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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • It will be largely dependent on your industry. But I do have a couple general comments:

    1. If you’re coming from academia, you almost certainly value your degree more than an employer will, at least at first. Certainly, some industry positions will require a Masters and some may even be PhD preferred. But this is going to be an extreme minority of positions, such that there are far more people with MAs and PhDs than positions (same problem as professorships in academia). You will almost certainly need to cast a wider net than you might feel is appropriate.

    2. Getting a foot in the door is almost always more important than finding the perfect role early on. Plan to iteravely improve your positions and “fall up.” Just as lecturing or adjunct positions are a reality of academia, job hopping is increasingly a part of industry life. If you do it right (try and stay in positions around 2 years, then start looking at other options) you’ll get a significant raise every time you hop – typically way more than you would get staying put. The perfect role may come, but it won’t be your first. Probably not your second either, so focus on building industry experience rather than one specific job.

    3. Since you’ll need to cast a wider net, you may be applying for roles which do not require postgrad stuff. It will be necessary to show transferrable skills rather than relying on academic experience or accolades. I’ve felt that my academic experience has been helpful everywhere, but people don’t tend to get hired for that alone for most positions. It is imperative that you are able to show your worth in a way that is not pointing at a piece of paper. From a hiring standpoint, if it is between you with degree(s) and another applicant who may have far less academically but showed the skills, the employer will pick the other person most times, because they likely suspect you want more money on the basis of having the degrees.

    Just a few things that come to mind. But of course, once you get those first couple roles under your belt, it’s a different story. “This person has years of good experience and results AND they have a PhD?” That’s when you start looking for the perfect role.

    And especially for #2: job hopping is infinitely easier if you can land remote roles. I have been lucky enough to have been in remote roles for nearly 10 years. The same logic applies: show your worth. And, take that remote contract to start. The need to build experience is annoying, but it is a necessity, and if you’re coming from academia, it’s one thing for which you are automatically behind the curve.



  • This is one effect of a general lack of real consequences for corporations and those that run them.

    The company has already determined their likely fine after being caught doing something egregious. The profit from being early to market is significant, and so long as it is considerably higher than the likely fine, they go for it. The expected real earnings are the difference between the profit and the fine. It’s all made worse since so often the fine is absolutely nothing compared to the profit, since the numbers these companies are dealing with are so damn big.

    This is why you won’t see real change until we stop slapping corporations with fines and start slapping executives with jail time. That is literally the only way to break the cycle.



  • The US has a problem of representation. Specifically and especially since the Citizens United decision, corporate interests can easily flow money towards politicians to make them do just about anything they want. This exacerbated an existing problem with the corporate tax rate and has now brought it into laughably low territory.

    That’s all an oversimplification of course, but it’s not that Americans haven’t “figured it out”. It is far more complicated than that.



  • Maybe you have just ended up with a lemon CPU. Though for random crashes like that, I’d almost always look to RAM first.

    I did have some stability issues early on when trying to enable Expo. Never quite got that working right so it is currently disabled. I keep my 7600x in Eco mode since it is air cooled and the performance difference is not that great anyway, so I haven’t noticed any major differences with Expo off.

    The Expo issues were also with a very early MSI BIOS. I haven’t tried it again after upgrading, but I probably should.









  • They will, for the simple reason that the average person won’t be able to tell the difference in the short term. AI isn’t about “replacing” people in the entirety from cause to result. It’s about providing a plausible facsimile of any role such that company X makes money while relegating the actual role to a niche.


  • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.orgtoScience Memes@mander.xyzPhD Grads
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    29 days ago

    Interesting observations. Intent here is not to offer disagreements but just comparisons to my experience:

    1. Yes, industry pays much better. The wage gap in academia is a huge deal and one which will not get attention until the general issue with low wages in the US is handled. That said, I make about twice as much in industry as I would have as a tenured professor in my field had I started at the same time.

    2. This resonates with me in that I have heard it a lot. I think every person is different, but academia has a habit of supporting a kind of pretentiousness that is not conducive to pragmatic work. I would suggest this is highly field dependent, though.

    3. Industry experience trumps academic, 100% of the time.

    I came at it from a different path than you. I wanted to be a professor, through and through. The tenured professorship is generally unattainable, since the number of positions is nothing compared to minted PhDs. For that reason, I explored switching to industry. I ended up in a good space, but I am not at all suggesting that someone should get a PhD to go into industry.

    Edit: there’s also an epistemological argument to be made about #2 (the readiness of academics for industry). A lot of industry is about very specific solutioning and methods which may even be company dependent. In that sense, it is a skill you can only get from industry.



  • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.orgtoScience Memes@mander.xyzPhD Grads
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    29 days ago

    It took me about 5 years to really transition into industry. It will, of course, vary greatly by industry specifics (mine ended up being tech, but my background is in Linguistics).

    My best advice to anyone in this position is: stay in academic positions as long as you can (I lectured for nearly 10 years), but take on contract work concurrently until you find your foot in the door. A PhD is not really a “get a job out of academia” degree, and it really needs more work/networking to be respected in industry.

    Edit: want to clarify this:

    A PhD is not really a “get a job out of academia” degree

    Remember that, typically, a Masters degree is where you go if you want to stand out in industry immediately, as it tends to be a more involved version of an undergraduate degree since it will have a more defined course structure and direction vs a PhD. Universities know this, which is why so many Masters programs are unfunded (many PhD programs are also unfunded, but friendly advice: never, ever do a PhD program that costs you money).

    At the same time, it tends to be easy to get a Masters on the way to a PhD – usually just some paperwork. In that sense, you may have a leg up just only reporting your Masters to certain companies. And of course, if you are in a PhD program, ask if you can sign off for the extra Masters on your way.

    The PhD is unique in that it is specifically designed to require new research. Many companies do not see the value in paying more for that, though if you have a chance to show them the difference between you and another candidate, you’ll win 99/100 times.

    Edit 2: this is specifically PhD programs in the US, which are markedly different than other parts of the world.

    Edit 3: and of course, the adage “publish or perish” does apply in academia. But academia, in my opinion, is not the meritocracy it used to be, at least in the US. Of my entire cohort of about 25 people, 2 became tenured professors – and both of them have parents who are professors. Nepotism is rampant and probably means more than publishing in certain fields.

    For industry, publishing means very little.

    Not trying to be defeatist or change anyone’s views here. Just giving my 2 cents since I have been in a relatively unique situation before.