No, well, I guess that’s exactly why we are dissing academia. It’s ridiculously hard, the environment seems shitty, and the payoff is pretty much nonexistent.
Why would anyone choose to do that instead of making boatloads of money in industry?
Why would anyone choose to do that instead of making boatloads of money in industry?
Some people find a lot more meaning in that than, say, using cutting-edge ML algorithms to optimally place Facebook ads for awful pizza.
For myself, I am interested in logic programming and machine learning. I started a PhD in Inductive Logic Programming, which is machine learning of logic programs from examples. There's no way I could follow this interest in any other structure but a PhD on ILP.
In the industry? I can forget right about it. Even ordinary logic programming is out of the question. Machine learning? That would have to be statistical machine learning that just bores me to death.
In academia I have -so far- the freedom to pursue my actual research interest and all I have to show for it is success in understanding my subject and discovering new knowledge, which is exactly what I want to do anyway.
This sounds like it would have use in industry. You are really saying that it does not?
But happily I’m working for a big multinational as a corporate drone, so I’m still in a position to say this ;)