General > General Technical Chat
Baidu is trawling the EEVblog forum
Rick Law:
--- Quote from: tggzzz on April 09, 2023, 12:55:14 pm ---
--- Quote from: Xena E on April 09, 2023, 10:10:54 am ---Edit: being a diagnosed aspergers doesn't stop an individual from gaining an education.
--- End quote ---
Too many people are educated beyond their intelligence.
Politicians seem particularly prone to that.
--- End quote ---
It is also important to note the difference between being educated verses being credentialed.
Too many people are credentialed but are hardly educated. Even PhD degrees are handed out like hot-cakes these days. To me, academia lost a lot of credibility in recent years.
tggzzz:
--- Quote from: Rick Law on April 09, 2023, 07:31:09 pm ---
--- Quote from: tggzzz on April 09, 2023, 12:55:14 pm ---
--- Quote from: Xena E on April 09, 2023, 10:10:54 am ---Edit: being a diagnosed aspergers doesn't stop an individual from gaining an education.
--- End quote ---
Too many people are educated beyond their intelligence.
Politicians seem particularly prone to that.
--- End quote ---
It is also important to note the difference between being educated verses being credentialed.
Too many people are credentialed but are hardly educated. Even PhD degrees are handed out like hot-cakes these days. To me, academia lost a lot of credibility in recent years.
--- End quote ---
I don't disagree, but PhDs are so specialised that the knowledge is unlikely to be directly relevant to an industrial employer. As far as I can see, the only valid reasons for doing a PhD are to climb the academic ladder, and because someone really really wants to. Money, no. Employability outside academia, no.
TimFox:
--- Quote from: tggzzz on April 09, 2023, 07:43:32 pm ---
--- Quote from: Rick Law on April 09, 2023, 07:31:09 pm ---
--- Quote from: tggzzz on April 09, 2023, 12:55:14 pm ---
--- Quote from: Xena E on April 09, 2023, 10:10:54 am ---Edit: being a diagnosed aspergers doesn't stop an individual from gaining an education.
--- End quote ---
Too many people are educated beyond their intelligence.
Politicians seem particularly prone to that.
--- End quote ---
It is also important to note the difference between being educated verses being credentialed.
Too many people are credentialed but are hardly educated. Even PhD degrees are handed out like hot-cakes these days. To me, academia lost a lot of credibility in recent years.
--- End quote ---
I don't disagree, but PhDs are so specialised that the knowledge is unlikely to be directly relevant to an industrial employer. As far as I can see, the only valid reasons for doing a PhD are to climb the academic ladder, and because someone really really wants to. Money, no. Employability outside academia, no.
--- End quote ---
In the US, many PhD physicists are employed in industrial firms, doing basic research or applied R&D.
When I retired from such employment (with my PhD), there were at least half a dozen of us in a relatively small branch of an x-ray company.
I remember reading that with the limited opportunities in academia, more physics PhD graduates went into non-academic (mostly industrial) occupations than into traditional tenure-track academic employment.
One statistical summary: https://www.aip.org/statistics/data-graphics/type-employment-new-physics-phds-employment-sector-classes-2019-2020
It shows that in the "potentially permanent" (excluding post-docs) category, 70% went into the private sector, 8% into government, only 18% into academia.
That AIP (American Institute of Physics) website includes many summaries of employment for physics and astronomy PhDs: feel free to read further.
When I was close to graduation, I attended a lecture on the job market for PhDs, given by an economics grad student at the University of Chicago, based on his thesis research.
He pointed out that this basic problem in economic theory had been worked out in the 19th century, in the context of the agricultural economics of hog raising.
Fundamentally, a farmer has to make his decision on how many hogs to raise based on his knowledge of the market for pork several years in the future.
The mathematics thereof leads to the same equations as in the forced damped harmonic oscillator beloved of physicists: his research showed the relevant oscillator was slightly underdamped.
tggzzz:
--- Quote from: TimFox on April 09, 2023, 08:10:20 pm ---
--- Quote from: tggzzz on April 09, 2023, 07:43:32 pm ---
--- Quote from: Rick Law on April 09, 2023, 07:31:09 pm ---
--- Quote from: tggzzz on April 09, 2023, 12:55:14 pm ---
--- Quote from: Xena E on April 09, 2023, 10:10:54 am ---Edit: being a diagnosed aspergers doesn't stop an individual from gaining an education.
--- End quote ---
Too many people are educated beyond their intelligence.
Politicians seem particularly prone to that.
--- End quote ---
It is also important to note the difference between being educated verses being credentialed.
Too many people are credentialed but are hardly educated. Even PhD degrees are handed out like hot-cakes these days. To me, academia lost a lot of credibility in recent years.
--- End quote ---
I don't disagree, but PhDs are so specialised that the knowledge is unlikely to be directly relevant to an industrial employer. As far as I can see, the only valid reasons for doing a PhD are to climb the academic ladder, and because someone really really wants to. Money, no. Employability outside academia, no.
--- End quote ---
In the US, many PhD physicists are employed in industrial firms, doing basic research or applied R&D.
When I retired from such employment (with my PhD), there were at least half a dozen of us in a relatively small branch of an x-ray company.
I remember reading that with the limited opportunities in academia, more physics PhD graduates went into non-academic (mostly industrial) occupations than into traditional tenure-track academic employment.
One statistical summary: https://www.aip.org/statistics/data-graphics/type-employment-new-physics-phds-employment-sector-classes-2019-2020
It shows that in the "potentially permanent" (excluding post-docs) category, 70% went into the private sector, 8% into government, only 18% into academia.
That AIP (American Institute of Physics) website includes many summaries of employment for physics and astronomy PhDs: feel free to read further.
--- End quote ---
I've no doubt that's correct. But is it the correct answer to an unimportant question?
What would their employment prospects have been if they hadn't done and got a PhD? There's an argument, probably with some validity, that unless their PhD is directly relevant to an employer
* they started employment at the same level (money, competence, level) as someone without a PhD
* they were thus 3/4/x years behind, in terms of money in the bank, experience, etc
That can, of course, be argued either way, but I think it is at least an interesting contention.
--- Quote ---When I was close to graduation, I attended a lecture on the job market for PhDs, given by an economics grad student at the University of Chicago, based on his thesis research.
He pointed out that this basic problem in economic theory had been worked out in the 19th century, in the context of the agricultural economics of hog raising.
Fundamentally, a farmer has to make his decision on how many hogs to raise based on his knowledge of the market for pork several years in the future.
The mathematics thereof leads to the same equations as in the forced damped harmonic oscillator beloved of physicists: his research showed the relevant oscillator was slightly underdamped.
--- End quote ---
Ah, the good old "hog cycle" :) Traditionally, I believe, used as an example of where government intervention in the supposedly infallible omniscient "free market" actually benefits all parties. Not something libertarians want to hear.
TimFox:
A PhD in Physics or other physical science trains one to do research, which is different from doing engineering.
The private sector does make use of research, as well as engineering.
Actually, the speaker was from the Economics Department of the University of Chicago, whose motto was "the government will mess up anything it touches".
In his lecture, he considered the driving function into the forced damped oscillator to be government hiring, which he considered to change too abruptly.
Luckily, the parameters of the oscillator were only slightly underdamped.
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