Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89
brown.edu
brown.edu
Anyway, it's really inspiring that someone almost three times my age pushed himself through the program. I guess it's important to remember that you really shouldn't give up on your dreams.
You definitely aren’t too old, but I would never take on a PhD student that wants to continue working elsewhere. A PhD is a full-time job. It took me 6.5 years and was hard enough with very little outside distractions.
Source: me (several years now complete w/ PhD), my cohort in my program, and my PhD-earning friends outside my field.
I wonder if they exist and if so, how rare.
I suspect it's extremely rare or non-existent for an athlete who holds another full-time job up to the selection time to get selected into a US Olympic swimming team, for example.
"But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths:
1. Become the best at one specific thing.
2. Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things.
The first strategy is difficult to the point of near impossibility. Few people will ever play in the NBA or make a platinum album. I don’t recommend anyone even try.
The second strategy is fairly easy. Everyone has at least a few areas in which they could be in the top 25% with some effort."
See also https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2010/04/18/jack-of-all-trades/ for an exploration of how deep knowledge of multiple domains enables opportunities for knowledge brokerage.
So 0.0001% of all university students, and then... work three times as hard as them ?
Working harder gets exponentially harder the harder you work. So... 0.0000000000001% of all students then ?
And now, in your application form for a PhD program, you want to convince an employer that they should hire you because you think in you are in that bracket, without any proof that backs it up, even though if for some reason you are not, things catastrophically fail for your employer ?
Yeah good luck with that.
It is brutal. It can be worth it, but it is brutal.
An example:
8AM - wake, prepare for day, take bus to campus
9AM - teach class
10:30 AM - office hours, grade, read relevant papers
12:00 PM - short lunch window
12:15 PM - research, write code, notes. Short intermittent breaks. Library visits. Seminar attendance / prep, seminar/journal reading, prep, etc. Consult with advisor, others
7:00 PM - break for dinner, bus home
8:00 PM - research, write code, notes. Short intermittent breaks. Seminary reading, journal reading, etc. Class prep.
3:00 AM - sleep
Weekends were similar to weekdays without class or bussing.
Btw, this is how most people do their PhDs here. It’s a quick in and out 3 year seal-team like operation. Caveat: We see Ph.D as a degree you do after a 2 year Masters degree. So in total 5 years after undergrad.
This is mostly a recent phenomenon. Definitely not true for many I knew, nor of their professors when they were students.
Lots of people got a PhD by just being disciplined and working 8-5 on it in the usual time frames. I wager many still do.
By "old" I didn't mean actual biological age exactly. I guess the more appropriate word would be something more like "settled". As it stands, I have a mortgage and whatnot to take care of, it's not really realistic for me to quit my job and focus full-time on a PhD for the next 5-6 years.
> but I would never take on a PhD student that wants to continue working elsewhere
That seems to be the consensus in the US for the most part. Ironically, it's actually easier for a working American to get a distance-learning PhD from a British university than it is to get a local PhD in person in the states.
Right now I'm in the process of trying to get into University of York's distance part-time PhD, while remaining in NY. It's a long shot but it's basically my only option.
It's a philosophical difference that doesn't mean a great deal practically. Often, European undergraduate programs are five years in length, although that's been changing as many European institutions now seem to be moving towards four-year programs. I'm not really sure what's driving that shift, but I think it's done partly in an effort to standardise what it means to have a "bachelor's degree" in terms of what employers can expect between Europe and North America, &cet.
Even with my liberal arts background, and having worked in pretty mathy areas of industry, it's rare that I, say, have to use much from my last two years of CS education. (What they did prepare me for is getting to the point that I can read research papers in areas I've since worked in.)
To be clear: virtually everywhere in the US a CS curriculum takes 4 years. There's no deciding in year three and graduating on time. You could potentially switch to CS from engineering, math or physics and get close.
In Germany at least, in contrast to the US, there's no coursework in a PhD, which I believe is the main thing that makes a PhD shorter than, say, a US PhD directly after a bachelors degree (which is typical in the sciences).
While I don't disagree with the sentiment, English has the word "dragon" - doesn't mean dragons exist!
That's not what GP means though: in the first year in the US, generally speaking, undergraduates aren't enrolled on a particular programme; they take a range of courses from different faculties for credit, and decide which area to 'major in' (and perhaps additionally 'a minor') later.
I didn't enter one (regretfully) anywhere - but from what I recall when looking, US/Can typically have more of a taught element in preparation, included in the first year or two of the PhD programme.
Sort of like doing an MPhil or something followed by PhD I suppose, but built-in and I assume designed to counter the effect you describe.
In the US the Bachelor is much wider in scope and you can get the Master during the PhD program.
And it's possible to do a 180 ECTS masters (2 year full time) for four years part time.
That said, a masters degree in the UK is much less of an undertaking than many other countries. Level of independent research in my "combined" masters (4 yr course, usually taken as 1st degree), pales in comparison to what colleagues in mainland Europe had to do.
> You definitely aren’t too old
> By "old" I didn't mean actual biological age exactly.
You're right, expectations are very different in the "old continent". Things very quite significantly from country to country, but generally speaking in most EU you can do your PhD while working.
Retrospectively, knowing what I know know, I should add that if I were to start a PhD now I wouldn't trust a university that asks for a full time commitment, no exceptions.
I would be very suspicious that they will burden me with all kind of side activities (e.g. tutoring undergraduate students, handling bureaucracy, paper work, etc.) that are not really of any actual help towards the thesis.
