling with some optical setup like you did and you know some things better then her, better than anyone in fact. It's hard to admit, I know.
Also, you may really have wrong assumptions about the progress you're going to make in the project. You may feel very bad after a year of messing around while the prof thinks you're doing well. Talk about these feelings. The prof knows what's normal, you on the other hand may think you're the next Einstein (and assume Einstein wrote something great every other month) and constantly disappoint yourself.
by cyberlurker on 12/29/21, 1:31 PM
A professor in undergrad gave me the tip to get excited or even feign interest when reading dense written material in order to retain more.
After trying it throughout a difficult class I was amazed at how well it worked. I applied it to every other academic thing I didn’t want to do and noticed immediately how much easier and enjoyable school was. I still use the “fake excitement” trick for my work all the time.
Also, it’s kind of like a Trojan excitement because after I fake the intense interest I do genuinely become interested more often than not.
by th9283749238 on 12/29/21, 3:47 PM
This could be hard to do such early in your life, as one does not have much experience. Usually it falls in one of two categories - either you are someone that can do the work but needs support and guidance, or you prefer working on your own, in which case a more hands-off supervisor would be OK.
If you are of the former type and find yourself working for a supervisor that doesn't offer much support, it will be very hard to finish anything, and most likely you will become demotivated and drop out. Likewise, if you want to try things on your own but your supervisor wants to dictate where to go next, there will be a lot of conflicts and even the possibility that they block the thesis until it is done their way.
Having other PhD colleagues around and bouncing ideas off of them is worth its weight in gold, make sure that there is at least one that is working on something similar as you are.
by austinjp on 12/29/21, 12:57 PM
I'll add something else I have realised:
Your Gantt chart is not for you.
I hate Gantt charts - they're out of date the second they're created; they take too long to update; there's very little decent free software for them that everyone uses; etc etc.
But your supervisor will probably want to see one. Or your funder, or examiners, and so on.
That's the point: sometimes you just gotta transform information into the format that's expected. From your perspective it may be easier to say "I've completed task X but task Y will drag on for another two weeks" than it is to update a spreadsheet and render a Gantt chart, attach it to an email and stick it in a shared drive. But from the supervisor/funder/examiner perspective, they need a way to very rapidly assimilate complex detail and spot problems.
A lot of academia is about clear communication of complex material. Your supervisor probably has several students, as well multiple projects of their own, teaching duties, management duties, and so on. Your Gantt chart is for them, not for you!
Simple and obvious in hindsight, but it really helps me put aside the grinding resentment I feel whenever it comes to updating a Gantt chart :)
by vkk8 on 12/29/21, 9:16 PM
I left academia after a failed postdoc because I realized I had no clue how to conduct research on my own; I didn't know how to pick good research topics, or how to manage my time, or how to find people to collaborate with, or how to collaborate productively with someone for that matter.
I'm not sure if the fault was my supervisors or mine. I'm a bit "on the spectrum" and have lots of difficulties with social interaction, but I guess so do many other people drawn to technical fields and still they manage to navigate the system somehow. I certainly never sought for any kind of mentorship because I didn't realize it was needed and, also, because it felt extremely awkward.
Also, the whole academic system seemed a bit fucked up. People do research and write papers because they have to produce something measurable, not because the research they do is actually interesting or important. I published five papers during my PhD and I would say that maybe only one of them was slightly interesting or important, and even that could have been much better. All of the papers were published in proper, highly regarded journals (mostly Physical Review). Towards the end of the PhD I started having some vague ideas of stuff that would be _actually_ interesting and more worth my time, but also more difficult and less certain results. When was I supposed to do those? I was still in the mindset that I wanted to stay in academia so I couldn't take any risks.
by evancoop on 12/29/21, 2:10 PM
Students, new employees, and other inexperienced folks need to be led initially, and then rapidly, transition into a self-directed paradigm. Success emerges if and only if the advisor and student recognize the need for this transition at a similar moment. The alternative is either the student who runs down rabbit holes repeatedly despite being guided elsewhere (those students tend to at least get SOMETHING done and while they take forever to graduate, do find some interesting results along the way) or the student who after a couple years is still just reading papers and waiting to be told what to do (these students often fail outright as advisors get fed up with the hand-holding).
by bluenose69 on 12/29/21, 11:42 AM
by gww on 12/29/21, 7:17 PM
The trainees supervisory committee is usually there to push them out but in many cases they also have a close relationship with the PI and aren't going to force a productive student to graduate. Those extra years are rarely useful for their overall career prospects.
