As far as I can tell you identify two options: 1) continue doing the PhD you don’t really enjoy 2) get a job you won’t really enjoy.
Surely you have more options!
3) You can just do a PhD in theoretical computer vision at a different university.
4) You can work 2 days a week at a company and do your research at home for the remaining 4 days
5) Become unemployed and focus on your research full time
6) Save some money and then move to Asia, South America or any other place with very low cost of living so you can do a few years of research full time.
7) Join a startup company that is doing groundbreaking computer vision work
8) See if there is something else that you can be passionate about and do that.
Life’s too short to do something you don’t enjoy and you’re now at a point in your life where the decisions you make are going to have real consequences. So do some soul searching and figure out what you really want and then figure out what you have to do to make it happen. That’s life 101.
When you’re spending the majority of your time doing something you don’t really enjoy you have a big problem. This is the only life you have and it’s easy to waste it 5 years at the time! Maybe your true dream is to work on the next Pixar movie, or to design special effects for the next CGI blockbuster! But if you aren’t going to explore your options seriously you’re not going to find out what you really want to do in life. If, on the other hand, you’re absolutely sure you want to do theoretical computer vision research, then JUST DO THAT. There are thousands of universities with good computer vision departments. So unless you got a 1000 rejection letters on your desk you haven’t even seriously explored your options yet.
(PS: Forget about doing research in the evenings after you get home from a day job. It doesn’t work. Many people do this and then they figure out that after a full day’s work you don’t have the energy anymore to do really difficult stuff. Your lifestyle will change and you’ll grow dependent on your job. Then as you get older you’ll look back and call it a “silly dream” and wisely observe that you have to make compromises in life and that your ability to compromise on what you want makes you a responsible adult.)
(PPS: I’m trying to convey that being unhappy with your job should trigger “hair on fire” like panic.)
I have already transferred schools once, moving because there were no advisers in my area at school #1 (the one I had planned to work with became emeritus right as I joined). I like the school I am at now a lot more than I like computer vision. In fact, my main issue with my current situation is that it appears that no one can do fundamental research in computer vision: all of the major conferences require you to pander to shorter term commercial applications if you want to publish and I’d rather move to a new field than jump through those hoops.
I don’t consider options 4, 5, 6, or 7 to be remotely realistic for me. I can’t think of an Asian or South American countries to where I would be happy with the governments or the long distance from family and friends if I were to live there semi-permanently. Those considerations are at least as important to me as job considerations. I don’t consider unemployment or extreme part-time work an option because I have other life goals, like traveling, home ownership, etc., that I want to financially support in addition to whatever career path I choose.
I appreciate your suggestions, but I have really thought about this a considerable amount. The post that I linked above has some more details about what thinking I have already done. I would really appreciate more targeted advice if you are interested. Given the climate for faculty jobs, what is the best way to try to achieve one? What are ways to do theoretical work / teaching at a university level for a living that are non-traditional?
When you say “I have really thought about this a considerable amount”, I hear “I have diagnosed the problem quite a while ago and it’s creating a pit in my stomach but I haven’t taken any action yet”. I can’t give you any points for that.
When you’re dealing with a difficult problem and if you’re an introspective person it’s easy to get stuck in a loop where you keep going through the same sorts of thoughts. You realize you’re not making much progress but the problem remains so you feel obligated to think about it some more. You should think more, right? It’s an important decision after all?
Nope. Thinking about the problem is not a terminal goal. Thinking is only useful insofar it leads to action. And if your thinking to action ratio is bad, you’ll get mentally exhausted and you’ll have nothing to show for it. It leads to paralysis where all you do is think and think and think.
If you want to make progress you have to find a way to decompose your problem into actionable parts. Not only will action make you feel better, it’s also going to lead to unexplored territory.
So what kind of actions can you take?
Well, your claim is that major conferences require short term commercial papers. So if you go systematically through the papers published in the last year or so you’ll find either (a) all the papers are boring, stupid, silly or wrong. (b) there are a bunch of really cool papers in there. In case of (a) maybe you’re in the wrong field of research. Maybe you should go into algorithms or formal semantics. In this case look at other computer science papers until you find papers that do excite you. In case of (b) contact the authors of the papers; check out their departments; etc, etc.
To recap: Find interesting papers. Find departments where those interesting papers were written. Contact those departments.
Another strategy. Go to the department library and browse through random books that catch your eye. This is guaranteed to give you inspiration.
This is just from the top of my head. But whatever you do, make sure that you don’t just get stuck in a circle of self-destructive thought. Action is key.
