Slashdot Mirror
Reform the PhD System or Close It Down
jamie points out an opinion piece by Columbia professor Mark C. Taylor in Nature News decrying the state of PhD education in the US, calling it "broken and unsustainable." Quoting:
"The necessary changes are both curricular and institutional. One reason that many doctoral programmes do not adequately serve students is that they are overly specialized, with curricula fragmented and increasingly irrelevant to the world beyond academia. Expertise, of course, is essential to the advancement of knowledge and to society. But in far too many cases, specialization has led to areas of research so narrow that they are of interest only to other people working in the same fields, subfields or sub-subfields. Many researchers struggle to talk to colleagues in the same department, and communication across departments and disciplines can be impossible. If doctoral education is to remain viable in the twenty-first century, universities must tear down the walls that separate fields, and establish programmes that nourish cross-disciplinary investigation and communication. They must design curricula that focus on solving practical problems, such as providing clean water to a growing population. Unfortunately, significant change is unlikely to come from faculty members, who all too often remain committed to traditional approaches."
"Increasingly irrelevant to the world beyond academia"
The language of number theory seemed to be an exercise in the technical until hundreds of years later we end up with encryption systems based on their very principles. How you can claim prior knowledge of what will be useful in future, I do not know.
The competition for tenure track positions is currently insane, since the professors from previous generations have trained too many PhDs. The funding agencies reward large labs under a single PI with large grants, with the labs mostly running on graduate students and post-docs who themselves see no way out. Now we are seeing career post-doctoral positions, especially in the biomedical sciences; see the recent suggestions about making a post-doctoral position more permanent. Not everyone can be a manager (PI), so we are stuck being graduate students or post-docs. I know industry is also a home for PhDs as I am one of those happy campers, but the fact is there are too many PhDs being trained relative to the number of positions available.
Lets have a system where the professor is rewarded for doing their own research, rather than their ability to write grants and farm out the work to their subjugated minions.
He generalizes the situation in some subjects (e.g. philosophical sciences). The situation in natural sciences is different. Having a PhD in physics (and not being an idiot who does not look left or right) enables you to talk to a lot of people and understand a lot of people. And you usually get you degree in 3-5 years (after the master) and not 12. And yes, i agree with him, weed out the subjects in the PhD courses where people waste, badly supervised, their valuable lifetime and replace the PhD courses by more appropriate new topics and fields. My feeling however is that this is more a problem for the philosophical faculties than for the science faculties.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
One thing that might be helpful (at least from the point of view of Prof. Taylor) would be to eliminate the bullshit Ph.D.s in fields such as political science, poetry, philosophy, English literature, and so on. Seriously. I talk to these types several times a week a bar near the Arizona State University campus and it is amazing how obscure their research topics are. Indeed, I get the feeling that there are extra points awarded (in some sense) for the more bizarre and irrelevant your topic is. And you can just feel the inner sneer as they watch you try to process the title of their dissertation.
Some of these people understand that they are shouting in an echo chamber of one, and in their circle of nominal peers, that's freaking cool.
The current focus on "relevant research" and turning university labs into money-making operations is part of the problem. While it's couched in terms of universities "Making Money" and "Doing something useful" (as the TFA appears to want), in practice, it means that university researchers pair up with private industry, doing only the things that private industry deems important (=incremental and rarely disruptive). Grant programs amplify this trend ("What are the industry applications of this research?", "Was your last research project a financial success?"). So, if the universities are paying researchers to do private-industry research, private industry has less incentive to fund its own research. As a result, we're moving from a system where we had academics engaged in fundamental research, with often disruptive results, and a thriving private industry research community, to one where a smaller pool of public-private academics do the bidding of private industry.
Too many Ph.D.s? You bet. In the name of "solving practical problems", we've moved industry research into the universities, and killed off fundamental research.
"The 'great minds' earning PhDs in life sciences, probably would never be useful in the world of 'real' science anyway,"
Yes, that is snobbish, and certainly blinkered much like what the article was complaining about. Next time you come down with a life threatening disease, I want you to refuse any treatment that was not done using 'real' science.
Note that "Columbia professor Mark C. Taylor", pontificating on how research has become too specialized and non-understandable to the public at large, and "must design curricula that focus on solving practical problems, such as providing clean water to a growing population" is himself a Professor of Religion. FTA:
"Mark C. Taylor is chair of the department of religion at Columbia University in New York and the author of Crisis on Campus: A Bold Plan for Reforming Our Colleges and Universities (Knopf, 2010). e-mail:mct22@columbia.edu"
Sort of easy to predict that, in fact. Because you know what? A person doing real, cutting-edge research, developing insights that no one else ever has before in history, is almost by definition going to be non-understandable by other people -- at least until such time as their research becomes diffused and more accepted by the mainstream. The call to "nourish cross-disciplinary investigation... focus on solving practical problems" is a thinly-disguised attack on basic scientific research. It's classic short-term thinking; if you demand profit/practical solutions right now, then the basic research that develops heretofore unimaginable solutions tomorrow will not be done.
