Comment by parsimo2010 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by parsimo2010 | Hacker News Reader

As a PhD candidate right now, after having spent seven years with an M.S. and doing "independent learning" and thinking that it was giving me the same growth- I can tell you right now that it isn't the same. This may vary for different fields of study, and it may vary for different people, but I think my experience will hold true for most people.

Spending time doing independent learning, even if you have given yourself some structure, misses some of the important things you get in a PhD program. Your advisor guides you, but they also challenge you. They hold you accountable. Some people may be able to challenge themselves, but most people don't have the necessary experience to know the difference between a "cool hack" and novel research. Your advisor has more experience and can tell you what is worth pursuing. Plus, to complete a PhD you have to do all the requirements- even the stuff you don't like. A self-structured independent study program is probably going to be light on the stuff that you don't find fun.

There are a lot of downsides to doing a PhD, and I'm not saying that it's for everyone. Independent study is fine. But I'm going to look skeptically at anyone who thinks their own independent study program is the equivalent of a PhD. I would probably be less skeptical if their independent study resulted in publishing a few peer-reviewed journal articles. The title of PhD doesn't just signal that you are capable of learning, it's also a signal that you can work within the current research environment, have your work accepted by other experts in the field, and in general just do a bunch of "intangibles" that aren't signaled by you working on your own.

You seem to have had a very successful PhD experience. You write approvingly of your advisor, acknowledge the ways in which the program benefited you, and have respect for peer-reviewed literature.

That being said, I'm not sure that your experiences are typical. HN regularly has commenters and posters that have been disappointed by their forays in academia. One recent example was posted only two days ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21740833

I imagine that a good PhD program is, by definition, likely to be beneficial. Probably above "independent learning" by leagues. However, it's worth considering what an average-case or worst-case PhD program looks like. Those may not compare as favorably to "independent learning".

The other link is about "philosophy PhD". This seems to be the big difference -- when I talk to non-CS PhD students, they often seem to have much harder time and worse conditions that CS ones.

My theory is because of all the opportunities. At least in CS, there is no problem in finding the job with "incomplete phd", and such jobs usually have a much higher salary than PhD stipend. This means that if you don't like PhD, you just leave -- and income increase associated with such action makes it really simple.

From what I understand, this is not the case for non-CS PhD specialties.

I had a terrible time in academia and I'll agree with everything that the OP wrote.

Having talked to many PhDs, candidates, and students from other schools at conferences, I'd say that my experience is typical, at least for quantitative fields like math/stats/CS/engineering. Most of the horror stories that get thrown around the internet are from a vocal minority. You're far more likely to speak up if you had a bad experience and feel strongly about it. And it's not always the student's fault, but there are a lot of people that choose to do a PhD and drop out because they weren't a good fit. It's hard to tell the difference between a bad fit and a toxic program when you only hear one side of the story and can't ask their peers if they are exaggerating things to make themselves sound good.

Most PhD programs are small, and most advisors aren't famous academics. They are generally good people, but there are a few wackos (that's why it's important to have a few conversations before picking an advisor). The "typical" PhD is probably glad to be done, but isn't chomping at the bit for a second one. Nearly all will admit to stress during the program- with qualifying exams, comprehensive exams, and proposing/writing/defending a dissertation, you're bound to feel stress.

The jokes about being a "grad slave" are pretty common, but an advisor delaying a student's graduation because of the cheap labor is much less common. People claiming to be a grad slave to cover up their slow pace are probably more common. If a student actually has a strong case that a professor won't let them defend, then the word usually gets out and that professor will have a hard time finding more students (more reasons to have lots of conversations before choosing and advisor and committee).

And I definitely don't think that the peer review process is perfect, but it is more rigorous than publishing a blog post about something you learned. Not publishing isn't a deal breaker, but it's evidence of doing something. I trust the research skills of an M.S. that has a couple peer reviewed articles published more than an M.S. that has claimed to have done a self study program but has nothing to show for it.

Strong agree. Also having a Masters, and also being a very serious independent learner, there is simply no equivalence. Similarities, but no equivalence.

Different pros, different cons, different approach, different result. Still get to learn interesting things, still wind up wandering through nifty spaces.

This is a good defense of a college education in general (on a discussion board that questions the value of one pretty regularly).

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