On September 05 2013 09:24 sam!zdat wrote: that's because political science is a bullshit field. You should know this because politics is obviously not science. Political science is where politics ends and we all become slaves of the election machine.
I think I have to take an exam or smth two and a half years in for the MA part. But I'm not sure everything about this is confusing, I'm just going to show up and think about literature and I'm sure it will work out.
...you are obviously not a political scientist. Academic political science does not even resemble talking heads on TV, or whatever you are basing your post off of.
PhD in mathematics anyways is not anywhere near as rewarding as some people in this thread make it out to be. Even as one of the top students in an entry class with a full fellowship and great benefits (besides the obv stipend, health, only had to teach 2 of 5 years etc), you still spend most of the first 3 years just grinding out classes you may or may not care about. If you have to teach every semester it can be even worse for some people. (Teaching actually the only thing I liked about grad school myself). And then if you make it through the first 3 years of classes and get to start specializing, a LOT of people still just grind out a thesis for the purpose of a career in teaching.
Anyways, even in an academic discipline they will obviously expect you to make it your life for 5 years (more if they just need grad teaching assistants). But if you just want to go to school and extend the college experience and get it payed for (math at least) than its not so bad I guess.
As you can probably tell, I bailed on mine lol. Allthough it was largely geographical reasons in that I love Alaska, lived here my whole life, expect to live here the rest of it and that just didnt mesh. But it was not an enjoyable 3 years for me.
Also for reference I was not at a super high end school, but decent rank20 or something in most lists.
By the way in response to an earlier question, the school you go to (at least for Math in the US) basically just effects the experience during the duration of your studies, and also the marketing power your degree gives you in the job market afterward. Of these two its fairly important in my opinion to have someone to work with as close to your specific research interest as possible. This can be accomplished at smaller schools but the difficulty is you have to know what that is before you begin. The advantage of bigger better programs is basically the pools of quality people to work with.
On September 05 2013 11:10 Atreides wrote: PhD in mathematics anyways is not anywhere near as rewarding as some people in this thread make it out to be. Even as one of the top students in an entry class with a full fellowship and great benefits (besides the obv stipend, health, only had to teach 2 of 5 years etc), you still spend most of the first 3 years just grinding out classes you may or may not care about. If you have to teach every semester it can be even worse for some people. (Teaching actually the only thing I liked about grad school myself). And then if you make it through the first 3 years of classes and get to start specializing, a LOT of people still just grind out a thesis for the purpose of a career in teaching.
Anyways, even in an academic discipline they will obviously expect you to make it your life for 5 years (more if they just need grad teaching assistants). But if you just want to go to school and extend the college experience and get it payed for (math at least) than its not so bad I guess.
As you can probably tell, I bailed on mine lol. Allthough it was largely geographical reasons in that I love Alaska, lived here my whole life, expect to live here the rest of it and that just didnt mesh. But it was not an enjoyable 3 years for me.
Also for reference I was not at a super high end school, but decent rank20 or something in most lists.
By the way in response to an earlier question, the school you go to (at least for Math in the US) basically just effects the experience during the duration of your studies, and also the marketing power your degree gives you in the job market afterward. Of these two its fairly important in my opinion to have someone to work with as close to your specific research interest as possible. This can be accomplished at smaller schools but the difficulty is you have to know what that is before you begin. The advantage of bigger better programs is basically the pools of quality people to work with.
I didnt have the math aptitude to do a grad degree in that, but I wish I did because it seems like its a pretty lucrative field if you get into the high speed trading side of it and if not you can always bail, switch gears down into econ, coast through that PhD, and still land a sweet job teaching at some random business school.
On September 05 2013 10:47 sam!zdat wrote: nah, just read hegel and you too can have absolute knowing. You become the circle, looking in on it itself. You guys have read neuromancer right?
I think the circle is human knowledge, not absolute
This isn't necessarily true. Some programs make you write a thesis to get your MA and if you don't finish then you can get a terminal MA or just drop.
also known as the first 3 chapters of your PhD thesis.
