Is Doing a PhD a waste of time?

This article showed up in the Economist a while ago (December, 2010) but I got to reading it only now. I am currently in what can be described as 'evangelical zeal to read magazines' that have been piling up.

While this article -- The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time -- might be late in coming, it's still an interesting read in the manner of the perfect 20/20 vision of hindsight.

One thing many PhD students have in common is dissatisfaction. Some describe their work as “slave labour”. Seven-day weeks, ten-hour days, low pay and uncertain prospects are widespread. You know you are a graduate student, goes one quip, when your office is better decorated than your home and you have a favourite flavour of instant noodle....Whining PhD students are nothing new, but there seem to be genuine problems with the system that produces research doctorates (the practical “professional doctorates” in fields such as law, business and medicine have a more obvious value). There is an oversupply of PhDs. Although a doctorate is designed as training for a job in academia, the number of PhD positions is unrelated to the number of job openings. Meanwhile, business leaders complain about shortages of high-level skills, suggesting PhDs are not teaching the right things. The fiercest critics compare research doctorates to Ponzi or pyramid schemes.

It's true that it takes a number of years, and perhaps your best ones. I sometimes felt that I spent all my youth in school. Of course I was much better off than students in anthropology and physics who on average take 7-10 years. As a PhD who is no longer working in academia, and for the record most of my friends who finished one are not working in academia either, I have never regretted for a moment taking/or wasting years finishing the degree. I enjoyed doing it and I had many rich experiences that were totally unconnected with academics, which I would never have enjoyed if I had a regular 9-5 job.

Academics tend to regard asking whether a PhD is worthwhile as analogous to wondering whether there is too much art or culture in the world. They believe that knowledge spills from universities into society, making it more productive and healthier. That may well be true; but doing a PhD may still be a bad choice for an individual.

Now being done, I have not suffered greatly either. I admit that it may not reflect the experience of every PhD as it is in a 'somewhat useful' and currently 'somewhat hot' field of biomedical engineering. It may not make sense for everyone to do one. And as the article points out, everyone does not have the right motivation or reasons for doing one.

Many students say they are pursuing their subject out of love, and that education is an end in itself. Some give little thought to where the qualification might lead. In one study of British PhD graduates, about a third admitted that they were doing their doctorate partly to go on being a student, or put off job hunting. Nearly half of engineering students admitted to this. Scientists can easily get stipends, and therefore drift into doing a PhD. But there are penalties, as well as benefits, to staying at university. Workers with “surplus schooling”—more education than a job requires—are likely to be less satisfied, less productive and more likely to say they are going to leave their jobs

As the article points out there are about 100,000 PhDs minted each year and only about 16,000 new academic positions. People have to find work elsewhere, or may choose to find work elsewhere. The central assumption of the article that the PhD should lead to a academic job is not entirely correct. There are lots of well-paying, and often better-paying jobs in industry, non-profits, think-tanks, government, and startups. The article states that only 57% of the student actually finish a PhD casting some doubt on the enterprise. People quit for various reasons and I think that for many it might be the right decision. As in most things in life, the training and experience can always come handy later. I do agree that it's best to quit early. I am not quite sure if you can treat it as a 'sunk cost' if you quit in the 6th year of your program.

I do agree that there is an oversupply and universities should practice, as the article calls it, more voluntary birth-control. In addition there should be more training for PhDs who will be looking for non-academic jobs and developing soft-skills given that 90% of the people will not pursue jobs in academia.

Many of those who embark on a PhD are the smartest in their class and will have been the best at everything they have done. They will have amassed awards and prizes. As this year’s new crop of graduate students bounce into their research, few will be willing to accept that the system they are entering could be designed for the benefit of others, that even hard work and brilliance may well not be enough to succeed, and that they would be better off doing something else. They might use their research skills to look harder at the lot of the disposable academic. Someone should write a thesis about that.

Perfection

Il semble que la perfection soit atteinte non quand il n'y a plus rien à ajouter, mais quand il n'y a plus rien à retrancher.

It seems that perfection is attained not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to remove.

