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Comment by zaroth | Hacker News Reader

> I know several people who graduated from the Media Lab with masters/doctorates, and they are all of this exact mold: taken captive by pipe dreams and their own delusions of what this stuff could do, while their advisors are churning through students and packaging new narratives.

I have a pretty hard time with the theory that Doctoral MIT graduates are an exploited underclass.

Doctoral students everywhere are overworked and underpaid. Same as almost everyone, really. But the Doctoral students do get to walk away with, and heavily monetize that credential at the end of it.

And if they are doing work on aspirational “pipe dreams” pursuing a dream of the future that doesn’t pan out? Rather than what, punting on the dream and getting back to the hard work of CRUD apps and monetizing clicks?

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> Doctoral students...heavily monetize that credential at the end of it.

Ha! If only! To continue doing research, the usual next step is a postdoc (~$50k/yr). Industry positions pay better, but outside of ML, there aren't tons of them and biotech (for example, which the media lab does) salaries aren't crazy high.

I'd bet that anyone with a PhD could have made more money with a masters degree and a switch to industry.

> I'd bet that anyone with a PhD could have made more money with a masters degree and a switch to industry.

This is common knowledge for those pursuing CS PhDs. You don't do it for the money. If you only care about money, a master's degree is what you want.

A lot of jobs I have seen recently say a PhD is highly desirable while a Masters is essential. Obviously I don't suggest people start doing a PhD for the money, however I'm surprised to think that you can't out-earn your alternative self with a Masters seeing as the difference in study time is 2 years but you'd be entering industry as an 'expert'. Especially if you target your PhD at something like computational finance, autonomous vehicles, etc.

I'd lump those fields into "ML" and the difference is probably more like 4 years in the US (2 vs ~6).

The career consequences are also weirdly mixed. Some places seem to recognize that, along with your area of specialization, getting a PhD also involves a fair amount of project management, writing, etc skills. Other places (or even different people at the same place), seem to think it's a glaring red flag that you can't "get real work done" because you sit around all day in a smoking jacket, thinking. (I think that's mostly bunk--academia moves fast these days, but that sentiment is nevertheless not uncommon).

And, if anyone has actual advice on monetizing a comp/neuro PhD, I'm all ears :-)

Job requirements are often inflated to scare away people without the ambition, egomania, and/or self confidence that the writer of the description desires. The business/management job description equivalent of this is "MBA from top-ten business school essential."

A PhD can help with jobs that don't really require a PhD, especially in finance. I have a few friends who ended up joining large investment banks after their DPhils at a higher level than those who had joined straight after their bachelors as analysts and worked up. This is in the UK though, where PhDs can be 3 years and completed immediately after a bachelors, so they were entering the job market at 24/25.

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