As a professor my view is that PhD students should have quite a lot of "free time" to explore, try different things and fail as many times as possible, with the highest degree of freedom allowed by the domain in which they work. I think that that's at the core of what academic research is all about.
If you don't need lab equipment or anything that requires in person training, I'd say to go absolutely for a remote position as a PhD student. It doesn't really make a huge difference if you can do everything you need in front of a computer.
If you can do your PhD fully remotely, the two most important things are how respected and wel known is the university in which you enrol, and the tutor that will be assigned to you (don't underestimate this!).
Best of luck!
PS you're definitely not too old, and not too settled, as long as you have "hunger" for understanding how things around you work!
- Full time commitment seems critical to the process. A Ph.D is a time of intellectual exploration, and you can't really do that fighting work and family deadlines.
- On the other hand, time can be squished for older people by virtue of industry experience making them more efficient
- I'd be hesitant about remote, since so much of a Ph.D is learning from others. Hallway conversations are critical. That's possible remotely, but not common.
- Fully agreed about "side activities." Teaching is fine -- you learn A LOT from it -- but a lot of Ph.D programs give stupid administrative grunt work. The metaphorical cleaning of test tubes on a professor's project is a serious red flag.
No such thing as too old, but having a mortgage and family myself now, I definitely get much out of a Ph.D program right now.
I'll mention too: If I didn't have a Ph.D, I'm mature and disciplined enough now that I could learn the same without a formal program.
I am skeptical of new world "accelerated" programs, which often have little substance, and are designed to milk working professionals. It's like getting the piece of paper in Wizard of Oz.
This is BS. In every other field great strides have been made by individuals who balance a multitude of life requirements. Being able to devote every waking hour to something only results in burnout. And, I suppose, graduate students slave labor, which is the real reason for wanting 100% available graduate students in the program.
Source: European, have lived in the US since 6 years now.
I don't know how anyone produces meaningful research in that environment anymore. It's untenable.
By ignoring the system.
One of the biggest problems in academia is that students don't know their rights, and professors set the culture. It's a power problem. If students assert their rights -- and they have plenty of them -- they usually do okay. It's neigh impossible to fire a grad student for not doing slave labor, and it looks really, really bad for the professor.
Professors can advise students, but they have very little real power to control them, once students are in the program. The power dynamic comes mostly from a mutual belief in that power existing.
Do good research. Take interesting classes. Have fun. Explore. If your professor tells you to do menial labor, politely blow them off.
That's the deal 5-10x pay cut in return for that freedom. Make sure you get your part of the bargain.
Students need to pass their quals, and produce a good thesis.
That's it. Once you realize that, grad school gets a lot better.
And have a BATNA.
There's a gap a mile wide between Ph.D+family+work (which I described as a bad idea) and "Being able to devote every waking hour"
The whole point of graduate school is to have time for intellectual exploration -- reading papers, talking to students, traveling, taking interesting classes, and so on. Grad school was a wonderful time for me, but I can't imagine doing the same while having a deadline to ship a system next week at work or whatnot.
* Family+grad school is definitely okay, if you're independently wealthy or your spouse has a decent income.
* Grad school+work might be okay if the two align, and your thesis touches on your work. But other than that, I wouldn't recommend it.
* Grad school+work+family? That's a waste of your time. You'll get a slip of paper at the end,
But yes, grad student slave labor mentality is a problem, and if you're grad student slave labor, you are wasting your time too, and working for a fraction of your market value where all you get at the end is a paper.
A thesis advisor is an _advisor_, not a boss. I professors job is to _profess_, not to control. And grad school is _school_, which happens to give a stipend, not a job. If you're not using the time for intellectual explorations, you're doing it wrong.
So, every PhD position? I have looked at dozens and almost none don't require teaching, paper work, bureaucracy, organisational work, etc. done. I was even warned by one person that this weekend will be the first free weekend in months. Because of teaching, etc. I don't know how meaningful work can be done like this.
I should add though that some activities are indeed useful, one of those is certainly teaching. If PhD students have full responsibility over the course, or part of the course, of which they're entrusted, it can be a very productive activity.
It is particularly formative if PhD students are entrusted with teaching activities covering subjects closely related to their thesis. In this way they can practice speaking over the things they are studying, which brings a ton of experience and positive growth.
On the contrary, if it's just teaching to cover hours that the professor to which the course is appointment is not willing to do, than it's much less attractive.
As a general rule, I'd suggest to a PhD student to be as selfish as possible. Although apparently counterintuitive, in their position it is a good rule of thumb to only engage in things that bring some tangible (but not necessarily immediate) utility. There are way too many professors willing to take advantage of younger positions for their own agenda. And that is also why it's very important who your thesis supervisor is.
Finally: never underestimate the "contractual power" that a PhD student has over a professor. Apart of few exceptions, professors need PhD students more than PhD students need professors. And in the case of those exceptions in which the professor is so well known and respected that there is a waiting list to be a PhD student, then I'd bet that it will also be so because such professor knows how to properly supervise PhD students.
I think there is just a large variance between countries and/or fields. I've worked in CS/EE in three top EU universities, and in every case I've seen, PhD students working in a research group had a heavy load of both teaching and project work on top of their PhD research.
Can you elaborate on this? I'm not disagreeing, but colleges/professors certainly like to project the opposite in many cases
Students by contrast need professors for training and advice. Whether they receive these from their advisor depends on the lab. In bigger labs junior students learn more from senior students and post-docs than professors.
You really can't at good universities in the UK. At Cambridge we had to get special permission to live more than 10 miles from Great St Mary's. My advisor's advice was that it was near impossible to finish up while working.
