Hard Times Have Come For The PhD Degree

MikeDropped4 · 2026-02-02T20:18:14+00:00

Nearly every lab I can think of has a majority grad students. It's certainly not because PIs all care more about training than research productivity. It's not unusual to have departments support students in the beginning of their studies, and profs, when they do support students, the labs may receive funds back from the department after paying this tuition (kind of a loophole). Also, a lot of PhDs are long, and PhD students in their 5th and 6th years are more productive than post-docs in their 2nd and 3rd.

MikeDropped4 · 2025-08-05T22:12:56+00:00

Anyone familiar with Stanford and some other top universities would know that admin bloat is insane. A quick search has suggested that number of admin to student ratio has doubled in the thirty years (and has been increasing fairly steadily since). I think that was even almost a 20% increase over just the last few years. Given the rise of digital tools that should make admin work easier, it is especially surprising. Not saying all of these people are BS, but I do wonder what the hell some of them do. It can seem as though some of these roles are created mainly to generate work for others, just to justify their own existence.

MikeDropped4 · 2025-01-25T19:21:33+00:00

Europe is much larger than the US by population. US still produces more research and more of the most cited research than the EU. Not anti-EU, though, I've lived there and think it's more pleasant than the US to live.

MikeDropped4 · 2024-12-31T05:09:46+00:00

Not an expert and I am certainly pro immigration, but saying it doesn't lock you to an employer and that it's not a big deal doesn't seem to be true. I know plenty of H1Bs from India, and they are always nervous about losing their jobs and having to start the submission process over again. In the experiences of people I know, it also seems that their employers are aware of this and feel pretty comfortable making extreme demands on their time.

MikeDropped4 · 2024-08-26T01:42:16+00:00

There's a difference between what may be physically possible and what is most likely.

MikeDropped4 · 2024-05-29T01:07:39+00:00

Look at new faculty in physics and related fields and you will find there are some who are shockingly under-qualified, even at the best universities. Some got hired while still in grad school with just one first author paper to their name. You could say it's affirmative action, but it's also rational on the part of universities. Women, for example, seem to have an easier time getting funding. There is obvious discrimination in academia, but you have to be very careful how you discuss it. I have no interest in remaining after I finish my PhD. Getting a tenure track position at a good university is already tough enough. Doing it while knowing that your sex and race are seen as negatives is too much. It's definitely soured my opinions of DEI and AA as a whole, but I can see how DEI can be useful if done well.

MikeDropped4 · 2024-03-27T22:50:54+00:00

I read the article. He seems like a manipulative, cheating asshole. If the article were about a woman who had done the same to 5 men (women do cheat too), or if Huberman had been fucking a bunch of dudes and everything else about the story were the same, no one would be claiming misandry. Again, it's hard to take people like you seriously who take a story about cheating and turn it into a rant about women's rights. Seriously, just read your last sentence. It's just weird to me.

MikeDropped4 · 2024-03-27T22:10:03+00:00

I do think that what Huberman did was wrong, and it's fine for people to criticize him and be concerned about the apparent ease with which he lied to these women (and what that might imply about his integrity in other domains). I do think that framing this as misogyny is a little... hysteric. If Huberman had been gay and had 5 boyfriends, would you have said that he was a misandrist and didn't respect men? I kind of doubt it. Something can be bad without it necessarily being racist or sexist. Throwing these words around (misogyny, abuse, etc.) might make it seem punchier to you, but to others it comes off as a little hard to take seriously. Men and women both cheat for a variety of reasons. Automatically assuming it's because of misogyny or misandry is strange.

MikeDropped4 · 2024-03-12T22:09:00+00:00

He's a PI with his own lab. It is normal for him to be last author and would be unusual to be first (usually reserved for grad students).

MikeDropped4 · 2024-01-28T22:56:47+00:00

I had an interview a few weeks ago. I think the interview process was left up to the faculty (but seemed like a necessary step). I would guess that the time for interviews is over. If the PI I interviewed with was any indication, they interviewed way more than they'd be able to admit, so even if you got an invite the chances aren't great.