Now, there's a lot of problems with PHD employment prospects, etc. But this is pretty damned skewed by how exceptionally non-useful this guys' graduates in philosophy and religious studies are. (I say this as someone with degrees in both philosophy and STEM.) I might suggest actual solutions would include: (a) Mandatory clear information provided to prospects about career and employment prospects, so they can make their own decisions on priorities. (b) Rollback the corporate-minded administrative takeover of higher education from faculty. (c) Return most teaching positions to being full-time tenured, instead of part-time contingent faculty as we have today, etc. The "make education practical/profitable" effort has been going on for 30 years, what we have now is the result of it, and it's time to stop digging the damn hole any deeper.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
It would be hard to argue that group theory was relevant when it was developed. Or early number theory. Maybe you'd have liked Einstein to have given several applications for his theory of relativity (hint: it was before space flight and GPS). Or how about quantum mechanics. How about modal logic, that was merely an academic curiosity before Tony Hoare and a host of others came along and made it relevant, relevant enough for Intel to care about mathematically proving facts about their chips.
Science is a web of ideas, start pruning before you even know whether something is useful is stupid and short-sighted. Here's a thought, science can chew gum and walk at the same time. It produces relevant stuff and stuff that you will not think will ever become relevant...until it does.
This is not US-specific, it's like that in all western countries.
And it's actually meant to be that way. The academic world is the only place where fundamental research can be done, since the private sector has no interest in research that do not have direct applications.
If you want to do practical research, work as a R&D engineer in the private sector.
Also, when Einstein published his theory of general relativity, nobody expected this to ever become relevant for anything beyond pure curiosity. Well, that's because nobody thought of GPS back than.
And when he was arguing against completeness of quantum mechanics, there's no way he could have imagined that his thoughts would one day lead to quantum cryptography.
When Kepler thought about the movement of celestial bodies, he would never have guessed that his insights would one day help with weather forecast.
When Heisenberg and Schrödinger formulated the equations of quantum mechanics, they didn't think of TV sets, computers, or the internet.
The inventors of the particle accelerator thought about studying particles, not about cancer therapy.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
In Physics at least, specialisation can lead to some very useful and broadly applicable findings. Granted, sometimes completely unexpectedly.
Indeed. In the Sciences and in Engineering, a PhD is the equivalent of a "driving license" for doing research. It does not guarantee you'll be good at it, but the odds are much better than for someone lacking the qualification. It signifies that you can plan and execute long and intellectually difficult tasks in a particular field, which may include discovery of new knowledge (experiments) as well as detailed physical and mathematical analysis. It shows that you're qualified for certain types of demanding job, which are not in particularly short supply. A PhD in physics or engineering was a prerequisite for my job and for several of my colleagues, and we're in industry, not in academia.
TFA failed to delineate the subject matter, lumping all PhDs together as if physical sciences, bioscience, and engineering suffered from the same lack of utility as the humanities or social sciences. It appears that TFA really just dealt with the humanities which tend to have limited economic applicability (PhD in Religion, or in History of art, or in Etruscan statuary). In some cases they amount to little more than an expensive hobby.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Well if you are avocation changing the system you need to lump them together. If the PhD are more often then not are becoming too specialized to be useful then the PhD system needs to change. Sure they are exceptions where some PhD offer enough generalization to show people to know that in order to meet any particular goal that you will need help in different areas. But those are the exception.
I would actually go further stating there is a larger problem with the education system in the whole.
At child at the age of 4 enters school and remains there until they graduate from high school at 17 year. (That is 13 years) Then they will directly go to college for 4 more years at 21 years old (17 years) Now in that process they weill decide what they want to do for a living. Well during that period education is the only system they know, so They choose to stay in education, So they will get 2/4 years of masters (If they want to stay as a k-12 teacher) and 8 years if they want to be a professor. So now we have Teachers and Professors who's life has been centered around education. Then they teach the next generation that repeats the process. What happens is there is a schism between skills and knowledge that people need professionally and what they need to advance in Education, and it will keep on getting worse if you leave the system unchanged.
Many Teachers and Professors (you can tell if you talk to them personally) despise commercial industry, but yet really know what is going on in it. They will focus on the areas where it has gone wrong but not where it has gone well. So they think we spend all our days in a real Dilbertesk like life. Education needs a infusion (A large one enough to change the schools culture) of professionals who are good at what they do to teach information that will be more practical for real life situation and really open up a dialog on how things really work.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
No, it is similar in the US for many Chemistry majors. They often end up running a QC bench without a PhD.
A PhD these days is more often a certification, can you work on a large nebulous problem? Can you work continuously for four or five years on a problem? Can you work with limited direct supervision?
