How much fun is MIT as a graduate student?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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<p>This thread makes me think of a friend, an MIT alum who was a year behind me and double-majored in math with computer science and physics. He went to a top-10 school in his subfield for grad school to study particle physics, and is there now.</p>

<p>He works hard, passed his quals with flying colors, does well in teaching and research, and in general seems to be making a success of his time there so far. Yet, he comes back to Boston occasionally to visit friends, he has an active social life on campus, he goes out on dates, and he's heavily involved in semi-pro theater.</p>

<p>He found out at some point that some of the other students were snarking about him because he doesn't spend all his time in the building like they do. Because he actually has a <em>life</em> outside of grad school.</p>

<p>When he brought this to the attention of his Boston-area friends, wondering if he was doing something wrong, we all pretty much told him that they were just jealous. "Is your advisor happy with your work? Are your other professors happy? Are you doing well in your classes? Are you satisfied with the rate that you're progressing?" He answered yes to all of these. "Okay, then, they can go screw themselves. You don't have to give up who you are to be a grad student."</p>

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<p>
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"So, having effectively washed out of the profession, he took Plan B: making ungodly sums of money working for a financial firm."

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<p>I did that. On the strength of the math credential alone, a manager in a well-known company hired me to do a technical job I knew virtually nothing about. He assumed, correctly, that I would learn enough to be productive in a month or two. I went on to start two successful companies. I wouldn't say I made "ungodly sums of money," but I don't have to work if I don't want to.</p>

<p>Along the way, I've done a fair amount of teaching. I enjoy teaching and now regret not vigorously pursuing an academic career. One of my friends, who holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy, retired at age 60 from the financial industry and used that credential (and his connections) to get a job teaching Philosophy and Engineering in a mid-sized university.</p>

<p>You could do worse than pursuing Plan B. And you still might try Plan A again later, as my friend did. One great thing about America is the freedom to go wherever your passions lead.</p>

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<p>While it's important to be pragmatic, don't get depressed about grad school. Most of the grad students I know at MIT are having a blast studying/researching their thesis. Sure they aren't running around singing happiness everyday, but I think they are happy.</p>

<p>Also it's true that not all grad students will go into academia. On the other hand, it seems to me that if you are an undergraduate, you can do a lot to change that for yourself. Most of the professors at MIT I know all worked very hard in their undergraduate and graduate careers (and enjoyed it, because that's just the type of people they are) every day for a decade.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
sakky: I think you are underestimating the effort that being a graduate student (as opposed to an undergraduate) in English requires. I did the same sort of thing as your protagonist when I was an undergraduate: despite being a near-complete literary theory jock, I got myself enough finance and accounting to qualify me for Wall St. jobs (and then law school). Graduate school, however, is a much more comprehensive commitment, at least unless you fall into thesis limbo, and people who aren't doing it close to 24-7 probably have to be leaving rather than doing academic moonlighting.

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<p>Actually, I think it is that graduate students underestimate themselves. </p>

<p>You said it yourself: grad students may be working nearly 24-7. Well, if that's the case (which I highly doubt, seeing how many grad students I know), then that means that these grad students obviously know how to work very very hard, i.e. harder than even most first-year investment bankers. Hence, I would expect that these kinds of people would be able to train up with highly marketable programming or IT skills at a breakneck pace. After all, through years of practice, they have clearly honed their ability to consume and analyze prodigious amounts of dense material at an extraordinary pace, and configuring a Cisco Internet router isn't exactly brain surgery. Trust me, it's not that hard. </p>

<p>What boggles my mind is the notion that people who can deconstruct the most obscure literary theory and successfully apply it to a constellation of works to demonstrate a host of research discoveries that are of the quality necessary to be publishable in an scholarly journal - but somehow can't learn Web programming. Can't learn how to configure and administer a Sun Solaris server. Can't learn how to run an email server. Note, that's not to say that they don't know how to do it at this particular moment in time, but that they can't even learn how to do it. Really? Come on. There are people I know who didn't even graduate from high school who have managed to learn these skills to obtain quite good jobs. And you can't? </p>

<p>That's why I've said that grad students need to be more entrepreneurial in terms of seeking out marketable skills. You CAN do it. It's pretty easy, relative to what you were doing as part of your graduate studies. You just have to WANT to do it.</p>

45

<p>"He found out at some point that some of the other students were snarking about him because he doesn't spend all his time in the building like they do. Because he actually has a <em>life</em> outside of grad school.</p>

