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As a Junior at University right now, this article speaks quite positively about the benefits of doing a PhD. 1) Even if you get a PhD and aren't shining at you

As a Junior at University right now, this article speaks quite positively about the benefits of doing a PhD. 1) Even if you get a PhD and aren't shining at your field (read gulped into tenure track positions at a top 10 CS program) you're not confined to becoming a professor at a state school. This is a legitimate fear, and one of the things that has always made me frightened of pursuing a PhD. 2) Even if I end up outside of Academia, I'll likely bear little to no fiscal loss. The work will most probably be more interesting than the work I'd be doing had I not done a PhD. The job-ceiling will also be significantly higher, or non-existant. As a semi-related question - does anyone with a background in the area know if it's easier to get accepted into a top-10 CS program having been born and raised in the States? GPA, research experience and my school's 'ranking' is a non-issue - I'm just curious if residency in the United States ever affects PhD committees in regards to admission.

xijuan 14y ago
I can't tell about the top-10 CS programs. I can only tell you my experiences. I live in Canada and I study in another field. When I contacted my potential supervisor, she asked if I am Canadian citizen. The reason why she wanted to accept a student who is Canadian citizen is that many fellowship or grants are only given to Canadian citizens doing research in Canada. What I am saying here is that if your citizenship affects your chance of acceptance, it will be due to funding issues like this. But if the school you are applying is private school, it may not be a problem because they don't receive a lot of private funding I believe. I think when it comes down accepting graduate students, your potential supervisor's decision is the most important. I don't know about every program and every school. But in my school, when a professor accepts a student, he/she will sign a form saying that he/she will provide this student financially for at least five years. Therefore, standing from the professor's point of view, he/she really wants to accept a very smart student who can help him/her make great progress in the research and at the same time, receive enough funding to be able to support him/herself. I hope it helps.
rm999 14y ago
>this article speaks quite positively about the benefits of doing a PhD. That's not at all what I got out of it. I read that phds provide no material advantage and that they're really tough (in every way, including from a psychological standpoint). >you're not confined to becoming a professor at a state school. This is a legitimate fear, and one of the things that has always made me frightened of pursuing a PhD. Confined? Most people don't have this choice. Fear? This a dream of a large % of phd graduates. I'd add one thing that the article doesn't mention: graduate school is far less of a meritocracy than people outside realize. There are so many levels of luck involved, including finding a good advisor, department politics, finding a good project, not having your research 'scooped', funding, etc. These things are correlated with intelligence/ability, but a large number of smart people fail grad school for reasons beyond their control, and a significant % of the people who succeed were blessed with amazing luck. It's the smart and accomplished undergrads (which I take it you are) who have the most to lose. >I'll likely bear little to no fiscal loss. Consider the opportunity cost. Here are some reasonable numbers: a masters costs 25K, a phd pays out 150K over six years, and in the five years of working the masters makes 500K. By the time the phd is out of school the masters student is 325K ahead of the phd student, and his work experience/career is probably further (meaning his salary will probably be at least as high). Also, the masters student lived more comfortably in those five years. > The work will most probably be more interesting than the work I'd be doing had I not done a PhD. I have seen very few industry jobs that require a phd, and I work in a field dominated by phds. The exception is industry research, which is great but isn't open to most phds. Most phds don't be doing anything resembling their research two years out of grad school. I don't mean to make a phd sound totally crappy. There's a lot you can get out of it, it teaches you how to think and organize projects in a way that's hard to find outside grad school. You'll meet smart, motivated people. You'll be able to interact with professors as almost-peers. But consider a research-oriented masters, it's what I did and I consider it a happy medium.
- kd0amg 14y ago
  Confined? Most people don't have this choice. Fear? This a dream of a large % of phd graduates. I don't think GP meant it as "stuck as an assistant professor at UT Austin" -- more like "choosing between becoming an adjunct professor at University of Nowhere-You've-Ever-Heard-Of and not having a job."
- dbecker 14y ago
  > a phd pays out 150K over six years I'm not a CS PhD, but I'd be astounded if they pay tuition. I knew PhD students in a variety of fields when I was doing mine, and everyone received money from the University rather than paying tuition. You're point about opportunity cost stands though.
  - rm999 14y ago
    Sorry, I meant that's how much the student gets paid (and is how I did my math).
- javert 14y ago
  To give a counterpoint, as a current CS PhD student... If you measure how much money someone will make in the next 10 years from the point they decide whether to pursue a PhD or not, yes, you are correct, the ones who do not pursue one will have lots more money. However, you can live a middle class lifestyle while gettings a PhD (OK, maybe "lower middle class" here, but still very comfortably, if you don't have dependents to support) and also after getting a PhD, which is the same result as if you didn't pursue the PhD. To me, that is more relevant than a raw amount of money. I care what class I'm in, i.e., (a) starving; (b) poor; (c) middle class; (d) rich. I don't really care _within_ those categories. As a sidenote, I think getting a PhD increases your likelihood of getting an otherwise unlikely outcome in the sense of career success/advancement, getting rich, etc. (unless you choose academia). I mean, over the course of your career, you could really leverage your PhD, or you could not. In theory (and probably in practice most of the time), it won't hurt to have one, career-wise.
  - eshvk 14y ago
javert 14y ago
* I'm just curious if residency in the United States ever affects PhD committees in regards to admission. * As a CS PhD student, I have asked this question before of professors on the admissions committee. Once the applications come in, they sort them into 3 separate piles: US, India, and China. Each pile is evaluated separately, because they aren't comparable. e.g. grades and prof recommendations from the US matter a lot, whereas from China, it's hard to compare grades and prof recommendations are almost always fraudulent. (I don't know what differs about India.) Then they accept the top ones from each pile, and try to overall choose the top students across all piles. So it's hard to compare "maybe accepts" from different piles, but they do their best. I guess other countries (besides the big 3) get treated differently because they are more rare. So, basically, the answer is no, being US based does not really help or hurt you. I have heard that you have to be extremely good if you're Chinese, because if you're not, it's just too hard to compare you to people from the other piles reliably. Obviously, this story is highly anecdotal. I'm sure other departments have other ways of handling the problem of compraring people from different educational systems.
- kd0amg 14y ago
  Obviously, this story is highly anecdotal. I'm sure other departments have other ways of handling the problem of compraring people from different educational systems. It feels like the main difference here is that the admissions committee looks for evidence of high/low English proficiency. There are also plenty of things other than grades to look at -- test scores, research experience, interests that match faculty here, etc.
  - javert 14y ago
    Well, it's true that being a good communicator (particularly, writing papers) is a major differentiator in terms of actual grad student success. Since the job of a CS grad student is basically to write research papers. That said, how do you judge the English proficiency of someone from India or China, without meeting them and working with them? They make them take standardized tests that show very basic English skills, but I think you can't really judge that well in terms of doing high-quality writing and good interpersonal communication.
javert 14y ago
you're not confined to becoming a professor at a state school. This is a legitimate fear Most extremely smart academia-bound computer scientists consider that a dream, not a fear. Realize that many state schools are in the top bunch (e.g. 20 or 30) in the US. Unless by "state school" you mean "shitty state school." Like, "X State" where X is not actually a U.S. state (no offense, but those annoy me). For a professor, the main difference in quality of the school you work at is the quality of your students. This matters a lot, research-wise, because most profs that do a lot of top-quality research farm it out to their grad students. e.g. with 8 good students, you can increase your productivity about 8x.