If you’re certain you want to eventually get a faculty job, do a combination of teaching and research, own a house and regularly go on holiday, then I can’t think of any alternatives to the conventional PhD → faculty route. What’s the best way to achieve a faculty job? I don’t know. Probably a combination of networking, people skills and doing great research. If you want a faculty job badly enough you can get one. But once you get it there’s no guarantee you’re going to be happy if what you really want is complete autonomy.
I’m sorry I can’t give any targeted advice.
(PS: some people like the idea of travel more than they like travel and some people like the idea of home-ownership more than they like home-ownership. For instance, if you haven’t traveled a lot in the past 5 years you probably don’t find travel all that important (otherwise you would’ve found a way to travel).)
If you want a faculty job badly enough you can get one.
I disagree. I think much of the evidence about the rise of post-docs as principal investigators and the diminishing number of tenured positions is at odds with this claim. This claim is essentially why most students go to a Ph.D. program and they become depressed when they learn it doesn’t work like this about 3 years into the process.
For instance, if you haven’t traveled a lot in the past 5 years you probably don’t find travel all that important (otherwise you would’ve found a way to travel).
In the last 5 years, I’ve taken low-paying math research jobs several summers so that I could live in Paris, Hong Kong, and College Station, TX, just to experience parts of the world I had not been to. I’ve moved (at great personal expense) 3 times in the past 4 years to get out of life situations that I found unsatisfactory. I think that my thinking-to-action ratio is not bad.
You seem to dismiss the possibility that there can be real life Catch-22s. Given my preferences, I think I am in a Catch-22 and I cannot determine an actionable step. Some of my favorite life advice came from a high school math teacher who said “when you don’t know what to do, do something.” I think I am more insightful than just to wallow in akrasia.
So if you go systematically through the papers published in the last year or so you’ll find either (a) all the papers are boring, stupid, silly or wrong.
Yes, this is exactly what I have been doing for the past 2 years. But when I have discussed the option to switch to other research fields with faculty and older graduate students, they are telling me that the condition (a) is going to be true in every research field where there is actually enough grant money to finance my studentship, and that (a) is just a part of life in science and that I should be more focused on just doing programming tasks and coming up with small software developments that cater to commercial interests, leading to papers that fit into condition (a). I completely reject their point of view; I think they are wrong, and I think that if academia is set up this way, then my options are to leave academia for jobs that I think are very suboptimal or else agree to unhappily suffer through the academic hoop-jumping that I don’t like.
Given that these are my only options, I am trying to prepare myself to choose one or the other. But the biggest opportunity cost that I feel scared about is losing the chance for theoretical research and philosophical aspects of science to be a major component of the value that I contribute over my career.
Yes, there are a lot of constraints. They aren’t all hard constraints, but that’s life. I’m not going to put all my eggs into one basket, but I think I would be about as significantly unhappy if I can’t resolve career issues as if I can’t live within a 4-hour plane ride radius from my family.
Regarding the part-time job thing: it would be pretty hard to sustain myself financially that way. Like I said, I have additional goals like saving money for retirement/home ownership. I don’t see this as being orthogonal to doing a career I derive personal meaning from at all: being able to do this is a standard byproduct from most careers at the earnings levels that my master’s degree would provide. How do I pinpoint the subset of those careers that also satisfy the constraint that they pay me money to do mathematical research?
6) Save some money and then move to Asia, South America or any other place with very low cost of living so you can do a few years of research full time.
I am fascinated by this idea in principle, but do you know anyone who has actually done it? I fear there are many nonobvious details that would derail the plan. Maybe we should create an LW outpost in Saigon or Bangalore or some other inexpensive place, since there are many people here who are excited about the idea of living inexpensively to free up more time for Big Thinking.
I know several people who moved to Asia to work on their internet startup. I know somebody who went to Asia for a few months to rewrite the manuscript of a book. In both cases the change of scenery (for inspiration) and low cost of living made it very compelling. Not quite the same as Big Thinking, but it’s close.
And by the way, I, um, have a friend in the position you’ve described in your reply there. What’s the general template for, um, him, to get out of that situation?
4) You can work 2 days a week at a company and do your research at home for the remaining 4 days
You could start freelancing(there are sites like http://www.vworker.com) and work as much as you want/need to live comfortably. If you have a lot of knowledge you can make good money consulting. I think you can make enough for a living if you work at most 30 hours per week(this would be 3 days x 10 hours). That gives you another 4 days of free time per week to focus on whatever you want to do.
As far as I can tell you identify two options: 1) continue doing the PhD you don’t really enjoy 2) get a job you won’t really enjoy.
