Conversation

Replying to and
I admit that my position is based largely on my own anecdotal observations: I saw a lot of people have a miserable experience in grad school. The relentless bottlenecking of the academic track (undergrad > grad > postdoc > faculty) seems to hurt a lot of people.
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For most of the PhD students I know, it was clear by year ~3 that they weren't going to continue in academic research, and by that point they had mostly gained what they needed for their future job. But they were stuck in a mostly unrewarding job until they got the degree.
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This set up an unhealthy dynamic in which the student just wants to graduate, and they feel like they are fighting against the school and/or their advisor to be allowed to do so. It was like an endless cycle of begging "is this good enough to graduate?" and being rebuffed.
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Even at the very best schools, a PhD thesis typically makes only a tiny contribution. You are excited when it contributes to science meaningfully at all. Look. How many times you find yourself reading a PhD thesis out of interest, expecting to find new insights in it?
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How the thesis is built changes nothing to my argument. Most PhDs are granted on the basis of uninspired and useless contributions. If we really granted PhDs to people who made a genuine contribution to their field... there would be far fewer awarded.
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If we did far fewer would gain the confidence to ever make major contributions. A PhD is a credential, not a prize. You’re right that most PhDs make no big contributions, just nominal ones that are enough to pass peer review. In fact most entire *careers* are like that.
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I think this is fine. You need the low quality feedstock volume to get the high quality big bangs somewhere along the way. Your standard of competence is a way to kill the process statistics. The prize-like recognition you suggest is tenure or Fellow status at a company/society.
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To Brian’s point, perhaps the answer is an intermediate degree like the M. Phil which allows a graceful exit on a deterministic timeline. Some burnouts use ABD as almost a degree credential, which is sad. Give them a real one for time spent.
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I’ll add myself as a data-point. I both enjoyed and finished mine in a timely manner. I didn’t make any notable contributions, just obscure footnote level, but I got a nice confidence boost from it. I earned my credential, but didn’t win or deserve any prizes for notability.