I think students need to be aware of when they should draw the line and move on. Spending three more years in their PhD probably won't pay off nearly as much as three years of accumulated experience in industry job or in a post doctoral fellowship in a new lab.
by graycat on 12/29/21, 2:47 PM
(1) Role of Math. In most fields of research, the most respected research mathematizes the field, that is, makes progress with math techniques and results. So for Ph.D. research, try to have math play that role.
(2) Ugrad Preparation. To be successful with that role of math, have a good ugrad math background. Then maybe get some more math from independent study, work in a career, a Master's program, or whatever. Likely the math topics that both come first and are the most important are calculus and linear algebra.
(3) Find a Good Problem. In your career, independent study, whatever, find a good problem to solve. Pick a practical problem and intend to get an engineering Ph.D. where a solution to that problem is regarded as good research. Make some progress on solving the problem.
(4) Pick a University and a Department. Want a department that respects applied research, maybe in a school of engineering. Hopefully the university will state their standards for a Ph.D. dissertation, e.g., "An original contribution to knowledge worthy of publication." Look at their description of their Ph.D. qualifying exams. Do enough study at the ugrad or Master's level and/or independent study to be well prepared for the exams. If the department offers courses for preparation for the exams, in addition plan to take those courses.
(5) Enroll. Become a grad student in the chosen department.
(6) Progress. In your first year, take some courses, especially in subjects you already know well. Continue your research. Pass the qualifying exams. If you see some opportunities for doing some fast publishable research, as co-author, better as sole author, do that. Show the department that you have done publishable research. Then, sure, technically will have done a Ph.D. dissertation (I did that).
(7) Finish. In your second year, finish your research project, stand for an oral exam, and graduate. Of course, if there is any question about your research being publishable, then just PUBLISH it.
Done.
by ZephyrBlu on 12/29/21, 11:41 AM
Other people generally don't care about your personal struggles with a problem, so leave them out. Or at the very least don't lead with them. Lead with something that piques the interest of your target audience.
by knolan on 12/29/21, 12:00 PM
There’s nothing better than a student you wind up and they go off and solve a bunch of problems in interesting ways. They’re having fun, you’re workload is reduced and there’s even potential for a publication. Meetings are indeed about giving feedback and learning on both sides.
In contrast other students show up empty handed, unmotivated and expect a list of instructions some of which they might attempt. You feel like repeating yourself constantly and that they are not listening.
by XorNot on 12/29/21, 1:33 PM
I didn't, and simply tried to power ahead on the assumption I'd pull it out of the fire: this was absolutely the wrong conclusion. You already have a university degree, and you'll get paid more in industry: the right answer is to abandon ship it you're not looking at a clear path ahead by then.
by wanderingmind on 12/29/21, 10:02 PM
In my opinion, there is nothing unique that can be learned only through a PhD for a successful career (except maybe for a tiny slice of outlier of CS researchers). Most people will be well better served to take a job that provides some agency, or better try to start a company and fail. They can learn a lot more this way without jeopardizing their financial future.
by l5870uoo9y on 12/29/21, 7:03 PM
Wholeheartedly agree.
by neom on 12/29/21, 2:40 PM
by anthomtb on 12/29/21, 4:34 PM
by jl2718 on 12/30/21, 3:39 PM
Is there such a place today as a professional?
by nabla9 on 12/29/21, 1:39 PM
There was just a Reddit post saying that 54% of US adults have a reading level equal to or below a sixth-grade level according to the US Department of Education. Many communication problems can be attributed to differences in prose, document, and numeracy literacy.
"If we want to have an educated citizenship in a modern technological society, we need to teach them three things: reading, writing, and statistical thinking." – H. G. Wells
by andreyk on 12/29/21, 2:29 PM
At the same time, it will not teach you some things you'd pick up in industry - team work in particular.
by ixnus on 12/30/21, 12:18 AM
What is the appeal of posting your daily progress on a public form? Do you not feel this to be a kind of invasion of your privacy? Is there some benefit that isn't immediately clear?
by hkab on 12/29/21, 1:28 PM
by jenny91 on 12/29/21, 11:20 AM
by edu on 12/29/21, 11:24 AM
by engineer_22 on 12/29/21, 3:49 PM
by ColinWright on 12/29/21, 11:02 AM
I've put that on my list of things to distil, review, and put into action.
by mybrid on 12/29/21, 3:56 PM