xijuan 14y ago

I can't tell about the top-10 CS programs. I can only tell you my experiences. I live in Canada and I study in another field. When I contacted my potential supervisor, she asked if I am Canadian citizen. The reason why she wanted to accept a student who is Canadian citizen is that many fellowship or grants are only given to Canadian citizens doing research in Canada. What I am saying here is that if your citizenship affects your chance of acceptance, it will be due to funding issues like this. But if the school you are applying is private school, it may not be a problem because they don't receive a lot of private funding I believe. I think when it comes down accepting graduate students, your potential supervisor's decision is the most important. I don't know about every program and every school. But in my school, when a professor accepts a student, he/she will sign a form saying that he/she will provide this student financially for at least five years. Therefore, standing from the professor's point of view, he/she really wants to accept a very smart student who can help him/her make great progress in the research and at the same time, receive enough funding to be able to support him/herself. I hope it helps.

rm999 14y ago

>this article speaks quite positively about the benefits of doing a PhD. That's not at all what I got out of it. I read that phds provide no material advantage and that they're really tough (in every way, including from a psychological standpoint). >you're not confined to becoming a professor at a state school. This is a legitimate fear, and one of the things that has always made me frightened of pursuing a PhD. Confined? Most people don't have this choice. Fear? This a dream of a large % of phd graduates. I'd add one thing that the article doesn't mention: graduate school is far less of a meritocracy than people outside realize. There are so many levels of luck involved, including finding a good advisor, department politics, finding a good project, not having your research 'scooped', funding, etc. These things are correlated with intelligence/ability, but a large number of smart people fail grad school for reasons beyond their control, and a significant % of the people who succeed were blessed with amazing luck. It's the smart and accomplished undergrads (which I take it you are) who have the most to lose. >I'll likely bear little to no fiscal loss. Consider the opportunity cost. Here are some reasonable numbers: a masters costs 25K, a phd pays out 150K over six years, and in the five years of working the masters makes 500K. By the time the phd is out of school the masters student is 325K ahead of the phd student, and his work experience/career is probably further (meaning his salary will probably be at least as high). Also, the masters student lived more comfortably in those five years. > The work will most probably be more interesting than the work I'd be doing had I not done a PhD. I have seen very few industry jobs that require a phd, and I work in a field dominated by phds. The exception is industry research, which is great but isn't open to most phds. Most phds don't be doing anything resembling their research two years out of grad school. I don't mean to make a phd sound totally crappy. There's a lot you can get out of it, it teaches you how to think and organize projects in a way that's hard to find outside grad school. You'll meet smart, motivated people. You'll be able to interact with professors as almost-peers. But consider a research-oriented masters, it's what I did and I consider it a happy medium.

