6 ms·

One very good point this article brings to light is the emphasis academia places on the tenure-track job as the end-all be-all of getting a Ph.D. I can't even

One very good point this article brings to light is the emphasis academia places on the tenure-track job as the end-all be-all of getting a Ph.D. I can't even begin to count how many times I've heard how getting a professorship is the only worthy job, and how there's no point to a Ph.D. if you don't get such a job. It's nearly to the point of brainwashing (a sweeping generalization, of course, which likely varies greatly from department to department). As a soon-to-be Ph.D. graduate, it's refreshing to know that industry is not only a viable option, but doesn't have the same [superhuman][1] expectations. [1]: http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/Papers/Mythpap.html http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/Pap...

javert 14y ago
I'm 3 years into a PhD at a "second-tier" department (i.e. not MIT or Stanford, but still a pretty good place), and I've never felt any pressure at all to go into academia over industry. So there's one more data point for you. Professors can make a huge "real-world contribution" via their students that go into industry. So they should be proud of those students and feel that the effort of educating them was highly worthwhile.
- malloc47 14y ago
  It's good to know there are still realistic perspectives in academia. To be fair, the "anti-industry" attitude is probably adviser rather than department dependent, as I have heard a few first-hand data points regarding advisers that align much more with your experience than mine. Given the 1/10 statistic, sooner or later professors will have to satisfy themselves with student's "real-world" contributions, whether they like it or not. I'm just worried how often I see real skill sets (e.g. proper software engineering) being devalued among graduate students because it's not directly relevant to a hypothetical future job as a professor. I feel lucky that I've been able to make extra time to write "real" code from my dissertation work, but it's rather unfortunate that this isn't always the norm.
- NegativeK 14y ago
  A professor from a local university was giving a computer science related talk; he was quite proud of how many of his PhD students (graduated and ungraduated) had been recruited by Google.

javert 14y ago

I'm 3 years into a PhD at a "second-tier" department (i.e. not MIT or Stanford, but still a pretty good place), and I've never felt any pressure at all to go into academia over industry. So there's one more data point for you. Professors can make a huge "real-world contribution" via their students that go into industry. So they should be proud of those students and feel that the effort of educating them was highly worthwhile.

malloc47 14y ago
It's good to know there are still realistic perspectives in academia. To be fair, the "anti-industry" attitude is probably adviser rather than department dependent, as I have heard a few first-hand data points regarding advisers that align much more with your experience than mine. Given the 1/10 statistic, sooner or later professors will have to satisfy themselves with student's "real-world" contributions, whether they like it or not. I'm just worried how often I see real skill sets (e.g. proper software engineering) being devalued among graduate students because it's not directly relevant to a hypothetical future job as a professor. I feel lucky that I've been able to make extra time to write "real" code from my dissertation work, but it's rather unfortunate that this isn't always the norm.
NegativeK 14y ago
A professor from a local university was giving a computer science related talk; he was quite proud of how many of his PhD students (graduated and ungraduated) had been recruited by Google.