Had enough of Americans telling me about their excruciatingly long PhD programmes when half of that time is spent teaching and doing exams which we'd probably call an MSc. Or half of a post-doc position.
3-4 years is a great length of time for a contract where you're subject to such a power imbalance.
https://www.york.ac.uk/distance-learning/courses/#computer-s...
Even though he has nicer hair and is a much better musician.
This suggestion in the RAND paper was part of an article concluding that there is no shortage of interest in STEM PhDs, and that the aversion US citizens have to these PhD programs is rational and market based when compared to outcomes from professional degrees with (comparably) short, predictable completion times and vastly lower attrition rates.
In other words, if there really were a shortage of PhD STEM students, the career path you described would be plentiful and typical (well, not the 16 year part, but the model of getting good, stable, paid employment after a shorter and more easily completed degree, followed by a process of building publications in that role).
For now, unfortunately, the main lesson is to just say no to PhDs, unless you have a very very strong personal interest in completing one.
I'd suggest you think very carefully about this first. There's a very high chance the stealth mode work will be non-useful for getting onto a programme. Similar to how working on a 'build it and they will come' approach is generally disadvised for startups. Obviously it depends on how much of a lone genius you are but only you know that ;)
The reason I say fascinating is that people do part-time law degrees (25-30 hours a week estimated commitment) while working at times demanding jobs. However, I am very willing to belive that law school is a lot more straightforward than a PhD (attrition rates in elite law schools are below 1%, as opposed to 35%-50% for elite PhD programs).
It was hard applying for the grants, but it is possible in your spare time. You can talk to potential supervisors and they can point you towards grants coming up - and help you write them.
What you're calling a "burden" is the stuff that (a) pays for the funding that covers tuition and living expenses and (b) provides experience that helps you to get a job when you're done. You don't need to burden yourself with those things if you pay everything yourself.
Speaking anecdotally: the US research universities seem like research mills driven by low wage labor from international students. American students I met in my graduate program had to be both really smart or passionate and willing to put up with the demands of the PhD. It’s pretty bleak, and it’s good to hear that it’s different on the old continent.
In physics? I don't think so. I did my PHD in Germany but we work in large international collaborations, so I meet s lot of phd students from other countries as well.
Doing a phd in physics is everywhere I know at least a full time job. Often, depending on topic, group, supervisor and yourself even more than a 40 hour week.
The complexity, depth and specialization required don't really allow for anything else.
I think COVID may have changed some of this paradigm for many schools
I was in a US based PhD program (at Berkeley, mastered out), and I would attest to the heavy coursework load, but I've only heard that European/British programs are largely or purely dissertation based. Would enjoy hearing more about this from someone knowledgeable.
They also seemed to assume a lot more knowledge about CS and math than most US grad schools do. Presumably you're just expected to enter with most of the knowledge required to research your dissertation. For my application, I had to write a 5-6 page proposal on what I wanted to research, and had to more-or-less defend the proposal during the admissions interview.
I'm not as familiar with the American PhD process, but my dad said for him (about 38 years ago, PhD in Aerospace at Notre Dame) it was more or less akin to the undergrad admission process: he took the GRE, sent a few transcripts, interviewed a few people, was accepted, and after about a year he decided what he wanted to focus on.
But still, even the PhD statement was nothing like the 5-6 page proposal with a clear research focus that you described. Sounds more like the kind of program I'd be interested in if I were to go back, as I'd be mainly interested in researching something deeply, not taking classes.
Well, good luck, hope it works out for you.
It's too extractive for what it's giving back.
That should mean it's a 40 hour a week commitment, not that it's the only thing you do for half a decade or more.
The OP should be able to do a doctorate part time, and in Europe that is definitely doable. The funding and the practicalities are very much subject specific, but it does take a long time -- and is very much a labour of love.
I agree, and neither is a PhD, but I don't think that's a great reason.
"Why don't we pay teachers a decent wage? Because money isn't everything and helping students grow to the next generation is something that is inspiring in itself."
It's easy to say "money isn't everything" when you don't have to worry about money. A single parent is unlikely to be able to quit a decent-paying job to work with the low wages of a PhD program; are we just going to say "single parents need not apply" or "your kid should learn that money isn't everything while you live on subsistence wages for the next six years"?
Obviously there are single parents who manage to their PhDs, and that's really cool, but I don't think it's realistic for a lot of (otherwise qualified) people.
"Go work in industry after undergrad/masters" or "forgo making money to pursue a PhD".
Maybe it's borne from the bubble of academia, but as I got more experience in industry it became apparent there were many, many more pathways to a PhD than were discussed while in university.
Interesting, in France in computer science, PhDs are often made while working part time on something related to the PhD.
Your total justification seems to be that because it was hard for you, it will be hard for others too.
Fwiw my partner got her PhD part-time while working for the university as a researcher and consultant, actively authoring and publishing papers. It took her many years, but mostly it was finishing that was tough.
We have several people at the company I work (in Sweden) doing their PhD part time. The company gets 'free' research in an area relevant to them and the university gets connections to industry and their research field tested on real world projects. Both se it as a win-win. This sort of arrangement seems quite common in Sweden I know several people who got their PhD this way.
I have helped make "theses" for people in "banking"/"management" and those require no work.
Come to Sweden (or, rather, Nordic countries in general). There are a lot of opportunities as an industrial PhD student. There are at least 3 out of 10 PhD students in my group doing research while still working in the industry. Usually, the deal is 80% PhD and 20% industry, but I know someone doing 50:50.
The Industrial PhD pays the same here, so that’s mostly a position you would take if you specifically want to collaborate with a company on some research project, not something you do because of income considerations.
