Comment by Forgeties79 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Forgeties79 | Hacker News Reader

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It is so refreshing to see this take. I was on a path to be a history Ph.D candidate - I wanted to teach, and archive diving is basically my own personal drug. The problem is it’s “publish or perish,” as we all know. My higher priority, i.e. teaching, was essentially an obstacle. You know how I know that? My own advisor and other department members told me not to get my doctorate (after writing a 60 page thesis mind you, which I’m still a tad bitter about given how this turns out haha).

They said no program wants to hear how I want to teach and that absolutely no one will hire me, then I won’t get published, and I’ll end up (if I’m lucky!) teaching at an expensive boarding school in a place I don’t get to choose.

I’m not saying I would’ve gotten into even a decent program. Hell I may have been a mediocre at best teacher. But it never felt right to me that teaching at colleges isn’t a viable career path. It was so odd to learn that my dream was simply not allowed, especially when it seemed so reasonable.

I didn’t find out until many years after graduating that the US is sprinkled with what are known as Primarily Undergraduate Institutions (PUIs), including a large number of well-regarded 4-year colleged which don’t have graduate programs, the professors don’t do (much) research (but do have PhDs generally) and the hiring and evaluation decisions are 90% based on teaching.

These institutions are usually on the small side and don’t make money in grants because they don’t do research, so they don’t spend millions in advertising or in sending out interviewers to thousands of high schools. So there’s a good chance you’ve never heard of even the ones you live near to.

These schools tend to produce both better experiences (less reliance on the painful “weed-out course” degree plan architecture of huge school) and somewhat better outcomes. I will almost certainly be sending my kids to be PUI and not a megaversity when they’re older.

Fascinating. I’ll look into these - never heard of them!

I think these are the evolution of the community college system. Many institutions that previous issued two-year degrees and certificates began offering four-year degrees, perhaps in conjunction with a larger, local university to fill gaps.

Not really. A lot of these small liberal arts colleges date back to the 1800s. The more prestigious ones are often priced like private R1 institutions as well. I'm sure there are some two-year institutions that started offering four-year degrees, but it's not typically the case afaik.

How many of them have strong STEM programs though? My partner went to a PUI, but it was firmly a liberal arts school (not that you can't move into STEM with a liberal arts degree). I chose my own undergraduate school because it had a decent engineering program but obviously was a research university.

The two I can think of are Harvey Mudd and Rose Hulman.

I went to one of these liberal arts college. They all (typically) have science and math departments. Engineering typically doesn't fall under the purview of liberal arts (though pure science and math certainly do). The problem tends to be availability of upper-level electives if you actually care about learning certain topics and don't want to just complete the requirements. Also, your exposure to research opportunities are typically external to your own institution (there are exceptions to this). I'd say the required courses in the first two+ years are a better experience than large research universities though.

For those looking, this list is probably a good start: https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/search?schoolType=engin...

Disclosure: my alma mater is on that list.

I think a lot of times, "strong STEM programs" in the public perception is equated with "big research university" which leads to oxymoron when looking for PUI for STEM.

Loyola Marymount University, in LA, fits the description. The STEM program wasn't the most competitive out there (but that's in comparison to nearby schools like UCLA, Cal Poly, etc), but the teaching quality was top-notch and there was a pretty direct pipeline from the engineering school to the big aerospace/defense contractors in the surrounding area.

I don't know anybody from any of my programs who isn't either gainfully employed in their field of study, or at some competitive grad school, and we graduated in the middle of COVID.

Of course it seems to be in a competition with USC to be the most expensive stickerprice university in the country, but the dirty little secret of private schools is that almost no one pays that price. To keep diversity up they shower disadvantaged students with scholarships, to keep academic standards up they shower academically competitive students with scholarships, and that's all paid for by charging the obscenely rich an elevated tuition, who in exchange are put in a situation where they're rubbing shoulders with a mix of talented students and a much higher than average concentration of other rich kids, leading to networking opportunities for everyone involved.

I know somebody with really impressive engineering skills who works for Rolls-Royce and graduated from Rose Hulman. Anecdotal but if he is anything like their typical students, that school has a good engineering department.

Many of them have excellent STEM programs. You don't have to be a world-renowned researcher to be an excellent educator and have excellent facilities. I have two kids that went to a PUI and then got funded by top-ranked research universities in their fields (geography and computer science) for their Masters and Ph.D. work. They've earned advanced degrees with a total debt of $28K.

This is related to the HN person yesterday asking whether going $180K in debt for MIT would be worth it?

There’s also my not alma mater (I didn’t graduate) the Olin college of Engineering

That's the sort of institution I went to and got my engineering degree from it. It was great to actually get face time with Professors and have discussions with them. Plus, I got to study more than just engineering, which was huge for someone like me who enjoys literature and philosophy as well as the sciences.

Interesting; I have never heard the term Primarily Undergraduate Institutions, although it's clearly an established term. During my PhD program, when folks were on the job market, we called them "teaching colleges." Most people - rightly! - associate "teaching colleges" with colleges that train teachers, but in our context, we knew immediately what people meant: colleges where professors were expected to spend most of their time actually teaching with little to no research expectations.

I have also heard them called that, but I agree it is an almost actively misleading label.

One caveat- I went to one of these and had a very good experience, but finding a job is a huge problem later if you don’t already have connections from family etc, because of the lack of name recognition. Recruiting is much better at much lower ranked state schools.

Dropped out of a comp sci PhD program after a year for this exact same reason. Will go get my masters some day so I can teach in retirement, but was saddened teaching in higher ed couldn’t be the end game.

I had an advisor in undergrad that tried to convince me to teach. Im glad I didn't listen to him. I hate my current job, but I'm certain I would have hated that more.

> I wanted to teach, and archive diving is basically my own personal drug. The problem is it’s “publish or perish,” as we all know. My higher priority, i.e. teaching, was essentially an obstacle.

I got an Associate's degree at a community college, and one of the most refreshing things about it was how un-focused the professors were on research. Teaching was their Number One, and I attribute much of my overall enjoyment to their attitudes.

I then transferred to a 4-year school and received my Bachelor's in two years. The professors at this university did research, but they were also committed to teaching and interpersonal relationships with students. I'd been given the option to transfer to a large (40k+ university), and although it was more well-known I knew that I'd be in gigantic class sizes with research-heavy instructors.

It's not that they're unfocused on research, they don't do research as part of their CC duties. IME many are bored retirees, underemployed MS/MA holders, or adjuncts moonlighting.

IME many aren't technically professors either, instead they're instructors. It's a weird distinction but academics huff and puff about it a lot.

History PhD candidate at Hacker News? I’m really curious, do you like programming/tech as a hobby or did you take another path in the end?

Good question haha I ended up going into film! Just ended 10 years of freelancing as a cam op/editor/producer (we wear a lot of hats these days) and am now an in-house video producer for a tech start up in New Orleans. I also produce podcasts for a few clients on the side and co-host one show I produce.

My work has always had me “tech-adjacent.” Especially the way I operate. It’s kind of hard to explain in solid terms but yeah, a few years ago I found myself here and I’ve liked it ever since. A lot of the stuff is over my head, but that’s where I learn best. You never know where you’re going to find relevant information from seemingly irrelevant posts.

HN is also great for some of my hobbies. I like messing with computers, video games, modding, etc. and love reading about other hobbies and sub cultures. Also get a lot of great tech history content here.

Dude, getting a PhD is about becoming a philosopher, it's literally in the name. You can't do that but only teach.

It’s not like I expected to literally only teach. The problem is it can’t be a priority under the current system.

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