Ask Slashdot: Which Ph.D For Work In Applied Statistics / C.S.?

New submitter soramimo writes "I'm currently a Ph.D student in Machine Learning and Biology at a pretty good European university. As my lab is moving to the U.S., I have the chance to get my Ph.D from an Ivy League university instead of the one in Europe (without much additional work, as I'm close to finishing). However, I would be getting a Ph.D in Biological Sciences rather than Computer Science. As I'm planning to work as an applied statistician / computer-scientist / analyst in the U.S. after graduating, I'm wondering which path to take. Is a Ph.D in Biological Sciences frowned upon by technology companies, or is it out-weighed by the Ivy League tag? How big of a role does the type of Ph.D play in the hiring process in the U.S., compared to what you actually did (thesis focus, publication record, software)?"

Comments

Do you plan to work in the real world?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the world of business, what you did is much more important. Your experience and actual outputs are far more important then the kind of Ph.D you have.

Re:Do you plan to work in the real world?

[nothousebroken]

That might be true at the bachelor level, but at the PhD level people hire you for your specialized expertise based on your degree. For example, no brokerage house is going to hire a biology PhD to do statistical analysis research. They're going to hire someone with a PhD in math/statistics. It might be somewhat different if you are going to work for a pharmaceutical or other biology-related company. But in general, don't expect to get a degree in biology and then get job offers from companies looking for a PhD statistician. In fact, I would suggest that you view the corporate PhD hiring process as being quite similar to the faculty hiring process.

A PhD is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, employers immediately assume you are mature, intelligent, and highly-motivated. On the flip side, they are generally not willing to pay PhD salaries to someone outside their field of expertise. Put yourself in the employer's shoes. Why would an employer pay PhD rates for someone who doesn't have a PhD in the required discipline.

Re:Do you plan to work in the real world?

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who worked in High Finance, I can tell you that you are full of it. Most of the employees were science and liberal arts Ph.D's with very few of those degrees directly relating to what they were working on. My manager (I was doing fixed-income pricers) was a Chemical Engineering doctor, my partner on the project had a Ph.D. in english. There are other examples, but I'll stop there. All that matters is aptitude.

Re:Do you plan to work in the real world?

[pigwiggle]

I second that - you are full of it. People are going to look at what a PhD did. I've personally seen brokerage houses recruiting out of computational labs at the University of Chicago. They were looking at people doing computer simulations of large biological systems, among other things. They wanted people with experience in statistical mechanics and and computer modelling. I had a former colleague with a PhD in Physical Chemistry go through the application process for a Quant position. His experience was that the prospective employers took his computational and mathematical aptitude on faith, given his schooling, and were only interested in asking question about what he had taught himself about economic and investment models.

Re:Do you plan to work in the real world?

[winkydink]

I have hired five PhD's over the course of my career (maybe more, but five that I remember). All of the where hired based on what they did / what they could do and not on the basis of their theses. Granted my statistical sample is tiny, but there you go.

Re:Do you plan to work in the real world?

[idbedead]

A Ph.D. like all degrees has very little to do with genius. It is a signifier of your ability to work independently for long periods of time (3-6 years), and adapt to changing circumstances. This is the kind of aptitude that employers in nearly any field look for. A high schooler, even a genius, remains unproven in that area. This is why many genius people don't get any degree's yet companies still like to hire Ph.D.'s (even though most of them are not genius).

Re:Do you plan to work in the real world?