Maybe it depends on the field and the country, but I know some industrial PhD position pays a better salary than the one employed full time by the university. Not sure if it is considered to be "much", but at least around 20% more.
The industry part (whether 20% or 50%) easily ends up being close to 100% in practice. And many industrial PhD positions only last a few years, after which you get a normal full-time position and are expected to finish the PhD on your free time. Realistically, this makes it practically impossible to conduct the kind of research that you need to get a PhD from top programs.
I did a similar thing during my bachelor: working close to full time. I was essentially busy 14 hours a day, seven days a week. I was burned out within a year and switched to 20 hour weeks. Looking back I suspect that I suffered from somewhat severe lasting consequences for at least another two years and I don't think I've been quite the same person since.
Be mindful of what you're doing. Your brain and body need downtime at some point.
One option is to look for a full-time job that does research but is also affiliated with a university. Think national laboratories or government positions. If you're smart about it, you may be able to make your full-time work count towards your thesis. Many of these affiliations also offer free/reduced tuition and you'll almost certainly be paid more than if you were a PhD student working for a university. Some will even pay your normal salary and allow you to take a year or more off to focus on school. The real difficulty is working a schedule that let's you take courses, but I suspect this is easier now with the amount of remote learning available. I'd also say to stay away from advisors who think there's only one way to skin this cat :-). It was my experience that they don't work as well with non-traditional students.
To echo what was said elsewhere, advisors/programs that mandate a certain time commitment may be looking to burden you with ancillary duties that don't fit well with a non-traditional approach. Some programs would not admit me unless I was willing teach a certain number of classes, even though I was self funded through my employer. Some tried to force me into a resident status for the same reasons; there was an expectation of working on campus as a means of paying for my keep. I attribute most of these attitude's as a lazy way of thinking where they apply the same template to every student, but I think you can find an alternate path if you're willing to be a bit creative/resilient/persistent.
Best of luck to you.
Also worth mentioning Scandinavian and Swiss universities treat PhDs like a regular industry job (job contract, paid at an acceptable discount wrt industry, pension contribution & other perks). This is how it should be everywhere.
Edit: Also tuition is free.
That's a great opportunity and I hope someone goes for it.
I know several people I work with going this route right now, so some people do it!
My advice is to look at advisors who have a record of doing what you want to do or placing people where you want to go at schools that are a little bit down the rankings from the best possible place you could get into.
My email is in my bio if you want to talk about it.
I am willing to give up a high paying salary to return back to school as a PhD student and I am not tied down with a mortgage or anything else.
I find mathematics simply too interesting to not learn at the highest level. Working in industry will simply not teach me the material I want to learn. I’m considering going back for either a PhD in Math or a math heavy PhD in CS. I read math textbooks for fun and worked with tutors to ensure my proofs are done correctly. I can do this for hours on end without external motivation. I taught myself a lot of math and can see myself doing this as a career. I want to do research.
Most people my age say the same things in the comment sections in this thread (tied down to a mortgage, make too much money to return). I’m glad generalizations like these don’t apply to me and can’t wait to get back to school
You are exactly the kind of person who should be doing it!
Good luck!
Often your advisor in grad school will force you to focus on what they want rather than what you want to learn. This is less likely in a math department, but more likely in a CS one. As with everything, it all depends on your advisor.
The PhD is replete with hoops you have to take that will be orthogonal to your goal of learning (e.g. spending a lot of your time doing HW on the professor's pet topic when taking a course). Someone I know who retired somewhat young (early 50's) enrolled in a PhD program because he loves to learn. He dropped out within two years because he found it fairly inefficient in learning the topics he wanted to learn about (he had a career on mathematical topics and can handle the math). Unlike younger folks, time is precious for him, and being efficient is more important to someone in their 50s than in their 20s.
If all you care about is learning and not the actual piece of paper in the end, it may be more efficient to get a less demanding job and use your spare time studying what you want to study. Do it right and you'll make more money than you would as a student, and potentially learn more than you would in grad school.
Finally, PhD is about research. Yes, you will learn a lot, but learning is not the goal. A lot of people drop out because they realized they loved learning much more than doing research, which will involve large chunks of your time being unproductive. If you plan to do a PhD, you will have to draw a line at some point and say "OK, those 10-100 things there that really interest me? I have to drop them forever so I can do research." If you opt not to do research, you can learn a lot more.
Also, those in their 20s often haven't lived long enough to know how to gauge their efficiency. The person who has spent decades working 40 hour/week jobs knows better the value of less free time.
I am looking to also go on a self study mathematical journey
Introduction to Proofs:
Just pick one of these that speaks to you the most. All three are good.
Discrete Mathematics with Applications - Epp
Discrete Mathematics and Its Applications - Rosen
Mathematical Proofs: A Transition to Advanced Mathematics - Chartrand, et al.
Abstract Algebra:
How to Think about Abstract Algebra - Alcock
Abstract Algebra - Pinter
Abstract Algebra: A First Course - Saracino
Algebra - Artin
Abstract Algebra - Herstein
Abstract Algebra - Dummit & Foote
Linear Algebra:
Maybe an engineering based book first if you haven't seen linear algebra in a while (e.g. Strang or Linear Algebra: Step by Step by Singh).
Then:
Linear Algebra - Friedberg, et al
Linear Algebra Done Right - Axler
Linear Algebra - Hoffman & Kunze
Real Analysis:
How to Think About Analysis - Alcock
Understanding Analysis - Abbott
Tao's Analysis text
Principles of Mathematical Analysis - Rudin
Topology:
Topology - Munkres
Topology A Categorical Approach - Tai-Danae Bradley, Tyler Bryson, and John Terilla
Check out this list:
http://pi.math.cornell.edu/~hatcher/Other/topologybooks.pdf for others.