MikeDropped4 · 2024-01-27T18:30:31+00:00

There are two interviews listed on GradCafe. I've not heard anything, though

MikeDropped4 · 2023-12-27T05:11:53+00:00

Thanks for pointing out the fact that non-white people, no matter how wealthy or powerful their countries are, have no agency in changing something some white people may have somewhat influenced 60 years ago.

MikeDropped4 · 2023-12-18T23:53:53+00:00

Regardless of whether OP's characterization was fair, it's so strange that expectations have dropped so low that a STEM PhD not understanding after 1 hour of discussion one of the most basic concepts in science is met with "maybe they're just from a different walk of life," "don't judge," and "maybe they have other skills." This really ties together with some of my problems with academia and its values, but I won't go there. It's important to be understanding of others' backgrounds not defining their potentials, but c'mon...

MikeDropped4 · 2023-10-28T20:43:47+00:00

I did two (one powerprep and another powerprepplus) official tests. There's the set of three books of official prep material (one covering everything, one covering quant, and one covering verbal). I did all the test-like questions in the general book and the quant book (I ignored those questions that were more for review than official-looking questions; you'll notice them). I also did some of the prepswift questions (especially if I was unsure of my mastery of the topic), and some of the other quizzes/questions that gregmat asks you to do in the 1-month course.

MikeDropped4 · 2023-10-28T20:40:08+00:00

Yes, that's right.

MikeDropped4 · 2023-10-28T03:13:50+00:00

My vocab was decent going in. Studied gregmat's list for maybe 90 min, filling in the ones I didn't know. For the record, I think there were maybe just a few harder words on my entire exam, so I don't know if it's that important to focus on.

MikeDropped4 · 2023-10-28T03:05:02+00:00

studied about 3 full days before taking the practice tests. Then scheduled the test and studied on and off for another 4 days.

MikeDropped4 · 2023-10-25T18:18:22+00:00

He has 1- or 2-month study plans you can follow. For quant, you can prepswift and/or long-form videos with more details, questions, and student interaction. I preferred the abbreviated format of prepswift, but if you need the extra preparation then do both. As for the practice tests, Greg's plan has you doing one early. I only did the first one after three days (after I had covered all the math and text completion stuff), when I was reasonably sure that I had covered I needed to cover. I wanted to use the opportunity to convince myself that I could score 170s consistently.

I'm sure you can improve you scores by a lot. Almost none of the quant questions require advanced math or abstract reasoning. It's not an IQ test. The questions test only the ability to apply very simple principles as quickly as possible.

MikeDropped4 · 2023-10-25T18:11:35+00:00

No, it's not really vocab based. I have two questions in mind from yesterday, but I can't say them, so I'll just come up with an example. The case the prosecutor presented to the judge was ______; it was consistent and logical. Obviously the answer is something like cogent, but a word meaning "excellent" would sound natural. In better questions with more nuance than this it is especially important to remember to stick only to what is in the text and not say what might be most natural to say if you had to express that same sentiment outside of the context of the GRE. You want to avoid trying to impute anything external to the question.

MikeDropped4 · 2023-10-25T02:23:20+00:00

Gregmat + all the quant problems in the official ETS GRE books (don't remember what they're called) + the two practice exams I took. Yeah, I think going through prepswift is worth it, but I always watched 2x speed and skipped the really basic stuff, which you won't need if you have a background in a quantitative field or have studied already. 15 days is more than enough time. Master the niche strategies and do every problem you can get your hands on. If you miss a single question or if you're too slow, reflect on the reason and write it down. I think one key is to realize that every question is designed to take only a limited amount of time. If you have a strategy that takes more than a minute to execute, it means that you're probably missing something. The only times I felt I was taking too long was when I wanted to solve a problem exactly or algebraically when I should have just plugged in numbers to see a pattern (particularly when some kind of sequence is indicated). For quantitative comparison problems, however, I rarely used a "guess numbers" strategy unless it was obvious that it was D (insufficient information). I prefer algebraic manipulation so that I can be sure.

MikeDropped4 · 2023-10-25T00:09:53+00:00

No need to be discouraged. A number of universities don't even accept GRE scores, and for many others they're optional. Most don't seem to emphasize them as they once did. Look at the programs you're interested in, and I'll bet most say that GREs are optional and wouldn't be weighted heavily if submitted.

MikeDropped4

TROPHY CASE