I was disillusioned with academia before I started. We had a candid talk during undergrad with a grad student who was a TA in our class and he laid it out for us: there wouldn't be enough jobs in the US for our small graduating class each year so if you needed a job to support yourself it would not make financial sense.
I stopped then and there, maybe one or two classmates continued. That was almost 20 years ago.
I'm thankful someone told us the truth and I made a career in a different field.
Yes similar, some time back I was in a grad program that I was really interested in and decent at, but by then married and child on the way. My Master's adviser was honest that it's better to just work somewhere vs go down PhD path as I was doing this for the job prospects. The folks who stayed with this were "family-funded" and well to do in their home countries. They basically were doing it for various reasons aside from "I need a job".
I knew a foreign student like that. He was a great guy and a friend, and we worked in the same building. One day, I told him that I purchased a condo to save money during the doctoral program (in my unique situation, my mortgage was less than basically all other grad student's rent, at least those I knew). A little while later, he told me that he also purchased a condo. I asked him about his mortgage rate, and he gave me a puzzled look. His well-off family paid >$250k, cash, for his condo.
In general, pursing a doctoral degree requires a certain degree of financial stability. The successful doctoral students usually came from wealthy families, whereas the ones who struggled the most also struggled with finances. I believe it's essentially impossible to perform truly novel academic research when your personal finances are volatile. I also firmly believe that graduate student unionization is an elitist mentality that must be unilaterally opposed, as it is guaranteed to destroy any constructive academic culture.
> I believe it's essentially impossible to perform truly novel academic research when your personal finances are volatile.
Your belief is well-founded: the effects of stress on performance are well-established, and financial instability is one of the major stressors.
> I also firmly believe that graduate student unionization is an elitist mentality that must be unilaterally opposed
...and you've lost me. Student unions are trying to achieve stability for those who are not independently wealthy. Calling it elitism doesn't sit right with me. Absent improved income for the working students who need it, the suggestion that only students from wealthy families should be the ones exclusively pursuing PhDs is the real elitism.
While I was in uni, one of my friends was a young woman from a conservative East African family. She was pursuing multiple degrees and multiple majors. She got accepted to our school and it was the first taste of independence and freedom for her. Once she graduated she was culturally expected to get married and have children right away. Careers for women were not common. So as long as she was in school her family paid for it. We lost touch but I like to assume she is a multi-hyphenate post doc by now.
Are you also disillusioned with professional sports, music, acting, and art? Most people who study and aspire in these fields don't make a sustainable living in it either. It's a tough competition. There's work and luck involved, as well as talent.
I think most grad students understand this, and it sounds like it was communicated clearly to you in a timely way.
>Are you also disillusioned with professional sports, music, acting, and art?
Not the person you were asking, but I think we need to double down on disillusionment in these. I've spoken to too many kids who dreamed of careers in this well into high school, often at cost to other academic paths, when their performance already clearly showed they weren't going this route. Sadly, it is hard to be strong about correcting kids because it is seen as not believing in them and not encouraging them.
As disillusioned as one might become in academia, the path one is on to get there tends to better align with setting students up for a successful career outside of it compared to the ones you listed.
Some kids who try to compete in a winner-take-most market, whether that's being a famous artist, performer, or academic, will succeed; most won't. No one who doesn't try will succeed. Someone is going to succeed. (Who wrote The Teacher's Argument? People who by definition made a famous musical, that's who.)
The thing is, the cost of discouraging the wrong kid -- the one who ends up curing cancer or otherwise innovating in an extremely useful area -- is unbounded.
The cost of encouraging the ones who fail can be heavy, but at least it's finite.
And it's not always obvious if "their performance already clearly shows they aren't going this route." The Nobel archives are full of acceptance speeches that describe how the recipient got off to a slow or unpromising start.
> The thing is, the cost of discouraging the wrong kid -- the one who ends up curing cancer or otherwise innovating in an extremely useful area -- is unbounded.
> The cost of encouraging the ones who fail can be heavy, but at least it's finite.
Assuming that every kid has a non-zero chance of being the "right kid," then discouraging only one child results in infinite cost and so every child should be encouraged to try to cure cancer...
Those other fields are ones in which there is a lot of readily-available support to pursue them as hobbies, without going broke or being put on a three-letter-agency list somewhere.
Was also in a similar position around the same time. When I was an undergrad, my two professors told me to stay out of academia it wasn't worth it. I plowed ahead anyways. I had the same conversations with grad students I really admired I think finally got through to me. This was between graduation and starting grad school in the Fall.