Ah I wish that was true for me lol. Sadly my thesis and my dissertation have nothing to do with each other and focus on two different places and time periods T_T
On September 05 2013 09:24 sam!zdat wrote: that's because political science is a bullshit field. You should know this because politics is obviously not science. Political science is where politics ends and we all become slaves of the election machine.
I think I have to take an exam or smth two and a half years in for the MA part. But I'm not sure everything about this is confusing, I'm just going to show up and think about literature and I'm sure it will work out.
Don't hate man :/ Yes, there is a lot of bullshit, but you will be surprised what you learn.
On September 04 2013 22:32 SoSexy wrote: So, in few months I'll have to start considering where to go for a PhD in Philosophy. Since my goal is to become a professor, I guess this is the only way to go. I'm not afraid of moving to other countries/cities, but I wonder if it is really important where do you get your PhD.
Is it 'bigger' if you get it in, let's say, Cambridge than Helsinki? Paris or Milan? I'm believing that it's more or less the same, then if you become a professor you can publish more important stuff and maybe more prestigious universities will ask you to come to teach. Do you know if that's how it works?
Rutgers University in New Jersey has an absolutely exception Philosophy program.
Just sayin'
That's been true for a decent while now, but lately they've been straight-up bleeding top philosophers with little in the way of equal replacement. My university is in the process of trying to poach yet another one from them. I'm starting to wonder if the department is getting funding cuts or something.
On September 05 2013 09:24 sam!zdat wrote: that's because political science is a bullshit field. You should know this because politics is obviously not science. Political science is where politics ends and we all become slaves of the election machine.
I think I have to take an exam or smth two and a half years in for the MA part. But I'm not sure everything about this is confusing, I'm just going to show up and think about literature and I'm sure it will work out.
...you are obviously not a political scientist. Academic political science does not even resemble talking heads on TV, or whatever you are basing your post off of.
political science is the study of how to run and manipulate a degenerate electoral system and manufacture the illusion of legitimacy. It is about how to calculate your chessboard so you can write off everyone who doesn't live in the one swing district you need. It is about how to make polls and pretend they are the voice of the people. I know exactly what 'political science' is.
On September 05 2013 09:24 sam!zdat wrote: that's because political science is a bullshit field. You should know this because politics is obviously not science. Political science is where politics ends and we all become slaves of the election machine.
I think I have to take an exam or smth two and a half years in for the MA part. But I'm not sure everything about this is confusing, I'm just going to show up and think about literature and I'm sure it will work out.
...you are obviously not a political scientist. Academic political science does not even resemble talking heads on TV, or whatever you are basing your post off of.
political science is the study of how to run and manipulate a degenerate electoral system and manufacture the illusion of legitimacy. It is about how to calculate your chessboard so you can write off everyone who doesn't live in the one swing district you need. It is about how to make polls and pretend they are the voice of the people. I know exactly what 'political science' is.
That is a very cynical way of looking at the role of modern liberal democracy. Yes, you can definitely learn all of that within political science and become one of our many awful politicians who manipulate, but if I were you, I would think of political science more as psychology. Yes, you can do horrible thinks like manipulating people when it comes to consumerism but we also have counselors as well.
Fukuyama has written some amazing pieces of work on politics ever since he dropped his neo-conservatism. I will not argue for him the way you do for Klein as much as I respect her, but his works have mostly been on the functions of bureaucracy and the origins of our current political order which I am sure you would agree is very important to learn if you are interested in politics unlike say military tactics in relation to politics.
Although I did notice that most political science professors I know are either liberals or conservatives/liberal conservatives (Burke) with some social democrats here and there but regardless, much of their ideas is worth studying for the sole reason of understanding politics and ideology better.
On September 05 2013 09:24 sam!zdat wrote: that's because political science is a bullshit field. You should know this because politics is obviously not science. Political science is where politics ends and we all become slaves of the election machine.
I think I have to take an exam or smth two and a half years in for the MA part. But I'm not sure everything about this is confusing, I'm just going to show up and think about literature and I'm sure it will work out.
...you are obviously not a political scientist. Academic political science does not even resemble talking heads on TV, or whatever you are basing your post off of.
political science is the study of how to run and manipulate a degenerate electoral system and manufacture the illusion of legitimacy. It is about how to calculate your chessboard so you can write off everyone who doesn't live in the one swing district you need. It is about how to make polls and pretend they are the voice of the people. I know exactly what 'political science' is.