Antoine de Saint Exupery
Wind, Sand and Stars (1939)

Got education? more likely to marry

From the Economist:

Data from the Census Bureau (US) show that married couples, for the first time, now make up less than half (45%) of all households.

This may seem to be bad news, but on the good news front the divorce rate has gone down with lesser marriages. This seems to imply that those who marry these days tend to stay married, or in other words, it is weeding out weak marriages.

There is more to the story, as it seems that marriage is now a privilege of the educated.

There barely was a marriage gap in 1960: only four percentage points separated the wedded ways of college and high-school graduates (76% versus 72%). The gap has since widened to 16 percentage points, according to the Pew Research Centre.

The article quotes that those without a college degree earn less and prefer to raise children out of wedlock as they cannot 'afford marriage'. I find that hard to explain. In the state of Michigan, you could walk over to the courthouse, fill out a few forms and get married for less than $30. You would probably pay more for a meal for two in the City of Ann Arbor than for getting married in court. It is perhaps understood that if that educated are more likely to get married, then they are older as well.

And as for the children born out of wedlock, the disparity is immense:

Only 6% of children born to college-educated mothers were born outside marriage, according to the National Marriage Project. That compares with 44% of babies born to mothers whose education ended with high school.

The article did not comment if those children born were out of choice. Another interesting question is: Are children better off, or rather, no worse-off in single-parent (more like single mothers) families? If there is a significant difference then the huge disparity between kids born to educated, well-off two-parent families vs. lower-educated, poorer single mother families can only get amplified in the decades to come.

Words: Misread and misheard

Over the weekend as I was transferring the clothes from the washer I noticed this scribbled on a piece of paper:

ANGER NOT WORKING, BEING FIXED. TX!

I was struck by the profundity of the message and chuckled at the absurdity of finding something like this in the laundry room. Sometimes life is like that - you never know what you find. Everybody's anger needs fixing. I am glad that the person who wrote that note at least acknowledged it. It drew a much bigger laugh a few minutes later when the reality of the message struck me.

The New Yorker (May 23, 2011) informed me about the 'karma chain' that was set in motion by Lama Pema in New York a month ago. It was an interesting experiment: Lama Pema played a version of 'Chinese Whispers' (called 'Telephone' in the U.S.). The idea was that Lama Pema at the start of the chain of 300+ people would recite three sutras that would be passed from person to person with the author Salman Rushdie at the very end of the chain to receive the final message. The Lama wanted to test the proposition "information can extremely volatile when words pass from person to person". The sutras that he read out (using his iPhone!) to person #1 in line were:

1) Like a shimmering star, or a flickering lamp
2) A fleeting autumn cloud, or a shining drop of morning dew
3) A phantom, a dream, or a bubble, so is all the existence to be seen

Even by the 20th person the messages were largely mangled from the original. Finally at the end, Salman Rushdie read out the final messages

1) Follow the glass stone. Follow the glass stone
2) The droid from hell
3) If anything exists it changes

These were 100% wrong as the Lama said. He said that not a single word that Rushdie read was the same, but in the end 'the words were not my message'. Accidentally and miraculously the listeners had listened to the gist of the message and then had collectively "put words to it". I am not sure I agree 100% with the Lama (considering #2), but it was an interesting exercise.

The scribbled message in my laundry room that sounded profound actually wasn't. It was more mundane and functional than spiritual and insightful than I had imagined. Because of the loopy 'Y' and the hastily scribbled cursive capital 'D', I had misread the first word: it was 'D-R-Y-E-R', not 'A-N-G-E-R'. Clarity had been restored, or not? My original misreading had actually lead to a moment of clarity. Everybody's anger needs fixing. It was a happy misreading.

French Open Final 2011: Final thoughts on Nadal v Federer

So, in the end there are again the same two men in the final. The aesthetically most pleasing player versus the mentally and physically toughest.

Nadal has dominated the French Open (losing only once ever to Robin Soderling), but tomorrow Federer seems to be clearly the sentimental favorite after his heroics in the semi-final. To win tomorrow would be a near-miracle, but it's sure going to be entertaining tennis. I find it bothersome that commentators always about this shot or that, eg, if Nadal's bouncing forehand is going to make a difference. In actuality, it's mostly mental.

