Hacker News Reader

Comment by lamchob | Hacker News Reader

The question is, do we really need a PhD reform? Or should we restructure the academic process to enable more people to pariticipate without going through the ardous process of writing a thesis? I have a PhD and work in an industrial research environment, with 50/50 PhD and non-PhD colleagues. There is no difference in quality of work and output. So maybe universities should be less discriminatory against non-PhD research fellows.

View on HN

> I have a PhD and work in an industrial research environment, with 50/50 PhD and non-PhD colleagues. There is no difference in quality of work and output. So maybe universities should be less discriminatory against non-PhD research fellows.

I don't disagree. But if we consider that researchers need to publish papers, requiring a PhD isn't not much different than requiring a bunch of publications (when you have 3-4 publications, basically you have a PhD thesis, just need to introduce context and glue everything together).

To be fair, this is really field dependent. In the sciences this is (mostly) true, but in the humanities your output for your PhD is sometimes just your thesis. The problem is fundamentally that the PhD traject is geared towards an academic career, but there are not enough academic positions for all those PhD students, so they end up in industry. And there their skills don't really translate that well, as OP also says.

>The problem is fundamentally that the PhD traject is geared towards an academic career, but there are not enough academic positions for all those PhD students, so they end up in industry. And there their skills don't really translate that well, as OP also says.

This is a gigantic problem and thank you for highlighting it. Imagine you're in the United States and you have a PhD but you're not a citizen here and you just invested a ton of time and effort but you have to go back home all because there's not a position in your field. It's absolutely nonsensical to think about how the United States justs pisses away talent.

This is excactly what some universities are starting to introduce. "Cumulative Thesis" is the key word. Sadly, this is not yet estbalished practice.

PhD is a contribution to science, not a work certificate.

yet it is used to gatekeep positions. Contributions to science can be made without bundling them in a thesis, while being delivered to the whims of your supervisor.

Then one should make a good case for changing that gatekeeping, if you think it’s unhelpful. That’s not what this article advocates: this article is about changing the PhD process inside the academic system.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com