Monday, January 23, 2006
Who Should Go to Grad School?
Short answer: Nobody
Long answer: I always tried to discourage students from going on to grad school. It is basically slave labor, and your advisor has zero incentive for you to get your graduate degree early. After all, he or she needs to do research and publish in order to get more grant money, department promotions, and recognition in the field. But most of that research is being done by the lowly grad student. Also, teaching does not help your advisor much, so the grad students do almost all of that as well. A large number of grad students never graduate; those who do often spend even more years as post-docs (still more slave labor). Compare the income of those people who leave with their bachelor's to go to work in industry, with the grad students they left behind...
But you say, "My research will be important, and have a big impact!" Sadly, most PhD theses are never read by anybody after they are published; your review committee is the last to see it. In fact, most published science is meaningless (I can't speak about the non-sciences, or the pseudo-sciences). More than 99% of the important work in science is done by less than 1% of the researchers. And the odds are, you ain't one of them.
The only people who should perhaps go on to grad school are those I could not talk out of going, as hard as I tried. They are the ones who are driven to do research, not for prestige, or to get a good job, or make lots of money, or prove something to their parents, or to keep out of the Army, or because their girlfriend is going there. They are like true artists, who can't not do it. Even if they are starving, driving a ten-year-old car, and living in a dump. (Remember, that still won't make them one of the 1%, but at least it probably raises their odds some.) Few scientists come up with original thinking, new perspectives, new research techniques, a new paradigm. But perhaps you will be one of the ones who can't resist the compulsion...
Long answer: I always tried to discourage students from going on to grad school. It is basically slave labor, and your advisor has zero incentive for you to get your graduate degree early. After all, he or she needs to do research and publish in order to get more grant money, department promotions, and recognition in the field. But most of that research is being done by the lowly grad student. Also, teaching does not help your advisor much, so the grad students do almost all of that as well. A large number of grad students never graduate; those who do often spend even more years as post-docs (still more slave labor). Compare the income of those people who leave with their bachelor's to go to work in industry, with the grad students they left behind...
But you say, "My research will be important, and have a big impact!" Sadly, most PhD theses are never read by anybody after they are published; your review committee is the last to see it. In fact, most published science is meaningless (I can't speak about the non-sciences, or the pseudo-sciences). More than 99% of the important work in science is done by less than 1% of the researchers. And the odds are, you ain't one of them.
The only people who should perhaps go on to grad school are those I could not talk out of going, as hard as I tried. They are the ones who are driven to do research, not for prestige, or to get a good job, or make lots of money, or prove something to their parents, or to keep out of the Army, or because their girlfriend is going there. They are like true artists, who can't not do it. Even if they are starving, driving a ten-year-old car, and living in a dump. (Remember, that still won't make them one of the 1%, but at least it probably raises their odds some.) Few scientists come up with original thinking, new perspectives, new research techniques, a new paradigm. But perhaps you will be one of the ones who can't resist the compulsion...
# posted by Atrox @ 3:42 PM 