Nadal is much tougher mentally than Federer, and perhaps more than any man in the sport today. Nadal has intense focus, is tough to break, is getting to be a better server and his shot selection is impeccable. Federer might have somewhat of a chance on a faster court like the US Open or Australia, but on the red clay Nadal reigns supreme. I have intense respect for his game and his iron-will.

Federer has nothing to more to prove. Is it necessary that he defeat Nadal on the French clay once? Those writing his obituary sound like the fools they always were. He is still just as good if not better. He beat the most in-form man in tennis in a classic display where he out-served, out-played and out-thought Novak Djokovic. True he did not convert all those break-point opportunities and to win tomorrow, or put up some fight he will have to change that. Nadal seems impossible to break (Murray had a few looks, but couldn't make anything out of it). We all want to see somewhat of a contest. For that Federer should serve razor-sharp as he did against Djokovic, and not extend points. He can cover court, but nothing like Nadal, so he needs to hold serve and break Nadal once in a while. If he does go for his shots, taking chances Nadal might be seeing something different tomorrow.

Prediction: Federer needs to win the first two sets to have some chance of winning. If he does win he will do it four sets. Most likely Nadal will take the first set after which will be somewhat close in the second and then he will finish it in 3 sets.

Regardless, who wins tomorrow in Paris, it has been a joy to watch these finals between the two men (I missed the first two French finals). If one had to design two players with contrasting styles they couldn't have come up with something better than we have on hand here. I wish could've been there to watch it live. Looks like there might be one more such final between the finest I've seen.

It may be disputed if Mr. Federer and Mr. Nadal were the best tennis players of all time and if their rivalry was tennis's finest moment, but it beyond dispute that they were the most gracious tennis champions. Most gracious to each other, to the crowd and to the fine sport itself.

Materialism v. Innovative Consumption

Many years ago, T.M., a grad school colleague of mine introduced me to the term 'American consumer-whore-ism'. His exact words were, "This is America, man! Land of the consumer whores". As I understood he meant materialism which is a universal, but it is at its worst (or at its best) in America. And materialism is always bad, right? In almost every urban society from New York to Mumbai, it's hard to get away from consumptive activities, and the trend is towards even more conspicuous consumption. The hypocrisy of tree-huggers (myself included) is obvious -- I punch in the text to this blog on my MacBook. We consume more gadgets and technology every year. James Surowiecki's column in New Yorker offered a different perspective on consumerism: it stimulates innovation. Despite other many other faults American consumer whore-ism is somewhat responsible for innovation and the resulting increases in productivity.

From the New Yorker, May 16th Innovative Consumption by James Surowiecki

From a business perspective, the willingness of consumers to take risks means that new technologies can see profit faster here than they can elsewhere. That encourages inventors to invent, and investors to pour money into startups. (It’s no coincidence that the modern venture-capital industry got its start here.) And the speed with which successful products are taken up also allows companies to benefit from economies of scale sooner, bringing prices down and making it easier to reach even more customers. But it isn’t just a matter of speed. Venturesome consumers also provide companies with feedback that helps improve products, and often even repurpose them, in ways their inventors hadn’t imagined. In the process, the value of the innovations themselves increases. In that sense, our culture of innovation depends on consumers as much as on entrepreneurs

The thin line between consuming to spur innovation and being a consumer whore seems to be a fine one. But what is it? I need to think about this more.

Aside: The May 16th issue of the New Yorker is by far the best issue of the year. Among interesting topics it talks about Pepsi rebranding as a nutrition company, Pakistan and it's hobgoblin enemy India and its masterful manipulation of American aid, and Gladwell on XEROX's PARC. Great fiction by Michael Ondaatje. This also tells you I am little behind in my New Yorker reading.

Now I am One and Thirty

Now I am One and Thirty, so what would A.E. Housman say? Not that it's particularly relevant currently, but it was on my mind today. The old trope remains true - older and wiser. Plenty of sighs and rue.