<p>When he brought this to the attention of his Boston-area friends, wondering if he was doing something wrong, we all pretty much told him that they were just jealous. "Is your advisor happy with your work? Are your other professors happy? Are you doing well in your classes? Are you satisfied with the rate that you're progressing?" He answered yes to all of these. "Okay, then, they can go screw themselves. You don't have to give up who you are to be a grad student.""</p>

<p>Kind of interesting. I notice that the math grad students tend to have lives ;) and the CS grad students DO NOT AT ALL. [OK spare me, CS grad students out there...this is a complete stereotype, but it does hold that I think math grad students I've seen, while very, very smart, seem to have lives]. </p>

<p>JHS and sakky I think are correct in saying one CAN change one's life around to do something marketable. I think the issue is that really convincing yourself that you WANT to is probably pretty hard in some cases, and likely results in many of the very unhappy, bitter former academics. I know for one thing that if I went through a brutal period to produce good work in graduate school, and say I spent my undergrad [kind of how I am] really trying to make a top grad program, I'd have trouble convincing myself to switch gears. Much harder than if I just worked hard during my undergrad years. I'm not saying this is an excusable attitude, but it does seem to be prevalent among some Ph.D's.</p>

<p>"What boggles my mind is the notion that people who can deconstruct the most obscure literary theory and successfully apply it to a constellation of works to demonstrate a host of research discoveries that are of the quality necessary to be publishable in an scholarly journal - but somehow can't learn Web programming. Can't learn how to configure and administer a Sun Solaris server. Can't learn how to run an email server. Note, that's not to say that they don't know how to do it at this particular moment in time, but that they can't even learn how to do it. Really? Come on. There are people I know who didn't even graduate from high school who have managed to learn these skills to obtain quite good jobs. And you can't?"</p>

<p>I agree with Sakky that it's probably not "can't" but "won't" to some level.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
What boggles my mind is the notion that people who can deconstruct the most obscure literary theory and successfully apply it to a constellation of works to demonstrate a host of research discoveries that are of the quality necessary to be publishable in an scholarly journal - but somehow can't learn Web programming. Can't learn how to configure and administer a Sun Solaris server. Can't learn how to run an email server. Note, that's not to say that they don't know how to do it at this particular moment in time, but that they can't even learn how to do it. Really? Come on. There are people I know who didn't even graduate from high school who have managed to learn these skills to obtain quite good jobs. And you can't?

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<p>Some people go into computer work with the high expectations that they will quickly become as skilled in it as they are in whatever they were doing before. When they encounter problems, they become discouraged. Some give up. It's a natural reaction - not so easy to just get over.</p>

<p>Also, you have to take into account that computers do not always function as documented. This can be quite maddening to people who've been accustomed to environments where everything is completely and properly specified.</p>

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Kind of interesting. I notice that the math grad students tend to have lives and the CS grad students DO NOT AT ALL. [OK spare me, CS grad students out there...this is a complete stereotype, but it does hold that I think math grad students I've seen, while very, very smart, seem to have lives].

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<p>Oddly enough, my experience with both sets of people has been the complete opposite. :p</p>

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<p>^ Really! That's actually remarkable. Well, definitively at the undergrad level, I can say math majors seem to have lives...because there's not this culture of sitting at the basement of the CS building working on a project...if it's 12 AM the night of the problem set being due, and you could not figure it out, chances are you won't figure it out. It's all about having bursts of clarity. </p>

<p>But at the grad level, this distinction may start to fade, though how odd that you found the opposite.</p>

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<p>
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...how odd that you found the opposite.

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<p>It could differ by institutional culture. Some universities might attract certain personalities of math students, and certain kinds of CS students, and others might attract others.</p>

<p>At MIT, I can actually see one reason why this happens (if it is a real phenomenon and not a quirk of my particular sample). A large fraction of CS grad students at MIT were also undergrads at MIT. They're familiar with the MIT student culture, and already strongly involved in it, and they continue with their involvement. They already have a social group on campus, and often continue to hang out with it. They already know that they can handle a heavy MIT workload while having the sort of life that they continue to have, because they've done it (and a lot of them, in CS, took grad classes as undergrads, so they know what to expect from them). On the other hand, the MIT math department almost never accepts its own undergrads. So people show up, and they don't know anybody, don't know anything about campus culture or how to navigate, have never taken an MIT class, have no experience handling the workload while participating in campus culture. And a lot of the math grad students are internationals, so many of them have a language barrier making it harder to interact with the environment outside the department even if they want to. Naturally, they tend to be more more of the "spend long hours at the lab and then go home" variety.</p>

<p>I only know a couple of the CS grad students at Tufts on more than the most superficial level, and none of the math grad students. So I can't compare it.</p>

<p>At the undergrad level, my experience at MIT was that you could have a life with any major (though not 100% of the time - some weeks are just bad), because everyone is so hosed, regardless of major, that people are used to working around it. Also, everyone is looking for occasional escapism, and the student culture is very vibrant, and these things help.</p>

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<p>
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Some people go into computer work with the high expectations that they will quickly become as skilled in it as they are in whatever they were doing before. When they encounter problems, they become discouraged. Some give up. It's a natural reaction - not so easy to just get over.

