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Comment by balladeer | Hacker News Reader

Such examples and on one of those grad forums and other places like Reddit about how horrible and how political grad programs are (I mean PhD mostly) I must say it added a lot to my decision of not trying for a PhD (maybe ever).

Is it an accepted environment in academia by now and very widely known and people still go for the same environment? Or people, students, don't know how it is actually there, or the severity of it, and then kind of get trapped because of that mild ignorance, so to speak? Or, is it just the hope that - oh that place cannot be that bad? Or is it really not this widespread as people make it out to be, or as it seems to be (to me at least)? Just curious (I'm not a grad school guy; just an MS aspirant who also wanted to do a PhD but now not).

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Or, is it just the hope that - oh that place cannot be that bad? Or is it really not this widespread as people make it out to be, or as it seems to be (to me at least)? Just curious

I did my PhD in The Netherlands. I had an awesome time, both professionally and socially. I worked with great people, had a great social life, and wasn't paid badly (for Dutch standards).

Afterwards, I was in industry for a short time. Upside: people directly use what you create. Downside: in most companies (outside Google, Microsoft Research, etc.) urgent customer demands prevail over research time.

Given the relatively negative experiences I went to academia again (this time in Germany), and am enjoying it a lot: enough time to work out and test ideas, I enjoy teaching a lot, regular travel, a reasonable pay, and not much overtime.

I might explore the other side of the fence again when my current position ends, but I am happy where I am.

Thank you for your response. Fortunately, even I am going for my MS in Europe. Most probably in Germany. I've an accept from Bonn. I may try for other universities, e.g. TuM, RWTH etc.

May I ask your language abilities? Would a route like this work for people who don't speak Dutch/German?

I am a native speaker of Dutch and proficient in English. My German reading and understanding is quite good, since I had German in high school, but speaking had regressed to a 'can manage at the bakery'-level ;).

Both groups I worked in had a fair amount of people who couldn't speak Dutch/German --- for research it's definitely not a problem. In teaching it seems that The Netherlands (and probably Scandinavian countries) is more flexible: non-native speakers are typically allowed to teach in English. In Germany, this seems more problematic unless it's an international program.

Outside work, I would definitely recommend expats in Germany to learn German. Most Germans are not really proficient in English (not even general practitioners). In The Netherlands you could easily survive without knowing Dutch.

I knew a guy who did a year in a lab in Germany and didn't speak a word of German, he said the whole lab spoke English.

I did my PhD in Electrical Engineering / CS in Munich and would do it again any day. Fair pay, 30 days of paid vacation, lots of independence, nice colleagues, practically no pressure or monitoring from above, full insurance, funding for five years. Good times, even though I had to learn dealing with all the independence. Nobody really told me what to do, so I had to figure it out on my own. In retrospect I only wish there had been some more guidance or colleagues working in the same field. Then again it was an interesting learning challenge: Here is an office and a computer, you have five years to publish at least one paper on a premier conference. Which I did.

As with any profession, you hear only from those with the absolute worst experiences who write on HN, Reddit, etc. (The students who are excelling are not writing rants on Reddit.) I've seen the full gamut of Ph.D.-level experiences, from the terrible to the amazing. I've also seen a large dynamic range of software engineering experiences at various companies, at both startups and large orgs. In the end, I don't have any definitive answers, but I wouldn't rule out academia if you can get yourself to be as well-positioned as possible. The same holds for industry. So yeah, I didn't add any info here! (-random dude in academia defending academia, ducks)

As for "get[ting] trapped because of that mild ignorance", I don't buy that for CS, at least. Any competent CS Ph.D. student can instantly quit and at least QUADRUPLE their salary by getting a software engineering job. As an advisor, we have no way of "trapping" students in the Ph.D. program when they can instantly quit and make more money than we do ;) Now in other fields, the job market isn't as rosy. But I don't buy the "trapped" trope for CS Ph.D. for a minute.

You are underestimating inertia and unwritten rules. It's widely considered unethical (or at least frowned upon) to join a PhD program and intentionally quit with a Masters.

In practice, it seems that many people are actually doing so when they are free to choose. Many people I see choosing to stay in the PhD program have visa issues and that's a big contributing factor.

>You are underestimating inertia and unwritten rules. It's widely considered unethical (or at least frowned upon) to join a PhD program and intentionally quit with a Masters.

From the school/department's view, yes; from the perspective of the student I'm not so sure. Over the last few years, many of PhD programs I interacted with (In the biological and chemical sciences) were increasingly mastering out more students than they were passing through comps/quals. It has gotten to the point where students are intentionally failing their comps/quals so that they can master out. Going this route means you didn't have to pay the master's tuition and were on a stipend the entire time -- better than paying the master's tuition and having to scrounge for cash.

true, but big companies will usually take care of visa issues if you're hired full-time (or join as a summer intern and convert to full time). yes, it's hard to quit to join a startup; but those foreign students would've had a hard time joining a U.S. startup even without a Ph.D. due to visa issues.

Where are the politics? I must have missed that portion of grad school. PhD students typically take a few classes in related topics, meet with a mentor regularly, and conduct independent research until they defend their dissertation. This model is very old and very straightforward.

Not sure about US, but in Poland it is all about grants. If you have one, you can get paid for part of the year, go to conferences outside your city/country etc. If you don't have a grant, you don't get money, you have to support yourself somehow (e.g. get a job, but then, you have less time for PhD).

Your mentor (+ his overseers) decides where the money goes = politics.

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