I'm excited to see this experiment "meet the marketplace", and see what pans out. Given the small number of PhD students these top programs take each year, just yielding one or two great people into the PhD program that otherwise wouldn't have applied seems like it'd really move the needle.
[Disclosure: I went to undergrad with Jeff and we're good friends. He really is a great "mold-breaker" himself and I'm excited to see how a great "hacker of systems" in the best sense of the word changes academia during his career]
also check out jeff's related post on bringing startup culture to academic research! http://jeffhuang.com/adopting_the_startup_culture_for_resear...
Interesting. Because I have no intention of moving to a Google or YCombinator location, I never applied to either, but this makes me wonder if merely having been offered an opportunity at such a place could have value. Even if one never intended to follow through.
Which might not be a great thing for the folks reviewing applications...
If you want to have a good start in finance, having a degree (preferably a 1st) in Maths, Physics or Economics from Oxford, Cambridge or LSE is probably the most useful thing you can do!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8359547.stm
[NB Not sure I approve of people using up forces resources just to pad their CVs]
This is FUD. While there is arguably opportunity cost involved, it is not at all difficult to avoid "racking up debt" in grad school, at least if you're at the PhD level and in a STEM field. It is standard in such programs to get tuition waived (so, no cost) and to receive stipends for assistantship or fellowship (so, you get paid).
To get into specifics: I got my PhD in CS from Brown ten years ago, and my stipend was around $20K (I think about $22 or $23K my final year). During my time there the students clamoured for, and received, a healthcare benefit (free for the student, and they could pay extra if they had spouse and/or dependents). Because I was lucky enough to be debt-free going in, I actually finished grad school with about $15K in savings, but even my friends who had debt from ugrad were not accruing additional debt (and at the time were able to defer payment interest-free, although I gather that's no longer true). I was not exactly living the high life but was able to afford a decent apartment, ate out fairly regularly, and kept myself supplied with geeky tools and toys (laptop, wifi, etc).
So no, "racking up debt" is not a worry here.
Allow me to take a moment to reiterate some of the comments I left on the Georgia Tech master's thread [1], specifically as a student who has taken graduate level computer science courses at Brown University with the majority of his experience working in industry.
* I went directly into industry in 1998 working at a software/systems engineer for a telecom working on Solaris deployments. I worked full-time and paid for my undergraduate education which I pursued part-time and which took me 9 years to finish. I majored in "information technology," as there was no computer science online program at Northeastern University. I didn't take any theory courses at all, and the majority of my course work was programming in languages like Java, C++, and C# (also COBOL, and the like...)
* I applied at Brown University after talking to the admissions and computer science departments multiple times, in which they told me I wouldn't be able to pursue a master's due to lack of independent or undergraduate research or an undergraduate education in computer science. The process of being told this was rather unfortunate, as the responses I received via e-mail telling me it wouldn't be possible were ended with "Sent from my iPhone."
* At the time I talked with them, I had been working at Basho Technologies for a year on Riak, an open source distributed Dynamo-style data store, as well as serving as a maintainer of rubygems.org.
* I was finally able to get accepted as a "non-degree" or "special" graduate student, which is allowed to take courses at full price. This role exists primarily to allow students to determine if they would be a fit for graduate school, at which point I would then have to re-apply for degree seeking status. This was possible because of an independent meeting I scheduled with Shriram Krishnamurthi, who, based on my industrial experience expedited the process along.
* Since starting as a "non-degree" student, I've been heavily motivated to attempt to stand out from other candidates for when I eventually re-apply to be a degree seeking student by independently publishing papers, publishing a blog, organizing a podcast, and speaking at conferences.
My website is located here: http://christophermeiklejohn.com.
Love the co-op that NEU is so well known for. Excellent way to earn a degree while gaining real-world experience on the job :-)
For those interested in a career in research and development, a PhD is almost a must. Getting on to a prestigious PhD programme is incredibly competitive, and as someone who has gone through the whole process and seen it from both sides, I can say that I've seen individuals who'd make great computer science researchers not being given an opportunity because they don't tick the right "boxes".
Sure it's not perfect, but worth a shot if you're interested.
Only for a career in research is a PhD important.
the ONLY enduring downside (which you mentioned) is the lost income.
This may be something I do later in life, but I feel very wired for R&D + tooling, and a bit locked out of these types of jobs without a PhD.
My own experience: I had had no research experience in school and worked in industry for a bit before decided that it bored me to death, but I felt shut out from PhDs at the time. I started looking into research that might be interesting and sent out a bunch of emails to professors at universities explaining who I was, my goals and asking if they were looking for a research tech or anything. I probably sent out like 30 letters, got a handful or responses. I took a bit of a pay cut, but I got a fantastic job that I loved as a research programmer for a professor. I worked there for a while, worked on some interesting research, read a ton of papers, got a handful of co-authors on papers, and then was able to apply to grad programs with a strong application.