Category theory:
Categories and Toposes: Visualized and Explained - Southwell
Conceptual Mathematics: A First Introduction to Categories - Lawvere
Category Theory for Programmers - Milewski (if you like functional programming)
Programming with Categories - Fong, Milewski, Spivak (if you like functional programming)
Category Theory in Context - Riehl
There are a few others by Spivak which you may like.
If you don't know category theory whatsoever then I like Southwell the best (pair them up with his youtube videos). Eugenia Cheng also has a nice set of lecture videos.
If you already know math pretty well, then Riehl is a favorite.
Hope that helps!
With that said, I still love learning and diving deeply into topics like math and the history of science. I hope that I can one day retire off my savings as a SWE and return to graduate school (maybe in my late 30s or 40s). Has anyone done this before? Is there a stigma against graduate students (both Masters and PhD) who are not in their 20s?
I am planning to finish my course after a very long gap in my 40s. Not sure if I need to, but for the sake of finalizing it, so it does not bother me anymore. The long gap seems to bother my university at my home country more than it should bother me and they have still the same irritating procedures in place that I do not like... but why should others care about how you spend YOUR money and time?
I do know someone who got a PhD in their early 40s or so in a pause from tech and is back in tech. I gather they thought it "OK" but basically are back doing the same thing in industry as before.
I've had many friends ask he how they can get into SWE, they see me, a 20 something, making more than their parents make. I used to give the advice "anyone can do it, you just have to practice". I've since stopped giving that exact advice.
My advice now is "you can do it, but it's going to take at least 2-4 years of almost complete dedication". The disconnect for all my friends is I think, is none of them see what I do on a daily basis. Coding, coding, more coding, reading articles about coding, and more coding.
I realized the only reason it was so "easy" for me is that I really liked it, so spending hours in front of a screen learning all this wasn't a drain on me like it would be on other people. Looking back it was by no means easy, and you have to keep working on it. I don't put in the insane hours i used to in my early 20's, but my Github history still has commits every single day except for maybe Thanksgiving and Christmas.
In addition, even though their is a dearth of theoretical experience in industry, at FAANGs and similar you will find opportunities to learn a lot in areas such as systems design, networking, and machine learning from senior/principal engineers who are as savvy as professors, albeit with a practical lean.
Even the hands on aspect of a phd can be done on your own time with a little know how and income, see applied science[0] on youtube. Full time engineer who often tinkers and replicates scientific publications in his garage in his free time.
This is not one of those stories about someone who "always dreamed of earning a PhD". This is an MD who already had a PhD in Biochemistry from MIT.
You might think after all that that a PhD would be an irrelevance. But actually, I do still sometimes dream of being able to follow that process, of drilling down and into a problem much more deeply than any other context would allow, of having my ideas constantly challenged by smart people, and of eventually (one hopes) coming to some sort of conclusion.
I have many friends with CS PhD's, and to be honest, I don't think my life has been impaired in any way by the absence of the PhD, and maybe even enhanced. Still, it would be nice. And apparently, I've still got 30 years (at least) to get it done!
The only thing we do know is that there is a shared experience that seems to make learning new concepts difficult as we get older. We also have plenty of examples of people thriving when placed amongst people that prioritize learning those concepts and have the same lack of encumbrances as those other people. This points to willingness and lifestyle being the primary limiting factors over mental ability.
The plasticity concept has only been extrapolated to learning ability but is as well studied as phrenology. It still needs studies to both prove and disprove it in relation to learning ability. People have shared experiences about supernatural deities, the similarity being that the prevalence of an experience doesnt provide answers about the experience.
Of course the major questions from this were, 1. Are older people with the capacity to learn more interested in spending time with younger people, and 2. Are younger people more likely to distance themselves from older people without the capacity to learn. Both are probably true, but it would be interesting to see how much these factors skew the results.
This was of course also done in the West, where older parents live separately to their children on average. It would be interesting to see whether, if this study was done across multiple nations, the result continues to ring true.
He's now 89 and while he hasn't done any new research, he's still intellectually and physically very active.
Retirement is not the time to do nothing, it's the time to do what you really like. I can't wait.
For example, if you're good in the academy thing and manage to get papers into top tier companies you will finish your PhD faster if you won't take breaks in the industry. If your PhD is on desrible topic (e.g., ML) there are plenty of academy and industry jobs waiting for you, regardless of your work experience.
Seriously. Don't get a PhD in Math. It's a miserable field.
Seriously, if you're really interested in maths, look into a PhD in it. It's an exciting and fulfilling field. There are decent odds you won't end up in academia, so aim for an area with practical applications or that will teach you useful skills.
My post was specific to to the USA.
> Many maths PhDs don't go into academia, and those that do earn decent money (definitely more than our equivalent of middle school teachers).
I meant during the PhD. In the USA, it's very common for math folks to teach for most of their PhD. Teaching every semester + summers is not common at all in the rest of STEM. Between the higher salary and pension (!), middle school teachers are making a lot more than PhD students. It would be a weird apples-to-oranges comparison for most phd programs, but, unlike mot phd programs, math phds spend an enormous amount of their time TAing baby math classes.
> but this doesn't match my experience or that of anyone I know.
It matches the experience of almost everyone I know
> Seriously, if you're really interested in maths, look into a PhD in it.
But also consider PhDs in other fields.