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<p>Oh, I don't know - I think every graduate student has had a humbling experience or two (or more). That's just part of life in grad school. Yet they are somehow able to get over that to finish their PhD's. Yet they can't put up with the relatively low-level frustration of learning how to configure a Cisco router? </p>

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Also, you have to take into account that computers do not always function as documented. This can be quite maddening to people who've been accustomed to environments where everything is completely and properly specified.

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<p>I don't know too many PhD students who would say that their research phase was completely and properly specified.</p>

<p>Besides, we have to keep in mind what our comparison base case is. I would argue that somebody who completes a PhD and then has difficulties on the academic job market is clearly dealing with a problem that is not 'completely and properly specified' and is also facing a situation of great discouragement. Compared to that, the frustrations of learning how to program or configure a computer system are small potatoes.</p>

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<p>"On the other hand, the MIT math department almost never accepts its own undergrads. So people show up, and they don't know anybody"</p>

<p>This seems generally the cultural difference between the math and CS departments -- it seems very similar at Berkeley. I mean, I do know my friend was recently taken back into the math Ph.D. program, so very well do I know there are exceptions, but a CS grad student here told me there are QUITE a few Berkeley undergrads who go back to the grad program. </p>

<p>Maybe, I was thinking that because the math programs seem <em>very</em> small [under 20 students at many top schools], people might meet more easily. Also, couple that with the fact that every Berkeley grad student I know studies algebraic geometry....I think they somehow get to know each other!! I know maybe one into logic, one or two into algebraic number theory. Perhaps it's similar at Princeton, for instance. And maybe less of this kind of bias in MIT.</p>

<p>If there are well under 20 MIT math grad students, I'm curious, how many are likely internationals in a year? The numbers really seem insane.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
JHS and sakky I think are correct in saying one CAN change one's life around to do something marketable. I think the issue is that really convincing yourself that you WANT to is probably pretty hard in some cases, and likely results in many of the very unhappy, bitter former academics. I know for one thing that if I went through a brutal period to produce good work in graduate school, and say I spent my undergrad [kind of how I am] really trying to make a top grad program, I'd have trouble convincing myself to switch gears.

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<p>To clarify, again, let's keep in mind what we're really talking about here. I'm not talking about the star grad students who are likely to obtain good academic placements and have strong academic placements. They will never have to switch gears. I am talking about those who aren't the stars, and let's face it, most grad students - even at the top schools - are not going to be stars. While they may still be able to do enough to finish their PhD's, they probably won't even get an academic placement at all, and so what that means is that these students will have to switch gears in their career whether they want to or not. Hence, if you're going to have to switch gears anyway, is it really so hard to be able to switch towards learning marketable skills, as opposed to being stuck working at the Gap? </p>

<p>Furthermore, I doubt any of those students would be surprised about where they stand. Grand self-deception aside, if you're not one of the star grad students, you usually know it. You know that other students are performing better than you are. You know that the faculty don't think highly of you relative to other students. You know it. Hence, it should be no surprise to you if you aren't going to be able to land an academic placement which therefore means that you have ample time to build marketable skills before you graduate. Of course it is then up to you to use that time properly.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Oh, I don't know - I think every graduate student has had a humbling experience or two (or more). That's just part of life in grad school. Yet they are somehow able to get over that to finish their PhD's. Yet they can't put up with the relatively low-level frustration of learning how to configure a Cisco router?

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<p>Since my response to you was in the context of a person who was deconstructing obscure literary theory now finding it difficult to configure a Cisco router, I'd say that the two activities are sufficiently dissimilar that it's not unrealistic to expect that the literary theorist would find the experience frustrating at times and wish to give up. It's one thing to configure one's home router through a web menu, and another to set up a complex multiprotocol enterprise or carrier routing environment (and verify its proper operation). The latter deals with active, dynamic elements that are not under the admin's control, such as link outages, but the admin must compensate for them.</p>

<p>Another thing, since you were discussing getting IT jobs, you are aware (since we have discussed this at length) that there is a difference between being able to set up routers for one's personal use (even if the setups are complex), and qualifying for a job doing that. (Not to mention that in these difficult economic times, seasoned pros are having trouble finding such work, and are much more likely to do better on an interview than the recent PhD grad from another field.)</p>

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<p>
[quote]
It's one thing to configure one's home router through a web menu, and another to set up a complex multiprotocol enterprise or carrier routing environment (and verify its proper operation). The latter deals with active, dynamic elements that are not under the admin's control, such as link outages, but the admin must compensate for them.