When I was one-and-twenty...

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
'Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free.'
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
'The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
'Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue.'
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.
- A. E. Housman (1859-1936)

Similar dark humor on loving and leaving was the theme on Poet's.org, my daily fix of poetry. For the record today's birthday poem on Poet's.org

Traveling Light

I'm only leaving you
for a handful of days,
but it feels as though
I'll be gone forever—
the way the door closes

behind me with such solidity,

....

our lives have minds
of their own.
- Linda Pastan

Full text of Traveling Light on Poets.org

Miksang- The Good Eye within

Red on Blue

Over the weekend I was at a Miksang photo workshop in one of my favorite cities - Chicago. The workshop called for digital camera. It could be simple, but it had to be digital. So I had to break my moratorium on digital photography and leave my beloved Leica and B/W photo-love behind. Since, Miksang - meaning 'good eye' in Tibetan promised to be purest of the pure in the digital world - no cropping, no digital alteration, and you aren't even supposed to real seek the picture. I felt that this was a worth exception (similar in some high-minded exceptions I make to eat meat).

Opening your eye

From What is Miksang?

Miksang, at its most basic level, is concerned with uncovering the truth of pure perception. We see something vivid and penetrating, and in that moment we can express our perception without making anything up—nothing added, nothing missing. Totally honest about what we see—straight shooting.

*

Haiku with a leaf

This being Level 1 the images are simple. The teacher gave a great analogy: "it's like practising your scales". So, for the two days, I put image-making and even image-seeking behind to make picture of pure perception, at least as best as I could.

The assignments were Color, Texture, Shadow and Light, Space and Dots in Space. Having never ever tried such pictures before it was an exhilarating and very meditative experience. I can see why it can be contemplative, as every tiny object, or mundane one gets imbued with beauty.

Curves in White

After a while you can't stop noticing. The world around you is so alive and rich with color, texture, and space. We shot for only about 1.5 hours, but I was exhausted. It was also interesting to see what others had shot in the same space and there were a few, but not too many similar pictures. Everyone had their own unique sense of beauty.


Link to my Miksang-Level 1 pictures

Against Foxholes

A friend K.S. posted on her Google chat status

There are no atheists in fox holes.

I always thought that there was something inherently wrong in that statement. Glad that the inimitable Kurt Vonnegut Jr. came to the rescue. It's not so much about atheism or theism, but mainly about foxholes.

People say there are no atheists in foxholes. A lot of people think this is a good argument against atheism. Personally, I think it's a much better argument against foxholes.
— Kurt Vonnegut

Saadi

There is always a debate as to which is the language that is most suited for poetry. It is easily argued that French and Italian lend themselves most to writing poems easily since they are abundant with vowel sounds. This makes French and Italian poetry sound musical, as even the harshest objects are heard as lush sounds. Anyone who has heard an aria before an operatic scene of death can attest to this. Apart from historical tradition, this explains to some extent that most operas, even those written by German composers, are in Italian or French. On the other hand, the consonants that seem to be so derided give German poetry a certain weight, a certain intellectual air that has a different sort of beauty. Last week after listening to one of the most famous bass-baritones Thomas Quasthoff singing Schumann and Brahms lieder at the UMS, I want to totally revise the common notion that German cannot be the language of love.

Speaking in very traditional notions, despite Shakespeare and the Romantic poets, English poetry doesn't quite cut it as the language of love. Russian stakes a strong claim to being the sort of language that can be a strong contender. Word order is not strict and there are tons of vowel sounds. Apparently, it emerged as a winner at UN conference as 'the' language of love. Pushkin has everyone beat, so the story goes.

Closer to home and what I know - as any Indian is familiar - Urdu has the finest tradition of love poetry, of the sort that intoxicates and enthralls by its very beauty that the love object of those verses is a mere accessory. The poetry and its beauty is an end in itself. Urdu is a mish-mash of Hindi and Persian. It's remarkable that a language that arose from military camps in the Indian sub-continent was elevated enough to produce such wonderful poetry. Of course, any Persian worth his salt is going to argue that all the beauty comes from the Persian and the harsh consonants so to speak are all from the Hindi.