Or just take an under-paying/low-time-commitment in industry and study math on the side; in a math phd program in the usa, your College Algebra/Calc I teaching load will be almost a full-time job anyways.
But, even more than that, if you're considering a PhD, choose a mathematically-adjacent field that isn't math and pick up a co-supervisor from the math department. The only parts of math that you can't do in other departments are exactly the areas that don't match the criteria of "area with practical applications or that will teach you useful skills".
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28679234
(I'd repeat what I said before, but dang wasn't happy the last time I copy/pasted).
As for that survey of PhD students, I suspect you would get similarly dismal reviews of parenthood from parents of 0-5 year old children -- but of course that doesn't mean that nobody should have children! A better survey would ask PhD students how they feel about the experience well after they are done with it.
Life doesn’t have an A/B Test and time tends to make things golden in retrospect — so it‘s hard to compare with what you could have done instead with your only truly non-renewable resource.
I would at least not recommend making a PhD if you don‘t love academia itself.
Are these people complaining about something that’s hard-but-worth-it? Or are they regretful participants in a genuinely broken system? Many signs seem to point to the latter.
Academia has a very small chance of, specifically, anything more than an extremely mediocre income. This, despite the fact that (generally speaking) some who would enter into, let alone complete, a Ph.D program would already tend towards the right said of the bell curve in that regard.
These programs often make many, if not most, people who join them miserable for years at the cost of a medium-to-large cut in lifetime earnings, all for a quickly shrinking chance at stability.
I know money isn’t everything in this life; truly, I do. I know that the pursuit of academic knowledge is noble, and in some ways a separate and valid good in its own right. It’s still a fucked-up system with serious and numerous flaws.
No, you wouldn't. Parenthood of small children has many negatives but it doesn't lead to depression in approaching 50% of cases.
Of course. For some short-term pain, the child's labour capability provides a clear economic benefit.
What are you going to get out of your short-term PhD pain? At best a job, where you are still limited by your individual labour output. Not exactly a scalable model.
Depressingly, about 0.001% of employers care about these skills.
Either direction only works out if a bunch of things line up in your favour over a relatively long period of time. If you choose the academic path and succeed, you end up with little money and a higher credential. If you choose not the academic path, you end up with potentially more money. However, you might fail at one or both paths, so it doesn't really matter at all, and you're better off trying both if you're not so confident. I initially chose the employment path, but as that's failed miserably over that 10 years, I have no money at all to show for it, and I've dipped into school from time to time and generally like it for the most part. If I traded that block of time for just academics or just employment, I'd probably be equally depressed and anxious, just for different reasons.
I had a really easy time getting admitted to the program, was fully funded and received a scholarship. I had a lot of freedom in terms of topic and got to travel every year of the PhD, so I think the actual experience was much better than it sounds like other people have it in the linked study.
What I did see, however, was a university system that was pushing through students at what I would consider an irresponsible pace. This was especially the case with foreign students, who were fodder for the supervisors' career aspirations (the supervisors having to see through a number of students to completion per five-year period to advance). The quality of the resultant PhDs was shockingly low in some cases, but there is no incentive for good theses, just complete theses. And for a university system like Australia's, which is to a large degree reliant on exporting education, these incentives are probably far worse now than they were when I was in the midst of it in 2015-16.
The other major problem is that a PhD is, essentially, an apprenticeship for academia. In Australia, we have a apprenticeships in trades (like electrical, plumbing, etc.) in which you learn 'on the job'; you're paid poorly, you do the menial jobs, but at the end you have a career. A PhD is like that: you do almost everything a lecturer or professor does, except -- and here's the catch -- there's no job prospects whatsoever at the end. And it seems like it'll get worse. Imagine working for four years on something that you love, that you're passionate about, and that you think will change the world intellectually, to only end up being some cheap labour to get publications for others more advanced in their careers -- and then you're done, and shown the door.
I was incredibly lucky in that I got a two-year postdoc, but I had to change fields (which I wanted to do), and I ended up paying for my own post-doc doing contracted research through the university. My heart wasn't in being an academic, and the applied side appealed to me a lot -- but I imagine this would be intolerable for many candidates.
These are factors I tell anyone who is thinking of a PhD. It is a highly-specific apprenticeship for a single industry that is, in Australia, collapsing substantially as the result of its own mismanagement, poor education funding policy at the Federal level, and (of course) the pandemic. It's no wonder that PhD candidates are so discontent, in my view -- despite my having had a wonderful and very fulfilling time.
A PhD is mainly if you have an interest (or could have an interest) in an Academic career.
I think that the structure of pursuing research would be a great way to avoid losing a "sense of purpose" that I fear might await me when I do decide to retire. The tricky part of this is finding the right advisor and the right project in the right field.
Sheesh, HN is depressing sometimes.
I have no trouble believing that a spry research professor in a quantitative field could get a PhD in another quantitative field at a fairly advanced age, especially if they can bring existing skills that are underused in their new domain, but it would be genuinely amazing if someone in his 80ies were to successfully
> set to work on a very difficult problem [...] the theory that he was doing involves techniques that are incredibly advanced and challenging to master
in physics, a field were people are often considered over the hill past their 20ies, and an elite uni at that. The only reference to his work a quick google scholar search turned up is from 2012:
State of mind is a very important thing.
I see this as a way to protect one's health and sanity as one ages. Aging gracefully should be possible.
What's more he's now 13 years older than the age at which Einstein died, so he's shown us that pursuing one's desires and goals at any age is a worthwhile venture.
I wish him well and hope he continues to get enjoyment from his new expertise in physics.
