Comment by molteanu | Hacker News Reader

Comment by molteanu | Hacker News Reader

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Yes, fifteen years after the fact, during which time my mind constantly bombards me with, "Why did I happen? Did I do something wrong? It was not fair! I did my best!" and such, I can't help it but write in in a humorous manner, otherwise it's hard to put it behind you and forget about it.

On the second point, yes the total number of PhD graduates for a similar time period was 12.000 (official Government numbers) so this was a doubling of PhD's just like that, out of the blue. No wonder it was chaotic. There was also enormous political pressure regarding "the Government is incompetent as it cannot absorb what is basically free EU money". So, ok, they've absorbed it, sort of.

I think you are right. Reading the online articles and official documentation from that period, which is really scarce (there is no such program available on the EU official website, for example, or I wasn't able to find it), it feels like this was a big experiment, the success of which is not mentioned in the news either.

What I could find is that it was part of the Lisbon Strategy [1], also mentioned in the official documents published by the Government. From the linked wikipedia article: "Its aim was to make the EU the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion, by 2010. It was set out by the European Council in Lisbon in March 2000. By 2010, most of its goals were not achieved. It was succeeded by the Europe 2020 strategy."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisbon_Strategy

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisbon_Strategy

Oh, that page is darkly funny itself. ‘[The Lisbon Strategy’s] aim was to make the EU “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion,” by 2010.’ Yeah, that didn’t happen.

‘Spain's prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero pointed out that the non-binding character of the Lisbon Strategy contributed to the failure.’ Typical bureaucratic response: freedom is the problem.

There is definitely a role for government in fostering innovation and productivity, but it is very much a secondary role. Providing a predictable, stable, safe environment, and using government funds for things that the government actually needs to use seems to have worked for the U.S. for a long time, even before the two world wars.

To this day, 9 years later, I don't like to be referred by "Dr. so-and-so", not because I am ashamed of my thesis, but because I did hate every second of it. Screw the academia grinding mill, compared to it big business is almost human.

When everything is dominated by a lack-of-knowledge based bureaucracy, and there's only a few short years to make a difference for 1.650.000 people, you are going to have to get started earlier rather than later ;)

That's a lot of people to actually try to get on board as to what a "knowledge-based society" should be, they would have to relate it to something they were already familiar with.

If the only resource you have to work with is a "not-as-much-knowledge-as-you-thought" based institution, then start calling it a beacon of a knowledge-based society. Somebody's going to have to spread the word anyway, and if more functional resources don't come within reach, at least you've done your part.

It's interesting that some people are bound to believe you have achieved a knowledge-based society if it's just repeated over and over.

They just continued the same way of working they had already before. I went through a similar stunt around the end of the 90s (yes also Romania) but I called it quits after half a year. Sometimes I regret it, but sometimes I'm aware that either I or the group would have exploded had I stayed more. I respect your resilience.

Had I decided to call it quits, I would have probably asked myself, even to this day, questions like: did I make the right choice, what if things would have improved, what would have happened if I've tried harder, maybe there was just a misunderstanding, maybe it was my fault, maybe working at the University would have been the smart choice, etc.

I actually still have the emails asking for the project coordinator, the one responsible for scholarships for all of us (I've searched them out, out of curiosity while writing this article and their CV is 12 pages long and, naturally, this project is listed there as a success) for ways to abandon the whole thing. I didn't even get a reply. I was already 2 years in so I've would have had to return the whole sum back, money I didn't have. I was penniless, as all PhD candidate seem to be. So I did what I had and could do, which is summarized in the post.

Ah yes I wasn't paid for it, so there was no financial pressure to stay...

For what its, worth, given your situation, and given the circumstances, you did what could be done.

As a fun question, what would you do now, to do what you did, but better?

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