Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by caminante 38 days ago
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...
2 comments
CrazyStat 38 days ago
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.

link
caminante 38 days ago
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.

link
mrlongroots 38 days ago
> 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.

link
caminante 37 days ago
>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

link
fc417fc802 38 days ago
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.
link
caminante 38 days ago
>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.

link
cvwright 38 days ago
You’re arguing that we have too many PhD students in CS, not too few.

I agree with you fwiw.

link
foobarian 38 days ago
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.
link