It already has me thinking about my career and future - it certainly is downhill from here.
Then something like this happens and just makes me feel like a big baby. Hats off Mr Steiner.
Out of curiosity, what did you go back for, and how did it go?
Do you practice doing long division every day, without pen and paper? If not, then I think you ought to try that before making the judgement "I can't do it". Practice is very important, especially when it comes to memory intensive tasks. The other key bit is coming up with efficient algorithms for doing division in your head that take into account the pros/cons of memory vs. pen and paper (why should we expect algorithms that run well on paper to be effective in our memory-only execution as well?). Over the years, people have developed a wide variety of "mental arithmetic" algorithms.
Finally, doing long division in your head isn't important. No one will judge you by it, when you're applying for a PhD, and so you should not judge yourself by it. There are way bigger fish to fry, even in mathematics.
The point I was attempting to make was that I could store these carry numbers in bulk at one point, but now am lucky to remember a single one.
I only know that as I try to teach my own kid math today. It's frustrating to realize you've 'lost your touch.'
But, you're right, it's really not important day to day.
One giant difference I noticed is my speech. When I was younger I spoke very, very quickly, to the point it was off-putting to some folks. I've always thought people who speak quickly have a fast working brain, so to speak.
Today I speak much more slowly and with more deliberation. Not good or bad, just different. Unfortunately I also find myself searching for a word much more often.
I'm in my mid-20's and I can't do mental math as well as I used to. Why? I don't spend as much time on it now, as I did when I was in school some years ago.
I feel like I’d get good at calculus or anything by dedicating similar amounts of dedicated study time
I might get crucified for being so jaded and cynical, but completed a PhD as part of some lifelong dream seems a bit empty to me. I think it’s fair to call him a physicist, but I just personally wouldn’t feel the dream was realized. Now, at the end of his life, he’s achieved the bare minimum and I doubt he will be able to do much more in the field or see the field develop.
I feel like taking high school physics would be the bare minimum. Or maybe even getting a bachelor's. But a PhD? That's not the pinnacle of a career, by any means, but it's 100% the pinnacle of an educational experience.
>my biggest worry is being “old” by the time I complete any graduate education
There are 'old' students everywhere in college and graduate school. If you interact with any graduate students from not your home country, 99% of the time, they are much (read: a decade or two) older than the 'regular' student.
The average age of international PhD students at entry to a program in the US is 31.7. [iie.org Graduate Learning Overseas Data].
The argument is just graduate students, not subset of graduate students that is impossible to measure with any accuracy based on available data due to your completely arbitrary and nebulous definitions. Also, even if we take your new arbitrary and meaningless 'definition', we can no longer use the key word from the original discussion: ----most----.
My point stands. Non-native graduate students skew older than native students by quite a bit.
I'm sure the fact that it would inspire others was not lost on him. Or perhaps he did it just so it would be done? There's enjoyment in the journey and the accomplishment.
I went back to college after dropping out when I was in my early 20s. Someone told me "You're going to be X+4 years in 4 years anyway, why not try achieving that thing you want. Time will pass either way"
Surprise: Right now I enjoy college VS before when it felt like a chore I had to go because was the "right thing to do".
It's great to share a space with people who share the same interest in a topic of science/humanities as you do.
Being an old dude in college, allows you to be less worried about late-teenage problems like drama in relationships, in my case being hot-headed, dealing with parents' expectations, or the chronic stress from failing tests thinking it's the end of the world, etc.
Plus, being the "old dude" from the class, hasn't been a problem at all, people are respectful most of the time, and if you're friendly, they will even seek you for mentorship.
As long as you're not behaving like Chevy Chase from "Community", nobody will give much importance to your age.
Yeah, there is a lot of things that are just bureaucracy to create false gatekeeping that I don't like even now.
But from time to time, I find lectures about topics I didn't know existed... and I have that feeling of being a kid again, and finding something new from 0. And that's 100% worth it. So I get why the dude, would keep searching for a PhD even in his eldery years.
I am fortunate enough to live in a country where college it's free. But if it's too expensive, you could get a lot of the value from distance Coursera, and online courses/communities.
It’s about being old when I finish. Losing the rest of my youth being out of place (funny enough I’ve always been the young guy among older people and school would just invert that, it’s not the biggest issue in the world, but it does become very isolating at times) and losing years of earning power on what feels like a gamble. Being the oldest candidate applying for a new job, etc.
The risk/benefit ratio will depend on the career. In IT, in a lot of jobs, you can have a competitive salary with Bootcamps and self-taught skills.
Now ageism it's a thing... but at the same time one that plays in your favor, usually companies that only hire early-20s, tend to be exploitative or abusive (pizza instead of proper extra hours payments, etc).
I will say it's only worth it if you see your college studies more like a self-development thing rather than just a multiplier on your salary.
Would Harvard have been removed from a title?
In another comment you wrote:
>I dropped to 24 hours/week and have a much better life quality now, working 3 days per week.
Still remarkable, so congrats, but full time normally is considered to be 40 hours / week, 5 days per week.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/oct/30/my-student...
I say fuck to those big name universities that pay peanuts to their most overexploited workers.
===
Edited: no absolutisms is better
Do only a PhD if you're sure you can afford it.
Being able to do the work is figuratively 30% of the battle, whereas having the opportunity to do it is the real challenge.
Your comment is 10/10 HN.
And you're right, I made three totally disconnected points albeit on the same area at least! Have done much worst in the past. I am sorry if I offended you or didn't explain myself much further.
Why is academia over in my opinion you ask?