The general message was academia isn't a romantic pursuit. If you love doing research and writing, work in a more technical field where the pay is much better, the hours are more stable and you're not fighting an uphill battle against the system and the people who want to take away tenure (which was a big flashpoint in academia when I was there) and with whom you will always be in competition for grants and research funding.
Thankfully, I never went back. The summer before I was supposed to start, the enthusiasm for grad school just turned off like a light switch. I just had no interest in pursuing a masters in my program. I pivoted instead and ended up in a totally different field. I later found out only one person in our class of 15 went on to grad school. Kind of crazy.
That may well be true but it's not the whole story. My department has been hiring continuously for 15 years, and there have been more than a few years we have not been able to hire anyone because the applicant pool was underqualified. So while it's true there aren't enough jobs for everyone, there are still jobs for those who want them enough to get the qualifications for them (your field may vary).
I don't think what I said is tautological, so let me rephrase.
I think it's a mistake to leave a field early solely because there are fewer jobs than people with the relevant degree. Not all jobs are created equal, and not all degree-holders are equally competitive for all jobs. Some positions have a hiring bar far above having a qualifying degree. It also helps to realize that programs graduate C and D students all the time.
So it can both be true that there aren't enough jobs for everyone with the degree, and also that the market is not saturated with qualified candidates for particular jobs.
> Isn't the point that we might think that getting a terminal degree would qualify a person for some kind of job in their field?
As you climb the ladder, competition gets fiercer. At the terminal-degree level, having the degree is the baseline expectation. Not having it may be enough to disqualify you, but having it is not enough to make you competitive, because your peers also have terminal degrees. A terminal degree may qualify you in the credentialing sense, but it does not guarantee that you meet the hiring bar for a particular position, or that there is sufficient demand for your specialization at the wages, locations, and conditions you want.
It's not a qualification, it's a competition. It's not like there is a minimum bar to meet and everyone who meets it gets to go in. It's like "We have 10 seats, so we take the 10 best people who apply". Your qualification is that you have to be one of the 10 best people, however good they are.
its a different relationship entirely. you're hiring someone to mentor grad students, get grants, and teach. and while you aren't given tenure right away, that's certainly the goal, which can be a multi-decade commitment. everyone is trying to raise the bar with their program, and a couple 'meh' hires can really change that trajectory for quite a while. there are only like 20 faculty in your department, its not like development a giant tech co where there are tens of thousands and they are constantly moving in and out - each of these hires has a dramatic impact on your culture.
so yes, it absolutely makes sense to leave slots empty if you don't find candidates that you're excited about.
I'm not in this 40% but I would not relocate for a job unless there is a significant financial upside but the offers I get are typically lower than what I currently make.
At this point, reloacating is off the table without some guaranteed minimum working time. Been burned way too many times by sudden layoffs to risk moving my entire livlihood to get dumped in 1-2 years.
I think the author's premise is flawed even if the post comes off as good natured fun :)
I doubt they will host your content graveyard for free in perpetuity. I've seen Google get rid of more for less and given the horror stories and lack of recourse with the big G I would not trust them to do more than be my email provider (and I'm working on kicking that habit too).
That said it's pretty clear Dropbox policy changed and quoting a forum response from 6 years ago seems flimsy, maybe even disingenuous. That it's still the top response on Google surely says more about Google?
> I doubt they will host your content graveyard for free
Given he says "I migrated away from Dropbox" and "I had no desire to reactivate my account" suggests that his data is doing just fine elsewhere and he doesn't mind if Dropbox deletes it or not, he's just laughing at the desperation of the begging spam he doesn't want.
An amusing thought I've had recently is whether LLMs are in the same league as the millions of monkeys at the keyboard, struggling to reproduce one of the complete works of William Shakespeare.
But I think not, since monkeys probably don't "improve" noticeably with time or input.
I disagree to an extent. I know people on WIC, TANF, etc. who get subsidized internet, discounted property taxes, etc. Almost all of the ones I know game the system to their advantage one way or another.
I see people stop working because they'd rather not deal with others when they already have their needs met - I have no problem with this.
I see people who continuously pop more kids to keep the gravy train running - this is an issue.
I have seen people sell the products (a lot of it is food) they get for free and people who sell the vouchers because they already have too much; this to me is an issue too.
I see people who lie all of the time to get benefits they wouldn't qualify for otherwise; literally millionaires lying to get free stuff from the government.
I don't have a big social circle but it seems everyone I come into contact with is on the take and sucking hard on the government teat.