Surely you have more options!
3) You can just do a PhD in theoretical computer vision at a different university.
4) You can work 2 days a week at a company and do your research at home for the remaining 4 days
5) Become unemployed and focus on your research full time
6) Save some money and then move to Asia, South America or any other place with very low cost of living so you can do a few years of research full time.
7) Join a startup company that is doing groundbreaking computer vision work
8) See if there is something else that you can be passionate about and do that.
Life’s too short to do something you don’t enjoy and you’re now at a point in your life where the decisions you make are going to have real consequences. So do some soul searching and figure out what you really want and then figure out what you have to do to make it happen. That’s life 101.
When you’re spending the majority of your time doing something you don’t really enjoy you have a big problem. This is the only life you have and it’s easy to waste it 5 years at the time! Maybe your true dream is to work on the next Pixar movie, or to design special effects for the next CGI blockbuster! But if you aren’t going to explore your options seriously you’re not going to find out what you really want to do in life. If, on the other hand, you’re absolutely sure you want to do theoretical computer vision research, then JUST DO THAT. There are thousands of universities with good computer vision departments. So unless you got a 1000 rejection letters on your desk you haven’t even seriously explored your options yet.
(PS: Forget about doing research in the evenings after you get home from a day job. It doesn’t work. Many people do this and then they figure out that after a full day’s work you don’t have the energy anymore to do really difficult stuff. Your lifestyle will change and you’ll grow dependent on your job. Then as you get older you’ll look back and call it a “silly dream” and wisely observe that you have to make compromises in life and that your ability to compromise on what you want makes you a responsible adult.)
(PPS: I’m trying to convey that being unhappy with your job should trigger “hair on fire” like panic.)
I have already transferred schools once, moving because there were no advisers in my area at school #1 (the one I had planned to work with became emeritus right as I joined). I like the school I am at now a lot more than I like computer vision. In fact, my main issue with my current situation is that it appears that no one can do fundamental research in computer vision: all of the major conferences require you to pander to shorter term commercial applications if you want to publish and I’d rather move to a new field than jump through those hoops.
I don’t consider options 4, 5, 6, or 7 to be remotely realistic for me. I can’t think of an Asian or South American countries to where I would be happy with the governments or the long distance from family and friends if I were to live there semi-permanently. Those considerations are at least as important to me as job considerations. I don’t consider unemployment or extreme part-time work an option because I have other life goals, like traveling, home ownership, etc., that I want to financially support in addition to whatever career path I choose.
I appreciate your suggestions, but I have really thought about this a considerable amount. The post that I linked above has some more details about what thinking I have already done. I would really appreciate more targeted advice if you are interested. Given the climate for faculty jobs, what is the best way to try to achieve one? What are ways to do theoretical work / teaching at a university level for a living that are non-traditional?
When you say “I have really thought about this a considerable amount”, I hear “I have diagnosed the problem quite a while ago and it’s creating a pit in my stomach but I haven’t taken any action yet”. I can’t give you any points for that.
When you’re dealing with a difficult problem and if you’re an introspective person it’s easy to get stuck in a loop where you keep going through the same sorts of thoughts. You realize you’re not making much progress but the problem remains so you feel obligated to think about it some more. You should think more, right? It’s an important decision after all?
Nope. Thinking about the problem is not a terminal goal. Thinking is only useful insofar it leads to action. And if your thinking to action ratio is bad, you’ll get mentally exhausted and you’ll have nothing to show for it. It leads to paralysis where all you do is think and think and think.
If you want to make progress you have to find a way to decompose your problem into actionable parts. Not only will action make you feel better, it’s also going to lead to unexplored territory.
So what kind of actions can you take?
Well, your claim is that major conferences require short term commercial papers. So if you go systematically through the papers published in the last year or so you’ll find either (a) all the papers are boring, stupid, silly or wrong. (b) there are a bunch of really cool papers in there. In case of (a) maybe you’re in the wrong field of research. Maybe you should go into algorithms or formal semantics. In this case look at other computer science papers until you find papers that do excite you. In case of (b) contact the authors of the papers; check out their departments; etc, etc.
To recap: Find interesting papers. Find departments where those interesting papers were written. Contact those departments.
Another strategy. Go to the department library and browse through random books that catch your eye. This is guaranteed to give you inspiration.
This is just from the top of my head. But whatever you do, make sure that you don’t just get stuck in a circle of self-destructive thought. Action is key.