Do something interesting and novel based on that - not neccessarily a detailed implementation, but at least a quick&dirty proof of concept; and then also describe and publish it as a formal paper, it's not particularly much work compared to actually doing the stuff. For example, if you "want to work on tools that advance how we think about software" then picking some specific narrow area of how, say, Bret Victor's concepts could/should be implemented in real practice would be an interesting topic.
All of this can be done w/o a PhD as a hobby/side-project, and such a project+publication would also be a ticket to a decent PhD spot.
It sounds like you know what you want to work on. My advise would be to do some more reading in the area and find research papers in your field. Soon you'll know how to extend or improve on prior work. At this point it's a good idea to identify schools and supervisors you want to work with, especially those whose papers you've read or reach you are interested in extending. You might even propose a research collaboration with them based on the papers you read. This is a good way to open channel of communication and get your foot in the door.
There's a great deal that can be said on how to get into a PhD programme. Let me know if you want to continue this discussion offline.
"Maybe you didn't publish as an undergraduate.... Maybe you can't even write a very compelling research statement yet."
When I was applying, no undergraduates had published research. And the "research statement" could hardly be described as "compelling"; that was one of the points of the breadth requirements for the graduate program---my eventual research topic was completely unrelated to my interests or knowledge coming out of my undergraduate program.
Besides, a research lab is a workplace after all, and some kids are completely missing the social skills that are needed in a working environment. You can't have that sort in a PhD program either.
[1] http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-gradu...
I left grad school to work in industry, but I’m not so naive as to think that everyone shares my preferences. I have friends who turned down Google offers c. 2001 to go to grad school, and they’ve never regretted that decision. (And I don’t regret the time I spent in grad school before leaving, either).
btw i'm a big fan of jeff's approach and hope it works out well.
These days, good luck getting in a top tier institution for CS without a solid track record (I.e. a publication or two at an ACM/IEEE conference, and letters of rec from reputable professors/researchers in your field). The letters of rec are what make or break your application.
I agree that it's a bit over the top, but that's how it is.
Sorry to say this, but Ph.D. or not, it is getting clear that in the US being an employee is no good for a career.
Can get hired as an employee in your 20s, but the chances go down in your 30s, and the chances go to near zero long before your 40 year career is over. Exception: If you rise high into management, then you might be able to continue to get hired until, say, 50. And high management positions commonly don't last very long.
E.g., a big tech company might hire 100 Master's or Ph.D. degree holders, promote 1 to management, and at age 35 or so fire the other 99. Then the other 99 can wish that they could convert their Ph.D., say, in electronic engineering, to an electrician's license or had followed the path of a friend in high school who was mowing grass and now has 5 crews mowing grass and is getting into landscape architecture and commercial instead of just residential clients.
In broad terms, for a long career in the US, be a sole proprietor with a geographical barrier to entry. If want to do something technical, then be a CEO of a startup that takes advantage of your technical background. For being an employee, regard that as a temporary slot that will have to be replaced by owning part or all of the business from which you get your income.
Then, a problem with a Ph.D. is that you spend in grad school most of your 20s when you are most employable. Then to go into the job market in your late 20s or 30s can be a big disappointment because, really, the jobs are for subordinates, not narrow subject matter expert researchers. Actually, a Ph.D. can be highly resented, can be a black mark on your resume.
Be careful.
Of course a professor has control over the admission process. If he wants you on his team, you're in, unless you have a criminal record, or GPA below 3.0 (or whatever is absolute minimum for that particular grad school).
Think of it as a hiring process, with the professor as a hiring manager.
Based on the conversations I have had, it seems to be typical that a committee selects the applicants, not the professors. That is what all the professors tell me.
That being said, I would be stunned if this were the truth. There is no frickin way that this happens. Here's how I imagine it:
'Admissions committee is in session' 'So, which of these bozos we gonna pick?' 'I want Joe, Schmo, and Dingus' 'Sweet, I want Harry, and Fiona' 'Ok, we all cool?' 'Yep' 'Aite, lets get beers'
I actually think that creating many interesting projects + one's corresponding Github would be a better metric than getting a Google (or even YC) acceptance letter. You want people who are constantly tinkering and thinking of new ideas/projects/approaches and inventing just for the sake of inventing.
If you go too entrepreneurial, you might also be selecting for students who might be more amenable to dropping out from the program and doing a start-up (which then wastes the resources/time that Jeff mentioned he had to give to every PhD candidate).
185 dollar GRE that I can get in the 99th percentile on with ZERO studying? Grades that aren't normalized across institutions weighed heavily? Need recs from established professors who can slip in a good word for you?