I think the approach needs to be more holistic and consider all of the different programs people qualify for - between WIC/TANF most people will get more food than they can consume. I think they should be nontransferable (maybe it already is, I don't understand how people end up selling them) and I don't think they should be progressive. Means-testing should be ended and everybody should qualify for these programs.
I also support a shift to UBI, but your description of TANF/WIC is not grounded in reality. TANF has a 5 year lifetime, and many states actually have lower limits food stamps do not come close to covering the costs of feeding a family People do sell food stamps sometimes, not because they have more than they need, but because they are desperate for cash to pay for other necessities such as utilities.
The idea that people are getting by for years and years based on these as sources of income is a myth.
Thanks, to clarify I don't begrudge TANF/WIC but those two are a short list of benefits that are available. Rent assistance ($), daycare assistance ($), free healthcare that's better than what I can get on the market regardless of $$$$, etc. I explained in other comments how a lot of it works, and I think rather than means testing I would like to see a different form of enforcement for these programs.
> I see people stop working because they'd rather not deal with others when they already have their needs met.
While some folks do get benefits when they could be working many more are denied anything despite obviously being disabled and the money that is paid is a relative pittance that few would choose given any alternative.
> I see people who continuously pop more kids to keep the gravy train running - this is an issue.
This is basically a myth. There are TANF in most states has a lifetime limit of 5 years or less and we are talking about $283 per month for a single parent single child household and it doesn't scale linearly. The next child nets you an additional $44 for instance. Exact figures vary by state.
People effectively sell vouchers or food benefits because they are desperately poor and need other things. As the refrain goes "food stamps don't buy diapers". In the case of WIC the vouchers may be for things that they literally don't need can't eat which will expire and thereby be lost.
This is an example of the inefficiency of buying things for people instead of letting them buy their own things.
> This is basically a myth. There are TANF in most states has a lifetime limit of 5 years or less ....
Because you can't imagine it or haven't seen it that doesn't mean it's a myth. I have known women who continuously have more kids from different fathers. I think many people ignore the fact that people can also qualify for getting their rent paid, free healthcare for the kids, etc. I have seen it in several different states, lived in the same apartments as them and now know about them from their family members who are my acquaintances.
But I agree with you on inefficiency. As I said, I think we need a holistic approach that looks at the overall needs and gets rid of some of the programs and just hands out cash as you said maybe.
If 2+2=4 it doesn't matter if you "witnessed" it being 3. Anyone who has actually interacted with poverty in the past 30 years would know that benefits are miserly, sparse, and limited.
Notable virtually no cash money which is basically required to live and work requirements for other benefits.
Welfare is what poor people rely on in addition to working not what they do instead of working.
This is why virtually everyone on food stamps is either temporarily between jobs, working, retired, disabled.
You can't just keep having kids and actually live indoors because the government will give you more food stamps but not more money.
What part of tanif being a few hundred a month and having a lifetime maximum of 5 years isn't getting through?
More kids = more poverty. The only angle to work is child support not welfare which is obviously the disconnect here.
I don't think I have seen something as disingenuous on HN as trying to negate somebody else's life experience by saying "2+2=4". I won't be engaging the contents of a bad faith argument.
Just because a plurality or even majority of people aren't doing it doesn't mean it doesn't happen. As I've stated, I'm recounting these scenarios from my experience which isn't vast but it tracks in every state/city I have lived in (and I have lived in several).
It's a miserable living experience for their children. Welfare queens do exist even if they don't look like the media portrays them.
As I stated, I'm not against social programs, but I think there's substantial waste and program goals need to be realigned. It needs to be reimagined, and not from ivory towers like the techno-elite that gathers here on HN.
The 100% truth is that you had no idea of any of the detail about whatever you saw. Unless someone has a massive trust with a procreation requirement, there is no free ride for children in America.
I had direct 100% access to every single aspect of one individuals life. Talked directly about the subject dozens to hundreds of times.
I absolutely know both the financial details as well as personal motivations. Others in that sphere I do not have as much intimate knowledge of but they follow the same pattern and social circles.
This topic is something HN (or rather the demographics that tend to post on HN) simply has a giant blind spot on.
It's not so much that each kid is a net benefit. It's that having kids are a requirement to access many government programs in my state. Single folks simply don't get help. I still know people in my past life who have never worked a single day and have had all expenses paid for by the state using such programs. Add some child support in and it's a way to live, even if a pretty crappy one. There is also very little planning for when the benefits end as the kids age out.
I really think every young adult should have to spend a year living in a section 8 complex as an assistant super. It may open many eyes to the state of the US and our social condition.