If you’re certain you want to eventually get a faculty job, do a combination of teaching and research, own a house and regularly go on holiday, then I can’t think of any alternatives to the conventional PhD → faculty route. What’s the best way to achieve a faculty job? I don’t know. Probably a combination of networking, people skills and doing great research. If you want a faculty job badly enough you can get one. But once you get it there’s no guarantee you’re going to be happy if what you really want is complete autonomy.
I’m sorry I can’t give any targeted advice.
(PS: some people like the idea of travel more than they like travel and some people like the idea of home-ownership more than they like home-ownership. For instance, if you haven’t traveled a lot in the past 5 years you probably don’t find travel all that important (otherwise you would’ve found a way to travel).)
I disagree. I think much of the evidence about the rise of post-docs as principal investigators and the diminishing number of tenured positions is at odds with this claim. This claim is essentially why most students go to a Ph.D. program and they become depressed when they learn it doesn’t work like this about 3 years into the process.
In the last 5 years, I’ve taken low-paying math research jobs several summers so that I could live in Paris, Hong Kong, and College Station, TX, just to experience parts of the world I had not been to. I’ve moved (at great personal expense) 3 times in the past 4 years to get out of life situations that I found unsatisfactory. I think that my thinking-to-action ratio is not bad.
You seem to dismiss the possibility that there can be real life Catch-22s. Given my preferences, I think I am in a Catch-22 and I cannot determine an actionable step. Some of my favorite life advice came from a high school math teacher who said “when you don’t know what to do, do something.” I think I am more insightful than just to wallow in akrasia.
Yes, this is exactly what I have been doing for the past 2 years. But when I have discussed the option to switch to other research fields with faculty and older graduate students, they are telling me that the condition (a) is going to be true in every research field where there is actually enough grant money to finance my studentship, and that (a) is just a part of life in science and that I should be more focused on just doing programming tasks and coming up with small software developments that cater to commercial interests, leading to papers that fit into condition (a). I completely reject their point of view; I think they are wrong, and I think that if academia is set up this way, then my options are to leave academia for jobs that I think are very suboptimal or else agree to unhappily suffer through the academic hoop-jumping that I don’t like.
Given that these are my only options, I am trying to prepare myself to choose one or the other. But the biggest opportunity cost that I feel scared about is losing the chance for theoretical research and philosophical aspects of science to be a major component of the value that I contribute over my career.
It seems you have added a lot of constraints to your problem, consider that you can add only so many until it becomes impossible to solve.
I don’t get what is so bad about the part-time job if you wrote that:
So you aren’t making much at the university either are you?
Yes, there are a lot of constraints. They aren’t all hard constraints, but that’s life. I’m not going to put all my eggs into one basket, but I think I would be about as significantly unhappy if I can’t resolve career issues as if I can’t live within a 4-hour plane ride radius from my family.
Regarding the part-time job thing: it would be pretty hard to sustain myself financially that way. Like I said, I have additional goals like saving money for retirement/home ownership. I don’t see this as being orthogonal to doing a career I derive personal meaning from at all: being able to do this is a standard byproduct from most careers at the earnings levels that my master’s degree would provide. How do I pinpoint the subset of those careers that also satisfy the constraint that they pay me money to do mathematical research?
Are your computer vision skills transferable to other fields that you can do your preferred type of research in at your current university?
Are there related fields that you think you would be interested in, and would be willing to branch out into?
I am fascinated by this idea in principle, but do you know anyone who has actually done it? I fear there are many nonobvious details that would derail the plan. Maybe we should create an LW outpost in Saigon or Bangalore or some other inexpensive place, since there are many people here who are excited about the idea of living inexpensively to free up more time for Big Thinking.
I know several people who moved to Asia to work on their internet startup. I know somebody who went to Asia for a few months to rewrite the manuscript of a book. In both cases the change of scenery (for inspiration) and low cost of living made it very compelling. Not quite the same as Big Thinking, but it’s close.
.
I’m flattered, but I’m only occasionally coherent.
No, I concur with GabrielDuquette.
And by the way, I, um, have a friend in the position you’ve described in your reply there. What’s the general template for, um, him, to get out of that situation?
“You must concentrate upon and consecrate yourself wholly to each day, as though a fire were raging in your hair.”—Taisen Deshimaru
Useful in other contexts, but not when the problem is choosing direction in your life over a longer term than one day.
Great answer!
I want to emphasize the following:
You could start freelancing(there are sites like http://www.vworker.com) and work as much as you want/need to live comfortably. If you have a lot of knowledge you can make good money consulting. I think you can make enough for a living if you work at most 30 hours per week(this would be 3 days x 10 hours). That gives you another 4 days of free time per week to focus on whatever you want to do.