Oh sorry, you were actually doing things that interested you, not necessarily things that would impress the right people. Oh sorry you took tons of hard classes at a prestigious institution and so have something less than 4.0. Oh sorry you hopped labs for a bit instead of staying with that boring CS guy that would've gotten you into any PhD program in America for 4 years. Oh sorry you spent a year or two out of college doing startup tech work without building credentials with other PhD grads but nevertheless solving research grade problems.
I've realized that the PhD admissions does not select candidates who actually want to do research. It selects candidates who want to be admitted into a PhD program. No thanks. I love science and math, and I love research, but I think the PhD application has been so harrowing for me, I won't consider it again unless drastic changes are made.
I care a little about your GRE scores, it is a filter, you need some kind of standardized comparable. Congrats on getting in the 99th percentile (that's expected). I don't care much about your GPA. I might look at what classes you took. I will probably look at your reference letters briefly. They might be from professors, they might not. I don't care. I love the fact that you have some startup or industry experience, you are slightly more likely to actually know how to get things done.
The very first thing I read is your cover letter, then straight to your research statement which I will read in great detail. The only thing I care about is do you have a passion for research, are you likely to be successful at it.
At most research institutions in most areas of science, we have to pay our graduate students stipend and tuition, either right away or after a year. This is a damn good incentive to get students in who are going to do great research.
All I care about is getting great researchers in the door and (eventually, hopefully) into my lab. So, my advice: focus on your research statement. Tailor it to the department your are applying to, talk about the research they are doing there. But, have your own agenda. At least know what research areas you are passionate about.
The GRE point I was trying to make was that since 99th percentiles are expected, the test shouldn't exist at all as it is clearly a poor filter.
Now on to the game of academia. It is one that is based on reputation, papers, and not money. No one cares for efficiency either and no one is building crap. All they are doing is trying out different "solutions," which may or may not make any sense. For instance, "hey guys, let's apply game theory to problem X, it will be a good/novel experiment and we can get a paper out of it." Waste of tax dollars. The logical answer that solves problem X might have already been solved and can be solved using ordinary methods, but academia doesn't want that. Research labs have business models, keep proposing new complexity on complexities, very unnecessary. Overcrowded fields like computer vision reek of this.
http://www.amazon.com/Where-Good-Ideas-Come-From/dp/15944853...
I'm a full time Ph.D. student. You might, of course, know that professors interact with the students very often (except if the professor is super busy always). I interact with mine almost every day. I do work with couple of collaborators in different countries. That is because my advisor knows them in-person before deciding to collaborate. I work with lab colleagues frequently. Remote makes all this extremely challenging.
While it was possible, and I'd defend my decision to do it, it's a tough road, and not one I'd start out on if I could avoid it.
In Europe, mostly, you're required to have a master's degree to apply for a PhD.
(1) People who were planning to go into industry and already have, say, an offer letter from Google, or just a strong open source profile, but now aren't sure if they want to go into industry or academia. Being able to apply to Brown with their offer letter could reduce a lot of friction in their consideration of the academic route.
(2) People who've already tried to get into a top Ph.D. program the traditional route and failed. If this is your dream, and you don't have the grades or publications to get in otherwise, but you do have top programming chops, this could be a way for you to still get what you want.
(3) People who are already in industry and want to go into academia. They may have lost their academic connections at this point in time. Even if they had great grades, they may struggle to reconnect with old teachers to write the requisite stellar recommendation letters.
Looking at the examples in the original post, I think the "demonstrate scholarship" section could directly apply for physics as well. Offer letters, github, are more more marginally useful...
Tough one. I'd love to hear how this works out, he sounds like a very thoughtful professor.
My academic resume isn't going to get me noticed for a PhD program but it sounds like someone is finally looking at ability (I had great scores on the Computer Science GRE in 1990, but they apparently only last five years and that test has been discontinued)!
Thus, CS programs stopped requiring it, so fewer people took the exam, so the ETS decided to drop it.
Note that no professors have actually been tracked or harmed.
Most European countries require a masters degree before starting, but the PhD is officially supposed to take 3 years (but usually takes 3-4+)
personally I think HN has both a pro-PhD, pro-academic, and also an anti-PhD or anti-academic segment. Sometimes within the same people! I certainly do.
I think it has both strengths and weaknesses. I think to the extent that universities and PhD track stuff serves an unnecessary and embarrassing anachronistic echo from the Middle Ages then that is a bad thing. But to the extent it helps teach disciplined thinking, cultivate a new generation of teachers and researchers, and helps to cull out noise or invalid/false/dumb contributions to the advancement of an art, it's a very good thing. The weed-out effect is good. I think some antipathy comes from the folks who perceive there to be a lot of non-weeds outside academia, and weeds within it. All discipline and curation is good. But it's not the unique providence of universities or professorship tracks. A lot of programmers have a libertarian bent too and dislike profit-maximizing monopolies or priesthoods, and universities/academia has at least a little of that aspect to them.
