| ▲ | Mistletoe 2 days ago |
| This is the foundation of all academia currently. It’s a nice pyramid scheme while you’ve got it, I just finished witnessing my youngest brother go through it in grad school and his defense is on Tuesday. |
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| ▲ | GordonAShumway 2 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| Yep! Ask any PhD candidate in America how they love those poverty level wages! |
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| ▲ | PrismCrystal 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Academia can be criticized as unsustainable as the OP does because the number of graduate students exceeds the number of secure employment positions available after one defends one’s dissertation or does a postdoc. However, the American model of PhD students being impoverished while studying isn’t the only one. In several European countries, the norm is for PhD students to be university employees under contract that receive a pretty standard middle-class salary. In various other countries, decent middle-class funding may have to come from outside the university, but it’s a semi-automatic process for anyone whose research plan was solid enough to get accepted as a PhD student in the first place. | | |
| ▲ | mustafa_pasi 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Dude, I went through the European PhD system and it's not as glamorous as you depict it. First of all, you forgot to mention that the norm is to give contracts of 50% to 75% FTE. Secondly the hours worked and the vacation time is a complete forgery that you are basically forced to sign. Although the contract is nice on paper, in practice the norms and expectations are different. Thirdly, unlike in the US, in Europe you often don't have a graduate school (although it is a thing) so you are in a very vulnerable situation where you invest 3 to 5 years of the best years of your life and during those years your graduation is completely at the mercy of that supervisor. | | |
| ▲ | PrismCrystal 2 days ago | parent [-] | | There is no “European PhD system” in terms of funding, or the duties expected of a PhD student other than the production of the dissertation. Different countries around the world do it differently, and that is true even within Europe. |
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| ▲ | chiefalchemist 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > the American model of PhD students being impoverished while studying This might be true in some cases, but I suspect that ultimately it's only the wealthy who can pursue these higher degrees. Yes, the pay might be low but that doesn't mean they are overall impoverished. Put another way, the cost of education is one thing, but being able to afford the process might be a higher bar, for some, or more. | |
| ▲ | MrMcCall 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Shouldn't they be paid a decent wage for the teaching, itself? |
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| ▲ | wslh 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > It’s a nice pyramid scheme... Before I became aware of criticisms likening universities to pyramid schemes, I recall hearing a Stanford professor managing a large research team say something like: "For this project, we have around 150 PhD students exploring it further in many directions". I was astonished by the sheer scale of their capabilities, especially because I liked the subject and had hoped to explore it as a hobby with just a few like-minded friends. |
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| ▲ | CoastalCoder 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I've had similar experiences on a with various ideas for compilers and for C++ debugging. Although I'm my case, the other people were mostly at FAANG companies, rather than academia. | |
| ▲ | AtlasBarfed 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | And who gets, uh, takes the credit when one of the PhD students "breaks through"? |
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