That is a very cynical way of looking at the role of modern liberal democracy. Yes, you can definitely learn all of that within political science and become one of our many awful politicians who manipulate, but if I were you, I would think of political science more as psychology. Yes, you can do horrible thinks like manipulating people when it comes to consumerism but we also have counselors as well.
lol, that's where i am right now. i love manipulating people. i feel like little finger from game of thrones sometimes ^^
Just entering my 4th year getting my PhD in biostatistics at Harvard. Fucking love it. My advisor gives me a lot of freedom so I just write look into topics that interest me, make a contribution where I see fit (often this means developing methodology where it is needed and then implementing that methodology into a user-friendly software package), and then write a paper about it. You only need 3 publishable papers for your thesis, but I'm at 5 and counting. I just love this job. AND on top of it all they pay you to attend (for many PhD programs this is true). Dream come true. If you enjoy school and have a passion for a subject, consider getting a PhD.
On September 05 2013 00:46 Cascade wrote: To get a PhD position, you need something more concrete than work that you are impressed by yourself, or your own opinion that you know more physics than others. Anyone can say that (not saying you lie, just that it won't hold in an interview). You need some way of proving that you will do well in a PhD, such as good grades on at least a few of the high level courses, or a good recommendation letter from your masters supervisor, published papers in a decent journal, or something like that.
Thanks for the condescension, but the reason I'm proud of my work is that I believe it's objectively an important contribution to the discipline. You're damn right I'm determined to get it published. I consider it to be far more consequential than the average PhD work, which does nothing but slightly further the ideas of the supervisor and disappears into a drawer somewhere immediately after it is defended. (Condescension works both ways, you know.)
On September 05 2013 00:46 Cascade wrote:Problem is that there are too many lunatics around in theoretical physics, people that are convinced that they have found some brilliant solution that everyone else have overlooked. I got myself (and still get) frequent mails from people trying to push their brilliant (but surprisingly not published in a serious peer-reviewed paper...) ideas onto me. Only because my PhD gave me an email and small homepage on the theoretical physics webpage... With your background of working alone for a long time (as I understand), it is very important that you prove that you are not one of them. And to do that, you really need others in the field to review your work and pass their impression on to your potential PhD employer. Examples are the ones I mentioned above: grades on a course, recommendation letter, or decision to publish your work in a decent journal.
My reaction to this paragraph is that you've just committed the scientific analogue of the right-wing scaremongering about a council estate full of welfare queens with ten kids and a Porsche parked up the drive-way.
You wilfully conflate innocent emails by some enthusiast, asking whether such-and-such a wild speculation is borne out by academic physics, with a 50 page dissertation by some zealous crank about why general relativity is wrong. Why should someone be dismissed as a crank merely because of the fact (unavoidable from his point of view) that he isn't a paid-up member of the academic inner-circle? Shouldn't his work speak for itself? Isn't the precedent of Einstein, and the dozens of independent gentlemen scientists in the 19th century, enough to make you wary of tarring?
Cascade actually made some really good points and gave you helpful advice. Sorry, but physics is hard. You don't develop a revolutionary theory in your spare time. People work full time on this stuff, and still papers come out once a year from reputable groups. If you want funding, then you do need to get into graduate school. If your grades are bad, you have to convince the university that despite the bad grades, that you are a good investment. And you can do that by publishing the papers. Anyone can say "I'm smarter than all of those graduate students, my work is more important.", but you need a peer reviewed paper for anyone to believe it. Most graduate students in physics will tell you that they get emails from crack pots. I read them when I get them, I only say the guy is a crack pot when he tries to explain that entanglement allows faster than light communication, which is clearly wrong. So then, why should anyone believe that your great work on entangled systems (that no one has seen) is not just another random guy emailing the university? You have to convince them. You have to do stuff similar to what Cascade told you. He wasn't being condescending, he was being straight up and honest with you.
I'm getting a doctorate (Psy.D.) in Clinical Psychology and it's basically tied with blowjobs for the most rewarding thing I've experienced in my whole life.
