[bragr]

>but it's not really good for your career

Can you define that with more specificity? I find that academics have a major blind spot where good career means "the path I took" to the exclusion of all other paths.

>Speaking as someone who has graduated over a dozen PhD students in computer science

And your CV says another 6 dropped out. What was good for their careers?

[caminante]

He appears to be tunnel-visioning on academia.

The vast majority (>75%) of Computer Science PhDs leave academia. [0] Becoming a "world expert in a specific topic" is overfitting skills for a sub-niche of a specific career. There certainly aren't enough jobs in academia.

[0] https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/213640/what-rat...

[CrazyStat]

The goal of a PhD is to become a world expert in a specific topic, whether or not you’re planning on staying in academia.

This may or may not be in alignment with the student’s goals, and many students don’t really understand it going in.

[caminante]

Yes, they don't realize it or lie to themselves because ~50% dropout.

Given the attrition, I really question if PhD programs are honest with incoming prospects. Law schools and business schools are similarly "guilty" of pimping outcomes.

ITT: it's people complaining about being overworked and mislead in their PhD programs.

[mrlongroots]

> Yes, they don't realize it or lie to themselves because ~50% dropout.

I think there's some misinterpretation here. Not staying on in academia after PhD (common/modal) is not the same as not getting to complete a PhD (rare).

In CS/tech, those who exit academia after PhDs get paid $300K-$500K in the industry. I don't think there's any misleading going on.

[caminante]

>is not the same as not getting to complete a PhD (rare)

BTW, your perspective is bizarre.

Not sure where you're getting the idea that PhD candidate attrition is rare. Maybe at MIT where only 20% don't finish (within 10 years -- which is generous), but these are already pre-screened superstars. Most other places converge around 50%.

As for salaries, the median salary for CS PhDs outside academia is $180k. That means a lot are lower and probably aren't working at big tech with full comp pushing them above $300k. [0]

[0] https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf26312

[fc417fc802]

PhD programs have remarkably high attrition rates prior to graduation (ie dropout). I don't know that it's 50% and obviously it varies by institution and field but it's quite large.

[caminante]

>In CS/tech, those who exit academia after PhDs get paid $300K-$500K

Yes, I'd like to see data on what percentile gets this and breaks even for lost wages from their PhD years. IMHO, it's not fair to generalize this outcome. I could be wrong.

[cvwright]

You’re arguing that we have too many PhD students in CS, not too few.

I agree with you fwiw.

[foobarian]

A research professor typically graduates dozens of PhD students. Perhaps there was a post-war bootstrapping period where every one of those students got a tenured position somewhere, and in turn also trained dozens of PhD students; but it's pretty obvious it's not realistic to expect this to continue indefinitely. We're way past saturation right now. Certainly very few are going to get their own tenured positions, and as for the rest, it depends on the winds of funding availability in industry.