Students do work in their sub-field or sub-subfield. Sometimes they get a truly relevant job, sometimes they get a job in that general area, sometimes they go completely afield. It just depends.
from the link in my sig:
"The undergraduate sits back waiting to be filled with learning. The Professor speaks, the undergraduate absorbs. Regurgitate the data on a few tests correctly enough and you are home. The Ph.D., on the other hand, means that you have done some original research. Sounds simple, but what it really means is that you have to be constantly defending yourself, explaining what you did and why. It leads to questioning all of the work of everyone else. Why did they do it this way? Were their conclusions correct, their evidence airtight, their reasoning sound? You need to be a skeptic. A doubter, a demander of proof. A B.S. given an SOP might think it comes down from on high, cast in stone. He or she will handle it with care. A Ph.D. will immediately get out a hammer and beat on it to see if any rotten pieces fly off."
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
No one's delaying their release into the workplace to get a PhD so that they can make a better contribution to "the world," period. People pursue a PhD so that they can stay in academia, where they are comfortable and proficient, and make as much money in academia as an academic can.
I am working full time while obtaining my PhD. I am getting the PhD because it is teaching me to do the things that are required, and that I cannot learn elsewhere. While I have not delayed my entry into the workforce (I like money), one of the reasons that I am getting it is because I want to make a contribution to the world. Everyone has goals in life, and while some people have goals like "own box seats to the Packers", "pay for my grandchildren's college", and "backpack through Europe" others have goals like "make a difference in the world". These are what you want out of life, and I find your derision of "help the world" to be insulting.
Since academic institutions profit directly from the milling of PhD degrees
The idea that academic institutions make any money on PhD students is downright false. The fact of the matter (and I've spoken with numerous professors/advisors about this) is that "suckers pay for their PhD". This is a direct quote from Dr. Kapoor (http://www.nanovk.com/), who has had 40+ MS/PhD students. Nearly everyone obtains funding from a number of sources (I've only met one person who didn't, and they just didn't try), including:
1 - work on a grant project (if you do your dissertation on an aspect of the project)
2 - RA work (live in the dorms for free, get tuition comp'ed, and get little-$ for it)
3 - TA work
4 - the school itself
5 - their work (full time work/part time school)
6 - Work program (work pays you go go an get skills they are interested in, owe time afterwards)
7 - governmental aid program (non-loan)
8 - grant program/award (NSF or the like)
9 - outside agency help (NAACP or whatever)
10 - outside governmental involvement (foreign government sends people to America to be educated, brings them back afterwards)
Keep in mind that many of these program stack. You can sign up for RA work (free place to live and money) to have your tuition paid for (easy), get a NSF grant (not easy), work on funded projects for your major advisor (very easy), and get a bit of outside agency help (moderate). Of course you have to produce through this time.
Also, getting someone through their PhD is incredibly time-consuming on behalf of the professor and organization. Although the school is compensated for the classes, they have to compensate the student for project work. Then, they get to foot the uncountable-but-still-very-real cost of advising PhD students (~2 hours/week at ~$100/hour = ~$10K/year for 4-5 years) with professor time.
As in can in other fields.
Math, for example, has become so specialized that two people with PhD's in Math might study such diverse areas that they couldn't explain their work to each other.
Personally, I pride myself on having what may be the most useless PhD ever devised by man. My area is Literary Theory. I deal in texts. I am qualified for absolutely nothing, not even to bathe myself in the mornings. However, it gives me god-like powers in the comments sections of blogs.
I was able to make a decent living in academia, until I retired (the work was just too strenuous for me). Now I spend most of my time bathing myself in morning, commenting on Slashdot and playing Portal 2. Fortunately, my wife is still a working mathematician so the refrigerator continues to be refilled, somehow, with food and drink. Oh, I walk the dog, too. I am qualified to walk the dog.
No, I don't think there's anything wrong with the PhD system. I think it is a fine system. It has allowed me, someone who in other societies would have been a shaman or dead, with a way to keep occupied without hurting anyone but inattentive undergraduates.
You are welcome on my lawn.
If I go to school that long, the last thing I want awarded to me is Dr. Phil.
I never figured out why things went wrong
NIH started as a means to support fundamental biomedical research. It expanded from $4M in 1947 to 100M in 1957 and $1B in 1974 and $30B today. It became the way that biomedical research is funded, and dwarfs the NSF budget of $7B. Everybody wanted a piece of that pie, but it turns out to be tied up with political strings. Universities came to depend on research money that often exceed student tuition and state grants. But it's hard to justify basic science to congress - that's the whole reason NSF's budget is so much smaller than NIH - so NIH has been progressively steered towards clinical, applied, "translational" research. Other branches of science have been pushed in that direction, too, as they struggle to justify their existence next to curing heart disease and making the lame walk.
The argument for Government funded basic science used to be that we couldn't know what would come out of it, but that the simple process of discovery would result in unforeseen benefits. Society couldn't trust commercial enterprises to take such altruistic risks (although some of them did consider support of long-term, fundamental research part of good corporate citizenship or part of their own 20 year success program). Government now, at least in the US, has little foresight or capacity for long term planning. If the corporate attention span is one fiscal quarter, then the government attention span is one election cycle. So, we've sacrificed our long-term prospects for short term reward.
Don't eat the marshmallow yet.