To paraphrase Shakespeare, poetry translated in any language would be just as sweet. Thanks to Mani for providing this gem from Muslih-ud-Din Mushrif ibn-Abdullah Shirazi or Saadi. A case in point that poetry is beautiful, even though it may be lost in translation to some extent.

هزار جهد بکردم که سر عشق بپوشم
نبود بر سر آتش میسرم که نجوشم

به هوش بودم از اول که دل به کس نسپارم
شمایل تو بدیدم نه صبر ماند و نه هوشم

حکایتی ز دهانت به گوش جان من آمد
دگر نصیحت مردم حکایتست به گوشم

مگر تو روی بپوشی و فتنه بازنشانی
که من قرار ندارم که دیده از تو بپوشم

من رمیده دل آن به که در سماع نیایم
که گر به پای درآیم به دربرند به دوشم

بیا به صلح من امروز در کنار من امشب
که دیده خواب نکردست از انتظار تو دوشم

مرا به هیچ بدادی و من هنوز بر آنم
که از وجود تو مویی به عالمی نفروشم

به زخم خورده حکایت کنم ز دست جراحت
که تندرست ملامت کند چو من بخروشم

مرا مگوی که سعدی طریق عشق رها کن
سخن چه فایده گفتن چو پند می‌ننیوشم

به راه بادیه رفتن به از نشستن باطل
و گر مراد نیابم به قدر وسع بکوشم


I made a few edits to Mani K's translation.

I made every effort to keep the secret of my love disguised.
However, it was impossible for me to not come to a boil from the fire.
I was cautious from the beginning not to fall in love with anyone.
When I saw you I lost both my patience and my caution.
I heard a story once about your mouth with the ears of my heart.
Since then people’s advice is just a story to my ears.
Only if you avoid me can this chaos settle down;
Since I cannot keep my calm and turn my eyes from you.
With such an untamed heart, it is better for me not to enter any dance ceremony.
If I enter on foot, people will be carrying me out on their shoulders.
Come in peace with me today and to my side tonight.
I didn't sleep last night in the hope of seeing you.
You sold me for nothing and I am still not willing to exchange a lock of your hair for the whole world.
I complain only to the injured about my wound; since the healthy will only blame me as I cry.
Don’t tell me: “Saadi, avoid the path of love”.
There is no point in telling since I am not listening to your advice.
Wandering off to the desert is better than sitting vainly; and if I don’t find my wish, I will try as hard as I can.

Kipling: You musn't swim till you're six weeks old

Kipling who was the first Indian-born (he was born in Mumbai) and the first writer in English to win the Nobel Prize in Literature presents somewhat of a difficulty in warming up to him. As seen from the eyes of someone 100 years later, his politics were all wrong and his advocacy of British imperialism makes one squirm. It's not hard to see why Orwell (one of my heroes and another Indian-born writer) was early to criticize Kipling for this. Yet, it would take the most churlish among us to not praise Kipling for creating two of the most beloved fictional Indian characters - Mowgli and Kim. And then there is of course Gunga Din. So, while Kipling might have been quite out of step with the winds of change that would set the 20th century in motion - to which someone like Orwell was more attuned to - there is no mistaking his genuine fondness for India and its people.

The Jungle Book is a world masterpiece and Kipling would have deserved all the fame just for that book. All poetry need not be weighty - it can be light and funny, and yet conceal a world of meaning.

Untitled [You mustn't swim till you're six weeks old]
by Rudyard Kipling

You mustn't swim till you're six weeks old,
Or your head will be sunk by your heels;
And summer gales and Killer Whales
Are bad for baby seals.
Are bad for baby seals, dear rat,
As bad as bad can be.
But splash and grow strong,
And you can't be wrong,
Child of the Open Sea!

Poetry - I too dislike it

Wandering around last evening I ended up the Hatcher Graduate library and in one of the display windows outside the main checkout counter they had this excerpt from Marianne Moore:

I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond
all this fiddle.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one
discovers in
it after all, a place for the genuine.

