Hacker News Reader

Comment by mbateman | Hacker News Reader

I thought the most significant bit was when she lost confidence. Once you accept notion that you're incapable of coming up with good, original ideas, why be in academia anymore? Of course you're going to be bored, ignored by "the system," and start shifting your time and energy to other things.

While there are no doubt bad things about networking in academia, the good thing is that original thinking and research tends to be rewarded. Once you've given up on that, all you have left is the bad stuff.

There was a significant disconnect between her story and her conclusions (though her conclusions were mixed).

View on HN

"Once you accept notion that you're incapable of coming up with good, original ideas, why be in academia anymore?"

I guess its the same dilemma faced by lots of people who love to write code - eventually most organizations expect you to stop doing the "grunt work" and move up to take a more management focus. Certainly 90% of people I knew in the UK in academia who were at Professor level were there primarily because of their leadership skills rather than any innately brilliant piece of work they had done as an individual.

Some people just don't want to make that step from doing to managing and in academia, as in many environments, the push is probably "up or out".

Some people just don't want to make that step from doing to managing and in academia, as in many environments, the push is probably "up or out"

The triumph of that attitude is sinking the company I work for. The best technical people were elevated "above" the implementers, and we ended up sitting all day in meetings and writing documentation for lower-level workers. Luckily the crop of people who replaced us were as good or better, but it didn't take them long to recognize the "up or out" attitude. The company has made it clear that excellence in a hands-on position is a waste and will not be rewarded, and people taking non-hands-on positions find they are a horrible boring grind for people whose interests are technical. (Though you do feel important being in such demand for meetings.)

Now all the best people are choosing the "out" route. There seems to be a relationship between how smart they are and how fast they've left, and I'm starting to feel pretty dumb for staying.

She did accept blame for her attitude. I think this is correct, though. If you don't think you're creative enough, you might as well take your PhD and teach at a community college. Or become a science writer.

I do think she has an interesting point about the "lone wolf," approach to science. For the most part, modern science is an inherently collaborative process, unless you're a star who likes to gloss over the contributions made by the underlings in your lab.

The later being the "lone wolfram" approach.

Relevant: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html

You don't believe, that is why you fail. --Master Yoda

Reply on news.ycombinator.com