You've just modified your previous statement. I absolutely believe someone might have a child to get child support or even qualify for benefits.
I don't believe anyone is popping out multiple kids to rake in extra benefits. There is no situation where multiple kids make life easier for the poor in America.
I'm not sure where the disconnect is. You pop out multiple kids so you extend the clock, not so you get multiples on any sort of payments (aside from perhaps child support, but that's a different topic). This is what OP meant by "extend the gravy train". Much subsidized housing is only practically available to women with dependent children.
As stated, I have personally witnessed this exact behavior. The common belief in certain circles seems to be this is unheard of and uncommon but I absolutely do not believe the mainstream statistics on the matter.
It's not just kids. It's a whole way of life. Usually SSDI is involved among other such shenanigans as well. It goes deep - to the point of ensuring your teenage kids show up to school exactly the minimum number of days to not get dinged on benefits.
Having one kids gives one a dependant child for at least 18 years which is virtually all of a woman's child rearing years. There is no clock to reset.
" not just kids. It's a whole way of life. Usually SSDI is involved among other such shenanigans as well. It goes deep - to the point of ensuring your teenage kids show up to school exactly the minimum number of days to not get dinged on benefits."
Adding details isn't making this more plausible. Nobody is denying YOUR life experience just your third hand misunderstanding of other people's.
Now you have them living on child support, fraudulent disability, and neglecting their kids.
Have you considered that maybe you have skeevy family and this is not normal.
I don't know what it's like now, but in the 1980s, we received aid, and you certainly couldn't live on it. It was a horrible existence. Yeah, we'd sometimes game the system. For instance, we knew if we bought something for $4.01, we'd get the $0.99 change back as cash. We'd trade vouchers for cash sometimes (to, say, put kerosene in the heater) But, we're only talking about gaining a few hundred dollars a year. If people in your social circle are living large, I'd love to know their trick.
Yeah as I said in another comment, it's a mostly miserable experience on the kids and yet some garbage humans do decide to live strictly off of it. I'm not sure how we could disincentivize that, but I do think means testing should go.
The people I have seen who really milk the system work for cash, live with their boyfriend/SO and remain unmarried to keep the benefits coming (and just lie saying that the father isn't in the picture). So the burden of healthcare/food/rent is on the state and all of the income is fun money. Trucks/SUVs, jewelry, trips, rental houses, etc. follow. The kids only benefit as far as not starving, but they get free food at school/day care most of the year anyway so most stamps get sold. There's some who do very well and just stop caring about TANF anyway because it's overall pretty low value.
Another I've seen is just lying on the application so they get their benefits (I imagine similar to the others they say their husband/SO isn't in the picture) while they have a steady income stream from renting out their house.
I've come into contact with students at different levels of their university degree... between freshmen and junior (but almost senior) and I'm baffled by what I hear.
No concept of processes, no idea about any data structures, intimidated by everything. They've studied C/C#/Python in a class but can't remember anything about it. It's really a lack of passion and interest and it's endemic I think. People study CS because they've heard it pays well.
I fully expect these people to become my managers!
Yes you can[1]. If you want to store TOTPs together with your username and password is something you have to figure out for yourself.
Browser integration works nice, but not as smooth as Apples Keychain autofill. If you go hosted you will need a premium subscription. If you are okay self hosting vaultwarden[2] supports TOTP as well.
the very fact that you don't have to think about memory management it means that there is something else taking care of it. Call it GC or otherwise, no PHP dev will be think about memory management at all, unless they are building some long-lived, large data processing
> no PHP dev will be think about memory management at all
Not nowadays, for sure. In 2009-2010 it was still something to keep in mind, and careful array handling was common so the it wouldn't baloon hundreds of megabytes for not so large data structures. I wasn't working on big data (tm) at that time, but running database imports via ETL processes in PHP required a few optimization passes.
I really can appreciate nowadays the huge memory and performance improvements that PHP went through from the 5.x days to the recent 8.1 release.
Sidenote: Shout outs to Nikita Popov who came to the scene and revitalized the language for me back then, for his proposals and features implemented in a time when PHP felt stagnant language wise https://www.npopov.com/aboutMe.html#accepted-php-proposals
i've been working with PHP for almost 20 years and to be honest i've never had to think about memory management until the last 10 years or so and only in case of long running processes (e.g. cronjobs)
I stopped then and there, maybe one or two classmates continued. That was almost 20 years ago.
I'm thankful someone told us the truth and I made a career in a different field.