It's part essay on poetry and part diatribe against mostly bad poetry. Making an excellent observation midway into the poem, " ... we do not admire what we cannot understand..."

Full text of poem

In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
the raw material of poetry in
all its rawness and
that which is on the other hand
genuine, you are interested in poetry.

Aside:
Interesting article in the Michigan Record on Poet Laureates at Michigan.

Previous posts in celebration of National Poetry Month:
E.E. Cummings
Mike Jarman
Rilke
Neruda and Troy Jollimore

E.E. Cummings - Thank you God for most this amazing day

Of course, any poem is always yours(the readers) to keep, to have and to hold in way that you feel best. Though it's sometimes useful to know how the poet may have read it. A rare clip of
E.E. Cummings reading the poem below. Of all poets, it's perhaps most useful to have him read his poems since they can be read in so many different ways. Much has been made of his interesting word order and typography, but gimmicks apart he was the 'real deal' as the poem (Thanks J) below amply displays.

Isn't the answer to everything in life always - yes? For those seeking literary echoes: Joyce's magisterial chronicle of a single day in Dublin (Ulysses) ends with 'yes'.

i thank You God for most this amazing day

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e.e. cummings

Mike Jarman's Dispatches from Devereux

Another poem shamelessly filched from Poets.org. If you are interested in poetry on a daily basis, then I highly recommend signing up for their Poem-A-Day list. They have a good mix of old and new and I've discovered some great work through it. A fine example is today's poem by Mark Jarman. It's absolutely sublime - of herons, egrets, seine nets, the waves. Perhaps alluding to the wetness of burning desire.

Dispatch from Devereux Slough
Fall, 2008
The gulls have no idea.
The distant bark of sea lions gives nothing away.
The white-tailed kite flutters and hunts.
The pelicans perform their sloppy angling.
The ironbark eucalyptus dwells in ignorance and beauty.
And the night herons brood in their heronry like yoga masters, each balanced on a twig.
The world has changed. The news will take some time to get here.

3am. What a time of day! Anyone who has been awake at 3am knows what F. Scott Fitzgerald meant when he wrote, "In the dark night of the soul, it's always 3am, day after day."
In one of the poems called Shorebreak, 3am he writes,

Awake, alone, at the right hour to hear it,
That hush, for all the sleeplessness behind it,
Can lead one, walking wounded, back to sleep.

See the full text of Dispatches from Devereux Slough. It's full of wonderful lines and images, including this last one in the series:

Heaven

When we are reunited after death,
The owls will call among the eucalyptus,
The white tailed kite will arc across the mesa,
And sunset cast orange light from the Pacific
Against the golden bush and eucalyptus
Where flowers and fruit and seeds appear all seasons
And our paired silhouettes are waiting for us.

Rilke: Ich lebe mein Leben in wachsenden Ringen - I live my life in ever-widening circles

Thanks to J. who introduced me to Rainier Maria Rilke's poetry. This is the one that touched me the most. The poet trying to grow. Poetic echo of the day - lines from Robert Browning's Andrea Del Sarto:

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp.
Or what's a heaven for?

Note: On the issue of copyright, I need to find poets who died before 1935.

First the original auf Deutsch and an English translation.

Ich lebe mein Leben in wachsenden Ringen

Ich lebe mein Leben in wachsenden Ringen,
die sich über die Dinge ziehn.
Ich werde den letzten vielleicht nicht vollbringen,
aber versuchen will ich ihn.

Ich kreise um Gott, um den uralten Turm,
und ich kreise jahrtausendelang;
und ich weiß noch nicht: bin ich ein Falke, ein Sturm
oder ein großer Gesang.

- Rainer Maria Rilke

And here is my attempt at a translation:

I live my life in ever-widening circles

I live my life in ever-widening circles
That draw themselves over all things
I may not perhaps complete the last of these things
but I want to make an attempt

I circle around God, around the most ancient tower,
And I circle for a thousand years
And yet I still don't know: Am I a falcon? a storm?
Or a much larger song.