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Comment by ccppurcell | Hacker News Reader

Someone should sit every new PhD student down and explain to them that the goal isn't (or shouldn't be) getting publications or making an impact or getting a credential or a job. Of course you have to keep an eye on those things for practical reasons, but you can't lose sight of the goal which is to improve your understanding. Not even "our" understanding, just your own. If you pursue that and have a bit of talent (and luck) you will eventually push your understanding past that of the community on a given topic and you will write it up so that they may improve their understanding by reading your work.

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When I started my PhD, they were clear: four publications is a degree. That's the goal. Understanding is a bonus but doesn't get the title!

4 first author pubs? Maybe this is field dependent but that sounds like a pretty extreme requirement. The most I've seen formally required in my field is 1 first author peer reviewed pub, but many programs don't even set that as an official requirement anymore.

EE & CS aim for that many. I've heard maths grads aim for 1.

Makes sense, it'd still be kinda harsh as a strict graduation requirement for EECS though wouldn't it?

In biology I've seen a lot of more recent theses where a couple of the chapters are from middle author works with a bit of extra context on what the student did, and only 1 first author chapter. But besides being slower to do generally, bio still has a lot of people that don't believe in shared first authorship. Sometimes what is technically a second author chapter was pretty close to 50/50 in what the student actually contributed.

Yeah, it wildly depends on the maturity of the field it seems

Four first author publications, yes. University guidelines say three, but in practice they'd like to see four or five to get it approved.

That's sad. That makes your piece of paper worth even less, in my opinion. How is that different from a degree mill. By the way I have my piece of paper but what I value (and what my colleagues value) is my understanding

My goal is explicitly to publish, and I have the impression this is the case on a national level.

That's certainly the systemic pressure. And it's hard to avoid having that approach as a postdoc. I think PhD students, especially in the first couple years, can benefit in the long term from OC's advice if they have a supportive department. Even if the long term goal is an academic career, but perhaps moreso if not. Faculty like to think of PhD students as employees but really they are trainees, and the primary goal should be strong capability to do good independent research by the end of the program. Immediately pushing for pubs is often not the best way to gain an independent research vision.

> Basically, I’m not interested in doing research and I never have been, I’m interested in understanding, which is quite a different thing.

―David Blackwell

If not for the immense pressure to publish or perish...

Tell that to the advisors

I wish this was clear to me before jumping into that ship. Fast forward few years later, I wish I knew.

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