A PhD in Snapshots | Hacker News Reader

A PhD in Snapshots

rbharath.github.io

46 pointsjxmorris1226 comments

I did not expect that ending.

From "I've spent the last six months working on a deep learning system to improve virtual screening for drug discovery"

To "I’m currently working on a new startup in the blockchain space with a couple co-founders."

I don't get why invest time in PhD if your work afterwards seems totally unrelated to your expertise. Is this how most of the PhD stories end, working at a completely-unrelated-to-your-expertise job for a good pay?

Your question applies to me. I can only speak for myself, but I wanted to be able to call myself a proper researcher at least once, and I got the PhD because I was curious about the subject. At the same time it disillusioned me about the field, more than I expected, so the decision to leave academia was an easy one. I also realized I simply wasn't cut out for that kind of work in a highly competitive field. The pay barely played a role in my decision.

His bio gives a more detailed description of the startup: "after his PhD, Bharath co-founded Computable a startup that built better tools for collaborative dataset management", which seems to not exist anymore.

But he came back to drug discovery:

"Bharath is currently the founder and CEO of Deep Forest Sciences, which is building an AI-powered suite for drug and materials design and discovery."

I can't speak for PhD, but BSc in computer science has changed my mind and altered my perception of the world in ways that I can't express but deeply feel, in the best possible way.

I have a hard time saying that in a way that does not make vocational schools worth less. I appreciate people having done theoretical things, spending time are university is well spent time.

There are mechanics who did not do any theoretical work at all that later in life really need some university. My point is that some people really should go back to university because their work gets better after.

Doing a PhD later in life is a cool thing to do too.

I went into a biosciences/AI PhD with CS/AI background because I wanted to dedicate a few years of my work life to science. So did quite a few other CS / AI grads around me and supervised by me. Few expected to bother with the academic career track and ridiculous conditions afterwards, they all expected to go straight into stable industry or gov AI jobs afterwards.

Bart was my intern at Google (working on drug discovery) and I asked him about this. I think he ended up leaving the blockchain company (possibly scammy or just not technically strong) and returning to drug discovery.

He was one of my strongest interns and I learned a lot from him. We selected him to join the team because he was highly recommended by Vijay Pande (creator of Folding@Home), whose work I've followed for several decades (Vijay left academia for VC and I think he's currently starting a new fund (https://www.wsj.com/articles/healthcare-investors-vijay-pand...) in tech/healthcare.

> I don't get why invest time in PhD if your work afterwards seems totally unrelated to your expertise

Depending on how the supervision chain is arranged, a PhD can a journey of discovery, of new science but first and foremost of yourself and your interests. It can be very self-directed and the only mandate is to discover something new. For this reason it is common for people to dip their toes in a few distinct but related subfields during those years until they find something that sticks (if at all), and the person that comes out of a PhD can be very different from the person who started it.

Despite the common misconception that a PhD involves a narrow focus, this seems broad: coursework and rotations in various research groups to interdisciplinary work in computational biology, chemistry, and physics, starting with ML theory but then moving on to practical application with protein sims.

All the collab is impressive also- Google, Pfizer, Merck, and some startups.

I’m a fan of PhDs open-sourcing and providing open datasets also. DeepChem, MoleculeNet, etc. I heavily referenced open PhD work in one of my last jobs that I wouldn’t have been able to do myself. I’d bet many solutions provided by LLMs are based on published PhD work also.

It would’ve been nice to get a PhD. It takes more focus and discipline though than I think I’ll ever have.

> Despite the common misconception that a PhD involves

Most advisors literally do not care what you do during your PhD as long as you're publishing papers. I too spent almost all of my time doing co-ops and internships at various companies/start-ups.

Having tried and failed to finish a PhD in the UK, I wish universities over here took the approach that I see in these snapshots of requiring PhD students to still take classes.

tldr: Courses are fundamentally for young adults that can't manage their own time..

My anecdotal experience was that courses are sort of idiotic at the PhD level. The course work is incredibly distracting from your research and projects. It's really hard to get into a flow state with your work when you have to do a bunch of homework. My productivity during the semesters I did course work was an order of magnitude lower.

The lectures are interesting and sort of useful.. but they're not a good use of time. At the PhD level you should be comfortable enough to just pick up some textbooks, read them on your own time, do some problem sets and learn on your own. B/c that's essentially what the professors are doing to prepare the course material in the first place..

Your advisor should just assign you some reading or something. It should be enough

Seminar style courses where you intensively interact with a professor are maybe an exception.. Maybe..

US PhD programmes include the MSc before the PhD proper. Given that the UK MSc is mostly taught, it lines up with the timeline described by the author (1 year of coursework followed by 4 years of research).

Interesting - I guess I'd assumed at that level the courses would be grad courses and not coursework heavy.

I think for me the problem was "unknown unknowns". If I knew I needed to know something, I could pick up a textbook and learn it, but that doesn't help if you don't even know something exists.

I'm sure it's vastly different field to field - so I'm kind of hesitant to make too many blanket statements. I'd assume the "unknown unknowns" element is where your advisor would come in and tell you what you need to work on.

Grad courses are all over the place. Some are just a series of chill lectures and discussions. Some are incredibly difficult all consuming and with lots of grueling excruciating problem sets after class... And nothing in between :)

> is where your advisor would come in and tell you what you need to work on.

Yes, that would have been nice :(

"A PhD on average takes 5 to 6 years of time." -- this is only true in the US. In UK/Europe PhDs take 3-4 years.

In US masters is part of the PhD, while in the EU/UK it’s not (AFAIK).

In my program and many others, the masters is not directly part of the PhD program, but is what they give you if you fail your qualifying exams and leave early (AKA "a gentleman's masters degree")

> In my program and many others, the masters is not directly part of the PhD program,

In the US? Interesting.

Does that count the time it takes to get a masters? I feel like I recall my coworkers in England doing a 1-2 year masters, and then the 3-4 year PhD after.

It doesn't. You're expected to do BSc -> MSc -> PhD. There are some undergrad programmes that give BSc + MSc, though.

Italy: 3 years Spain: 4 or longer (took 7 for me) Sweden: 5 most common

Doctorate only, MsC is a prerequisite

For me (and maybe others without PhDs), this is a really nice insight into the mysteries of doctoral study. I agree with others though that the ending was a bit jarring after the steady and admirable forward progress at the intersection of interesting fields.

A PhD is about learning how to think. It doesn't need to be directly related to what you do after, as long as you're better critical independent thinker.

(2018)

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