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<p>Nor am I expecting anybody to be performing any such tasks as their first IT job. See below. </p>

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Another thing, since you were discussing getting IT jobs, you are aware (since we have discussed this at length) that there is a difference between being able to set up routers for one's personal use (even if the setups are complex), and qualifying for a job doing that. (Not to mention that in these difficult economic times, seasoned pros are having trouble finding such work, and are much more likely to do better on an interview than the recent PhD grad from another field.)

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<p>And what I'm talking about is simply knowing enough to get yourself a basic IT job that is better than working at McDonald's or working at the Gap, which were the proposed alternatives. I don't think that's very hard, because that's a pretty low bar. After all, I know high school kids who are doing IT work, and while it's obviously not high-end work (it's pretty basic stuff), they're already making significantly more than what they would be making at McDonalds. Furthermore, those kids are aggressively building their IT skills so that they can get even better jobs. For example, I know one of them, just for his own personal interest, is customizing his own router (using Zebra), including adding BGP extensions. Another has built and played with his own so-called "FrankenPix", which is basically a homebuilt Cisco Pix firewall. </p>

<p>Remember, these are just high school kids. If they can do that, surely somebody who has the intelligence and tenacity to get a PhD can do the same. </p>

<p>Look, I'm not asking for miracles. I am not proposing that you are going to be a senior IT architect overnight. All I am proposing is that you can learn enough IT skills quickly so that you can get a job that pays better than does McDonald's or the Gap. It's not that hard.</p>

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<p>It is one thing to know how to do a job. It is another to get the job. Getting the job may require skills far above what's actually done on the job. The candidate for the basic IT job might have to demonstrate some high-end skills. After all, in these difficult economic times, there are a lot of high-end folks looking for work; they can do basic IT jobs in their sleep. And they have professional experience, which the PhD from an unrelated field does not.</p>

<p>You should read the threads on [url=<a href="http://www.nanog.org/%5DNANOG%5B/url"&gt;http://www.nanog.org/]NANOG[/url&lt;/a&gt;] and [url=<a href="http://www.sage.org/%5DSAGE%5B/url"&gt;http://www.sage.org/]SAGE[/url&lt;/a&gt;] about whether degrees, or even certifications, are necessary (or even desired) for IT work. As a further consideration, having a PhD might count against being hired for the job. The hiring manager might not feel the PhD is likely to make a commitment to IT, especially if the applicant were to be offered an academic or research position in their original field. OTOH, the HS student has already made the commitment.</p>

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<p>"I'm not talking about the star grad students who are likely to obtain good academic placements and have strong academic placements. They will never have to switch gears."</p>

<p>Sure, this is well taken -- we're talking about those who find research doesn't click immensely with them.</p>

<p>"so what that means is that these students will have to switch gears in their career whether they want to or not."</p>

<p>Is this still talking about top grad schools? How ruthless IS it?! I mean, top math grad students are actually REALLY accomplished in many cases! Is this referring to most relatively good grad students, or to the genuine, say top 5 school grad students? While I don't expect all the top school students to become professors at Princeton, I do hope they're at least going to have a fair shot at an academic career. </p>

<p>"Look, I'm not asking for miracles. I am not proposing that you are going to be a senior IT architect overnight. All I am proposing is that you can learn enough IT skills quickly so that you can get a job that pays better than does McDonald's or the Gap. It's not that hard."</p>

<p>Yeah, I guess the only issue comes when people try to hang around academia with the hope of it working out.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
It is one thing to know how to do a job. It is another to get the job. Getting the job may require skills far above what's actually done on the job. The candidate for the basic IT job might have to demonstrate some high-end skills. After all, in these difficult economic times, there are a lot of high-end folks looking for work; they can do basic IT jobs in their sleep. And they have professional experience, which the PhD from an unrelated field does not.