Well, for one it's an overly saturated space, most of the folks doing a PhD go on to have very good career prospect's (of course thanks to the PhD in part).
But which percentage do stay in academia? Why not everyone with good ideas? It seems to me, it's a system like any other rigged for the rich and connected, who can afford a degree+master+phd, I guess if your parents are supporting you through it...
About avoiding doing a PhD, you can just read from all the people who was paid poorly, but since they needed the credentials, they went with it anyway's... As it stands right now, and much like everything that capitalism touches, Academia has gone to shit in standards in a few centuries from being the way of sharing knowledge, to being another way to manipulate and disinform the public.
I guess I would change my prior absolute statement to a more specific one, do a PhD only if you can afford the opportunity cost of not doing it and doing else more productive (for yourself or bank account at least)
And maybe academia is not over, but it's certainly in need of a shake up, and sadly as someone much more smarter than me once said:
"Science advances one funeral at a time"
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principio_de_Planck
There are several places where you can get a bachelor's and a master's for no tuition and with government support. Source: I did.
And there are several places where you can get paid decently to do a PhD. Less than an industry job, for sure, but definitely enough to get by just fine. Source: I did.
> About avoiding doing a PhD, you can just read from all the people who was paid poorly,
A PhD is not a set of courses to read. It's research training. It's doing research.
> but since they needed the credentials, they went with it anyway's
Where I live, nobody in their right minds would do a PhD for the credentials.
> I guess I would change my prior absolute statement to a more specific one, do a PhD only if you can afford the opportunity cost of not doing it and doing else more productive (for yourself or bank account at least)
Sure. I'd very much agree that a PhD often represents a lost opportunity cost, but that's something very different from the bleak picture that you paint (wherein only the rich and connected can do one without ending up in debt).
> And maybe academia is not over, but it's certainly in need of a shake up
OK, so, in summary: Academia isn't over, and PhDs aren't pointless. Literally nothing remains from your first comment.
And "knowledge hunger" is real... :)
My primary concerns are her startup tanking, me being unavailable for her mental health and of course a steady income.
I sometimes wonder maybe I should pursue a CS PhD after settling down financially by late 40s.
Why??
While what the student did is good. It serves as bad inspiration for too many people going to college these days just because they want to. And not because of a reason.
If the cost of education was low, then I would not be opposed to it. But we all know stories of people who say they are "going back to school" for very minimal benefits later.
So... at that age, we can see it as just an aspirational thing. But for younger people, it mostly (not all the time) sends the wrong message.
Honestly, "fuck it, do another Ph.D. in an adjacent field like math" is definitely in my "shit ran out of funds for ski trips because I retired too early and need some health insurance ASAP" quiver.
> So... at that age, we can see it as just an aspirational thing. But for younger people, it mostly (not all the time) sends the wrong message.
Like 20-somethings doing startup shit, PhDs can be terrible life choices or wonderful life choices. Outcomes are anything but uniform. If I had gone industry out of undergrad I might be making $150K by now. Instead I'm making close to 10x that doing exactly what I would be doing if I were an unemployed bum following my passion, all thanks to my phd. Lucky, sure. So are startup folks.
This is the pay at top tier universities with extremely exclusive entry criteria.
I was a former PhD student in CS. Washed out due to costs because I was self-funding. It was a local university and an R1 so not "bad" but also not ivy. I had absolutely no problem keeping up with class + research work while also working in industry as I have a lot of time on my hands and no family. I'm still a little sour about the whole thing because I had an incredible and flexible advisor. But costs are costs.
The average STEM PhD student at my university made 13k, up to 20k if you took on summer teaching duties. You did get classes covered, but health insurance came out of your stipend and you still had to cover ancillary fees (gym, technology, etc). So you walked, after taxes, with anywhere between 10 and 12k. They offered me an RA position with my PhD admission that paid approximately 20k. Obviously I could not take it and afford rent. Perhaps if they offered a free dorm and healthcare I could consider choking down 12-15k for 3-4 years to get the pay off in the end.
American PhD programs generally pay below poverty wages. Several PhD student colleagues of mine were on food stamps and lived with 1-3 other PhD students in the run down apartments adjacent to the university. It's abject suffering for the most part and direct-to-phd students often leave in their mid 30s burned out and 10 years behind other students in the workplace. I inquired with several universities about associate professor positions and even those have pretty insane post-doc requirements before being considered. You'll be 15+ years behind your cohort if you, god forbid, decide to go another 3 or so years in a slighty-above-poverty post doc position. At my university these paid around 40-45k, up to 60k for fairly exclusive positions. For what it's worth I make as much as the average industry CS PhD in a software engineering capacity after 10 years of service. I was pursuing it for pleasure and credentialing.
It is not practical, unfortunately, to pursue a PhD as an American unless you are incredibly wealthy or on a visa program. It is not surprising many PhD students are foreign born. No one intends to get rich with a PhD, but it seems even comfort is a far flung dream.
The esteem and accolades peppered throughout this discussion are incidental and transitory.
Self-fulfillment is a reason.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_Philosophy_by_public...
Why is the dimensions written in this way emphasizing +1
It definitely helps that he has a lifetime of research experience (in another field).
He had an MD, received a PhD from MIT, then went on to have a career as a researcher at Brown before taking up physics undergrad classes, and then continuing on to grad school.
He is quoted in the article as saying he will continue to work on physics research.
It took me a really long time to finish my bachelor’s degree. I always had a sort of romantic notion that going through it and really studying hard would help me to become a better thinker. I’m not really satisfied with my progress, so I definitely understand where those who want to pursue more formal education are coming from.