On September 05 2013 00:46 Cascade wrote: To get a PhD position, you need something more concrete than work that you are impressed by yourself, or your own opinion that you know more physics than others. Anyone can say that (not saying you lie, just that it won't hold in an interview). You need some way of proving that you will do well in a PhD, such as good grades on at least a few of the high level courses, or a good recommendation letter from your masters supervisor, published papers in a decent journal, or something like that.
Thanks for the condescension, but the reason I'm proud of my work is that I believe it's objectively an important contribution to the discipline. You're damn right I'm determined to get it published. I consider it to be far more consequential than the average PhD work, which does nothing but slightly further the ideas of the supervisor and disappears into a drawer somewhere immediately after it is defended. (Condescension works both ways, you know.)
On September 05 2013 00:46 Cascade wrote:Problem is that there are too many lunatics around in theoretical physics, people that are convinced that they have found some brilliant solution that everyone else have overlooked. I got myself (and still get) frequent mails from people trying to push their brilliant (but surprisingly not published in a serious peer-reviewed paper...) ideas onto me. Only because my PhD gave me an email and small homepage on the theoretical physics webpage... With your background of working alone for a long time (as I understand), it is very important that you prove that you are not one of them. And to do that, you really need others in the field to review your work and pass their impression on to your potential PhD employer. Examples are the ones I mentioned above: grades on a course, recommendation letter, or decision to publish your work in a decent journal.
My reaction to this paragraph is that you've just committed the scientific analogue of the right-wing scaremongering about a council estate full of welfare queens with ten kids and a Porsche parked up the drive-way.
You wilfully conflate innocent emails by some enthusiast, asking whether such-and-such a wild speculation is borne out by academic physics, with a 50 page dissertation by some zealous crank about why general relativity is wrong. Why should someone be dismissed as a crank merely because of the fact (unavoidable from his point of view) that he isn't a paid-up member of the academic inner-circle? Shouldn't his work speak for itself? Isn't the precedent of Einstein, and the dozens of independent gentlemen scientists in the 19th century, enough to make you wary of tarring?
Cascade actually made some really good points and gave you helpful advice. Sorry, but physics is hard. You don't develop a revolutionary theory in your spare time. People work full time on this stuff, and still papers come out once a year from reputable groups. If you want funding, then you do need to get into graduate school. If your grades are bad, you have to convince the university that despite the bad grades, that you are a good investment. And you can do that by publishing the papers. Anyone can say "I'm smarter than all of those graduate students, my work is more important.", but you need a peer reviewed paper for anyone to believe it. Most graduate students in physics will tell you that they get emails from crack pots. I read them when I get them, I only say the guy is a crack pot when he tries to explain that entanglement allows faster than light communication, which is clearly wrong. So then, why should anyone believe that your great work on entangled systems (that no one has seen) is not just another random guy emailing the university? You have to convince them. You have to do stuff similar to what Cascade told you. He wasn't being condescending, he was being straight up and honest with you.
Yes, didn't mean to be condescending, sorry.
It actually goes for any job interview that you need others to say how good you are. It is not enough to vouch for your own skills, no matter how true it is, as anyone can do that. I have myself been subject to this problem for that matter.
On September 05 2013 09:24 sam!zdat wrote: that's because political science is a bullshit field. You should know this because politics is obviously not science. Political science is where politics ends and we all become slaves of the election machine.
I think I have to take an exam or smth two and a half years in for the MA part. But I'm not sure everything about this is confusing, I'm just going to show up and think about literature and I'm sure it will work out.
...you are obviously not a political scientist. Academic political science does not even resemble talking heads on TV, or whatever you are basing your post off of.
political science is the study of how to run and manipulate a degenerate electoral system and manufacture the illusion of legitimacy. It is about how to calculate your chessboard so you can write off everyone who doesn't live in the one swing district you need. It is about how to make polls and pretend they are the voice of the people. I know exactly what 'political science' is.
Political science isn't just about studying politics and democracy. It's also about how different areas of the state works from a more technical point of view. If a government wants to implement a reform on for example the labour market or the school system, there will probably be political science people working on the proposal and then evaluating it afterwards.
I haven't noticed someone directly give this advice yet in the recent part of the thread, so I might as well give it.