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<p>And how exactly do all these high school graduates (or guys still in high school) manage to get all these IT jobs? Exactly what professional experience were they able to show? Probably none. Yet all I know is that they're clearly making more money than they would at McDonald's. </p>

<p>As to your point regarding professional experience, my advice is simple: get some. It's not that hard to get, especially if you're willing to work for free. I had already provided one example of which I know people are already using: there are guys who volunteered to build and maintain the entire IT system of their church for free, just to get the experience. The church didn't mind them learning on their systems, because, frankly, they never had a functioning IT system before anyway, so it's all "found money" to them. This church never had an Internet connection before, so those guys set that up. This church never had a switched LAN before, so those guys set that up too. This church never had a local file/print server, so those guys set that up. Then they set up Wifi throughout the church - and now people of that faith go there to get free Internet access for their laptop (but not during services, of course). Yeah, it took them awhile to set all that up because they didn't really know anything. But they learned. They helped their church AND helped themselves. </p>

<p>
[quote]
You should read the threads on NANOG and SAGE about whether degrees, or even certifications, are necessary (or even desired) for IT work. As a further consideration, having a PhD might count against being hired for the job. The hiring manager might not feel the PhD is likely to make a commitment to IT, especially if the applicant were to be offered an academic or research position in their original field. OTOH, the HS student has already made the commitment.

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<p>And the answer to that is what I've always said: don't list the PhD on your resume. There is no rule that says that you have to list every degree that you have. In fact, you can choose to omit the entire Education section of your resume entirely.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Is this still talking about top grad schools? How ruthless IS it?! I mean, top math grad students are actually REALLY accomplished in many cases! Is this referring to most relatively good grad students, or to the genuine, say top 5 school grad students? While I don't expect all the top school students to become professors at Princeton, I do hope they're at least going to have a fair shot at an academic career.

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<p>I am talking about top schools.</p>

<p>Keep in mind that much of the 'attrition' is voluntary. Lots of grad students, even at the top schools, found out that they don't love their field enough to pursue academic careers. They enjoy it enough such that they're willing to finish the PhD. But many of them become tired of their field and don't want to spend the rest of their life in it. Or they find something that they find far more interesting. To repeat one of my old stories: one guy entered a top PhD program and then ended up spending all his time playing poker, and now he's a professional poker player. </p>

<p>Then there are times when life intrudes. I know one woman who was a star student, entered a PhD program at a top school, where she then met the man who became her husband, had children, and now, she is now more interested in being a mother than she is in her academic discipline. Although she probably will still finish her PhD, she almost certainly won't go on the job market. She has more important things to do. Another woman also became pregnant, but didn't marry the father, and decided to raise the child herself as a single mom. She decided to quit full-time studies to take a job (at the very same school in which she was getting the PhD) while still pursuing her studies part-time, which she did eventually complete. But, again, she's not interested in the academic job market. She's content to keep her staff job at the university. As a matter of gender fairness, I also know one guy who entered a top PhD program, but met a special woman who was in a master's program, and, upon graduating, moved to California and married that woman. He never entered the job market. </p>

<p>You, as a grad student, can also ask your advisors where you stand in terms of likely placement. If you're not a star, then your advisors will hopefully honestly tell you that you're not and tell you that you're probably looking at placing at lower-tier schools, and then you have to decide whether that's worth it. Or, you can perhaps deduce this information yourself. Let's face it - a lot of grad students don't want to end up in lower-tier schools. They would rather just get a job. In fact, that's precisely what happened to that one guy I described above who moved to California to marry his girlfriend: he knew that wasn't going to get placed at a top school, so he decided that he'd rather just get a job.</p>

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<p>Well, I think that last post seems oddly encouraging, given it gives the impression that it's more likely to naturally start drifting away from the idea of an academic career. I wonder what the many grad students I know are going to ultimately end up doing, then. Is there any way to find out, I wonder, where students from, say top 5 schools end up? It would be interesting to see how many naturally decide they don't like the academic lifestyle as a permanent thing, even after liking it enough to do a Ph.D., how many leave just disheartened at placements at lower tier schools...</p>

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<p>Keep in mind, it's not just grad students. Junior faculty sometimes also drift away, because they too sometimes find something else more interesting. For example, I know of one guy who graduated from a top program and placed back in his own program as an Assistant Prof only to quit two years later to do something else. </p>

<p>As far as finding placement data for recent grads of top math PhD programs, here is Columbia. Granted, it's not a top 5 math school, but it's still quite high, being ranked #9. Nevertheless, there are clearly some people who ended up in non-academic jobs, including apparently a bunch of investment bankers and hedge fund quant jocks. There are also many post-docs and many of them can't or don't want to convert them to actual academic positions. There's also a sprinkling of non-tenure-track 'instructor' or 'lecturer' positions. Maybe these positions will eventually be converted to true tenure-track positions, but there is no guarantee. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.math.columbia.edu/programs/main/graduate/Placement.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.math.columbia.edu/programs/main/graduate/Placement.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>