kd0amg 14y ago
Confined? Most people don't have this choice. Fear? This a dream of a large % of phd graduates. I don't think GP meant it as "stuck as an assistant professor at UT Austin" -- more like "choosing between becoming an adjunct professor at University of Nowhere-You've-Ever-Heard-Of and not having a job."
dbecker 14y ago
> a phd pays out 150K over six years I'm not a CS PhD, but I'd be astounded if they pay tuition. I knew PhD students in a variety of fields when I was doing mine, and everyone received money from the University rather than paying tuition. You're point about opportunity cost stands though.
- rm999 14y ago
  Sorry, I meant that's how much the student gets paid (and is how I did my math).
javert 14y ago
To give a counterpoint, as a current CS PhD student... If you measure how much money someone will make in the next 10 years from the point they decide whether to pursue a PhD or not, yes, you are correct, the ones who do not pursue one will have lots more money. However, you can live a middle class lifestyle while gettings a PhD (OK, maybe "lower middle class" here, but still very comfortably, if you don't have dependents to support) and also after getting a PhD, which is the same result as if you didn't pursue the PhD. To me, that is more relevant than a raw amount of money. I care what class I'm in, i.e., (a) starving; (b) poor; (c) middle class; (d) rich. I don't really care _within_ those categories. As a sidenote, I think getting a PhD increases your likelihood of getting an otherwise unlikely outcome in the sense of career success/advancement, getting rich, etc. (unless you choose academia). I mean, over the course of your career, you could really leverage your PhD, or you could not. In theory (and probably in practice most of the time), it won't hurt to have one, career-wise.
- eshvk 14y ago

javert 14y ago

* I'm just curious if residency in the United States ever affects PhD committees in regards to admission. * As a CS PhD student, I have asked this question before of professors on the admissions committee. Once the applications come in, they sort them into 3 separate piles: US, India, and China. Each pile is evaluated separately, because they aren't comparable. e.g. grades and prof recommendations from the US matter a lot, whereas from China, it's hard to compare grades and prof recommendations are almost always fraudulent. (I don't know what differs about India.) Then they accept the top ones from each pile, and try to overall choose the top students across all piles. So it's hard to compare "maybe accepts" from different piles, but they do their best. I guess other countries (besides the big 3) get treated differently because they are more rare. So, basically, the answer is no, being US based does not really help or hurt you. I have heard that you have to be extremely good if you're Chinese, because if you're not, it's just too hard to compare you to people from the other piles reliably. Obviously, this story is highly anecdotal. I'm sure other departments have other ways of handling the problem of compraring people from different educational systems.

kd0amg 14y ago
Obviously, this story is highly anecdotal. I'm sure other departments have other ways of handling the problem of compraring people from different educational systems. It feels like the main difference here is that the admissions committee looks for evidence of high/low English proficiency. There are also plenty of things other than grades to look at -- test scores, research experience, interests that match faculty here, etc.
- javert 14y ago
  Well, it's true that being a good communicator (particularly, writing papers) is a major differentiator in terms of actual grad student success. Since the job of a CS grad student is basically to write research papers. That said, how do you judge the English proficiency of someone from India or China, without meeting them and working with them? They make them take standardized tests that show very basic English skills, but I think you can't really judge that well in terms of doing high-quality writing and good interpersonal communication.

javert 14y ago

you're not confined to becoming a professor at a state school. This is a legitimate fear Most extremely smart academia-bound computer scientists consider that a dream, not a fear. Realize that many state schools are in the top bunch (e.g. 20 or 30) in the US. Unless by "state school" you mean "shitty state school." Like, "X State" where X is not actually a U.S. state (no offense, but those annoy me). For a professor, the main difference in quality of the school you work at is the quality of your students. This matters a lot, research-wise, because most profs that do a lot of top-quality research farm it out to their grad students. e.g. with 8 good students, you can increase your productivity about 8x.