Unless you come from (a lot) of money, don't pay for a Ph.D, at least not if you're going to use it to try to be a professor. It simply isn't a reliable enough path to getting the kind of money that can pay off high levels of student debt. Good schools will pay you, guaranteeing funding for the official length of the program and de facto guaranteeing it for the extra years everyone takes.
On September 04 2013 22:32 SoSexy wrote: So, in few months I'll have to start considering where to go for a PhD in Philosophy. Since my goal is to become a professor, I guess this is the only way to go. I'm not afraid of moving to other countries/cities, but I wonder if it is really important where do you get your PhD.
Is it 'bigger' if you get it in, let's say, Cambridge than Helsinki? Paris or Milan? I'm believing that it's more or less the same, then if you become a professor you can publish more important stuff and maybe more prestigious universities will ask you to come to teach. Do you know if that's how it works?
Rutgers University in New Jersey has an absolutely exception Philosophy program.
Just sayin'
That's been true for a decent while now, but lately they've been straight-up bleeding top philosophers with little in the way of equal replacement. My university is in the process of trying to poach yet another one from them. I'm starting to wonder if the department is getting funding cuts or something.
On September 05 2013 00:46 Cascade wrote: To get a PhD position, you need something more concrete than work that you are impressed by yourself, or your own opinion that you know more physics than others. Anyone can say that (not saying you lie, just that it won't hold in an interview). You need some way of proving that you will do well in a PhD, such as good grades on at least a few of the high level courses, or a good recommendation letter from your masters supervisor, published papers in a decent journal, or something like that.
Thanks for the condescension, but the reason I'm proud of my work is that I believe it's objectively an important contribution to the discipline. You're damn right I'm determined to get it published. I consider it to be far more consequential than the average PhD work, which does nothing but slightly further the ideas of the supervisor and disappears into a drawer somewhere immediately after it is defended. (Condescension works both ways, you know.)
On September 05 2013 00:46 Cascade wrote:Problem is that there are too many lunatics around in theoretical physics, people that are convinced that they have found some brilliant solution that everyone else have overlooked. I got myself (and still get) frequent mails from people trying to push their brilliant (but surprisingly not published in a serious peer-reviewed paper...) ideas onto me. Only because my PhD gave me an email and small homepage on the theoretical physics webpage... With your background of working alone for a long time (as I understand), it is very important that you prove that you are not one of them. And to do that, you really need others in the field to review your work and pass their impression on to your potential PhD employer. Examples are the ones I mentioned above: grades on a course, recommendation letter, or decision to publish your work in a decent journal.
My reaction to this paragraph is that you've just committed the scientific analogue of the right-wing scaremongering about a council estate full of welfare queens with ten kids and a Porsche parked up the drive-way.
You wilfully conflate innocent emails by some enthusiast, asking whether such-and-such a wild speculation is borne out by academic physics, with a 50 page dissertation by some zealous crank about why general relativity is wrong. Why should someone be dismissed as a crank merely because of the fact (unavoidable from his point of view) that he isn't a paid-up member of the academic inner-circle? Shouldn't his work speak for itself? Isn't the precedent of Einstein, and the dozens of independent gentlemen scientists in the 19th century, enough to make you wary of tarring?
Cascade actually made some really good points and gave you helpful advice.
He did, yes. I apologized to him over PM and have told him that I appreciate his help.
On September 05 2013 13:53 convention wrote: Sorry, but physics is hard. You don't develop a revolutionary theory in your spare time.
That's what Einstein did.
On September 05 2013 13:53 convention wrote: If your grades are bad, you have to convince the university that despite the bad grades, that you are a good investment. And you can do that by publishing the papers. Anyone can say "I'm smarter than all of those graduate students, my work is more important.", but you need a peer reviewed paper for anyone to believe it.
Well, that's what I'm trying to do. It's not easy. It's pretty silly that achieving something intrinsically harder than a PhD (finding a project without the aid of a supervisor and getting a sole author paper published in a respectable journal) is my only path to a place on a PhD. But that's what I'm prepared to do and what I am doing. It's my own fault, in a way, for not being more disciplined when I was a student.
EPT