[kubernet3s]

I think what Anon was trying to say is that the PhD is not a vocational degree. It's actually sad how little people understand that. True, there are positions which require vocational experience, and employers will fill those positions banking on PhD applicants previous experience. However, the PhD is more than learning a set of specific skills: it is an experience which teaches a broad range of specific cognitive behaviors, many of which are extremely useful to many disciplines, not just the one on the degree. A PhD must by default be disciplined, skilled in problem solving, an excellent written communicator, and have modest experience giving presentations. STEM PhD's have to have experience with math up through linear algebra, possibly with partial differential equations, and often quite a bit more than that. They are able to think critically, organize projects, work in groups, solve problems, and moreover their degree now indicates that they have *expert level* capability in those skills. True, a pharmaceutical company isn't going to hire a philosophy major to fill a position requiring the experience of a PhD in biochemistry, but the facts are that industrial positions for specific PhD's are fairly few and far between: a lot of companies are just looking for PhD's in general. That would be the only explanation for Anon's English major friend, who I sincerely doubt was hired in the firm's "English department" before clawing his way over to financial analysis. That bloke was likely hired for his degree, and the aptitude it promises.

Re:Do you plan to work in the real world?

[ScottyLad]

Personally when I'm interviewing for staff (in the UK), I only look at what university they went to, not what they studied.

I'm not sure what other countries are like, but over here everyone under 30 years old has a degree, so the only interest I have in their university experience is whether they went to a "Red Brick" (Ivy league equivalent) or a "modern" university (re-branded technical college or polytechnic)

The fact you have a degree shows your ability to learn. What you learned in the past 4 years of University is of less interest to me compared to your potential to learn over the next 30 or 40 years of your career.

I personally value the fact someone even managed to get in to Oxford or Cambridge higher than someone else's 2:1 "degree" from some "university" I've never heard of in the North of England. Sadly this is what happens when governments devalue higher education with misguided targets such as 50% of the population must have a degree.

What you actually did is more important

[ClickOnThis]

Employers will care about what you did more than what your degree is named. There are lots people working in fields that don't correspond to the subject-name of their PhD degree.

Put yourself in their shoes

[NeumannCons]

You're hiring a someone to be a computer scientist. Would you rather see them have a CS degree or a biology degree? Ivy League degree or Pretty Good European University? I think everyone is going to look at this differently. I know *I'd* rather see the CS degree. I wouldn't be overly impressed by Ivy League but I think a lot of others would be. I work in the the tech field along with people who have degrees in unusual areas (Dance?) but are technically top notch.

BTW, these days it seems a lot of resumes are searched for key words. If they're hiring a computer scientist - guess what keywords they're going to look for?

A few suggestions

[codeAlDente]

Bio-informatics is a good place to be an applied statistician. There are also good opportunities in neuroscience, especially if you want (or are willing to) do experiments. Some of the data analysis and acquisition code is pretty sophisticated, and a grad student from my last lab got a good CS job by doing that. Further, any lab that uses super-resolution or EM microscopy is a good place to look. If you tell me which school, I can perhaps give you a few names.

Are you sure you have a choice?

[vossman77]

In my experience when the lab moves the students either (1) get a degree from old university or (2) apply to new university and go through the qualification process over. I would check again, before assuming it is your decision. I even know a case, where a 3rd year grad student at Yale was turned down acceptance into Berkeley grad school

Re:A Ph.D is only a foot in the door

[Diss Champ]

My employer historically has hired lots of PhDs; we design mixed signal chips. My own PhD has basically nothing to do with my job, but the sort of person who can make it through the PhD process in a hard (science or engineering) field has tended to do well here. That high % of PhD folks is changing a bit as we have been growing way too fast lately to not hire a larger % of MS, but when your bread and butter is to do chips that are "hard" enough to get decent margins rather than being commodity priced the ability to go figure things out that everyone doesn't already know is quite useful. Actually FINISHING the PhD is a lot better predictor than STARTING a PhD BTW.

Re:I went to school for art

[rk]

Some of the finest people I've worked with in software have degrees distantly related to computer science, math, or software engineering. Music, religion, "interdisciplinary studies", and an accounting dropout are included in that mix. They are right to pish-posh it away. Actually, as an art person, you wouldn't happen to live near Phoenix, know Java well, and be interested in working on GIS applications for remote sensing, would you? We have a good product that probably could use a techie with an art background to improve its UI.