You said that you can’t teach students to be researchers without sending them to formal classes. You said that you “teach students how to think”. The inverse implies that those who do not attend formal university class cannot learn to do research, and those who do not work as a grad student never learn to think.
You said that you can’t teach students to be researchers without sending them to formal classes. You said that you “teach students how to think”. The inverse implies that those who do not attend formal university class cannot learn to do research, and those who do not work as a grad student never learn to think.
I, and a lot of my employees, have absolutely learned all of the things you list by some combination of undergrad work and on the job experience. Persistence and “Discerning what is fruitful vs a dead end” is a huge part of what we do! Perhaps on some shorter time scales (though many projects are on longer scales than a PhD program).
Now, are we experts at doing basic scientific research and publishing it in academic journals? No, but that’s effectively a tautology. If our customers wanted more basic science and less systems integration of mature tech, my people are certainly capable of learning it. They know how to think! On the flip side, there’s plenty that PhDs must unlearn when they move to industry (e.g. they tend to have less experience working in larger teams with external dependencies, managing customer expectations, and are generally less “practical”, and the habits they learned in academia can inhibit their success in those areas).
On the gripping hand I also know multiple professionals that moved on to work at universities to manage and support labs - turns out a lot of that science needs an engineer or project manager’s touch to actually get done. Even looked into that myself but got turned off by requirements to submit a DEI loyalty oath alongside my resume. But, unlike being a grad student, these roles did offer reasonably competitive pay and working conditions. They seemed to get plenty of applicants.
It's a lot more efficient to send students to formal classes. They will also learn things that I am unaware of and uninformed about, perhaps finding a new way to examine the problem or bringing an alternative technique to bear.
`If our customers wanted more basic science and less systems integration of mature tech, my people are certainly capable of learning it. They know how to think!'
This is hubris. Do you have any actual experience in getting work published in reputable venues? If not, why do you think you can do something without actually having done it?
`turns out a lot of that science needs an engineer or project manager’s'
Yes, which is why both are commonly involved in research.
Hubris? All I’m saying is I have plenty of people working for me that are just as smart and capable as your grad students and could learn the same things they do. Which is hardly a leap at all since most of them graduated from challenging undergrad science and engineering curricula with top marks and excellent experience - that is, they had precisely the qualifications that your students have when they come to you. I’m not saying that I could step in and take your job today, merely that I could learn the “formulate and perform experiment, do statistics, write report” part of the job reasonably expeditiously, and that I could become competent in that without also teaching an undergrad course. I would however expect to be paid a reasonable wage for this and have no particular desire to spend half my time scribbling equations on whiteboards to dozing freshmen, which is why I was never in a rush to run back to the academy for a doctorate.
The idea that teaching and research are intimately connected, such that one must be good at both or neither, and that only academia holds the key to science strikes me as itself quite hubristic. As I said in another comment, several of my professors who were by all accounts successful scientists were shit teachers. Sticking them in a classroom was a waste of their time and a disservice to the students but, well, “that’s how it’s done”. Many of my best teachers were adjuncts or assistants that might never get a tenured position and had never published anything of note - giving them a reasonably secure terminal job was also “not how it’s done”, though it would benefit the careers of thousands of STEM professionals.
If engineers and project managers, who did not go through PhD programs, are commonly involved in research, what are we even arguing about? I bet you’d have a hard time hiring any of them at a grad student wage, which takes us back to the original point: you need H1Bs to get PhD candidates, not because people who can be successful in your program are so rare that you must go to the ends of the earth for them, but rather, I suspect, because lots of capable Americans have more attractive options they choose instead.
`All I’m saying is I have plenty of people working for me that are just as smart and capable as your grad students and could learn the same things they do. ... and that I could become competent in that without also teaching an undergrad course.'
Sure. Grant money is scarce and valuable so we often have graduate students perform rudimentary teaching, for which they are perfectly well qualified, duties to conserve it. Gives them time to work on research part time to prove themselves. If it's financially viable, very few professors would want their graduate students teaching instead of doing research.
`you need H1Bs to get PhD candidates'
No. Never had an H1B graduate student. They all come on student visas and are not able to work outside the university. Neither are their spouses.
You’re of course correct, my error on writing as H1Bs. Presumably you still agree the analogy of the student visa to the H1B holds as relevant, since you’re the one that initially brought it to the discussion here. Either way, you’re proposing that you must turn to foreign applicants as there is a dearth of domestic applicants.
You said that you can’t teach students to be researchers without sending them to formal classes. You said that you “teach students how to think”. The inverse implies that those who do not attend formal university class cannot learn to do research, and those who do not work as a grad student never learn to think.
I, and a lot of my employees, have absolutely learned all of the things you list by some combination of undergrad work and on the job experience. Persistence and “Discerning what is fruitful vs a dead end” is a huge part of what we do! Perhaps on some shorter time scales (though many projects are on longer scales than a PhD program).
Now, are we experts at doing basic scientific research and publishing it in academic journals? No, but that’s effectively a tautology. If our customers wanted more basic science and less systems integration of mature tech, my people are certainly capable of learning it. They know how to think! On the flip side, there’s plenty that PhDs must unlearn when they move to industry (e.g. they tend to have less experience working in larger teams with external dependencies, managing customer expectations, and are generally less “practical”, and the habits they learned in academia can inhibit their success in those areas).
On the gripping hand I also know multiple professionals that moved on to work at universities to manage and support labs - turns out a lot of that science needs an engineer or project manager’s touch to actually get done. Even looked into that myself but got turned off by requirements to submit a DEI loyalty oath alongside my resume. But, unlike being a grad student, these roles did offer reasonably competitive pay and working conditions. They seemed to get plenty of applicants.
It's a lot more efficient to send students to formal classes. They will also learn things that I am unaware of and uninformed about, perhaps finding a new way to examine the problem or bringing an alternative technique to bear.
`If our customers wanted more basic science and less systems integration of mature tech, my people are certainly capable of learning it. They know how to think!'
This is hubris. Do you have any actual experience in getting work published in reputable venues? If not, why do you think you can do something without actually having done it?
`turns out a lot of that science needs an engineer or project manager’s'
Yes, which is why both are commonly involved in research.
Hubris? All I’m saying is I have plenty of people working for me that are just as smart and capable as your grad students and could learn the same things they do. Which is hardly a leap at all since most of them graduated from challenging undergrad science and engineering curricula with top marks and excellent experience - that is, they had precisely the qualifications that your students have when they come to you. I’m not saying that I could step in and take your job today, merely that I could learn the “formulate and perform experiment, do statistics, write report” part of the job reasonably expeditiously, and that I could become competent in that without also teaching an undergrad course. I would however expect to be paid a reasonable wage for this and have no particular desire to spend half my time scribbling equations on whiteboards to dozing freshmen, which is why I was never in a rush to run back to the academy for a doctorate.
The idea that teaching and research are intimately connected, such that one must be good at both or neither, and that only academia holds the key to science strikes me as itself quite hubristic. As I said in another comment, several of my professors who were by all accounts successful scientists were shit teachers. Sticking them in a classroom was a waste of their time and a disservice to the students but, well, “that’s how it’s done”. Many of my best teachers were adjuncts or assistants that might never get a tenured position and had never published anything of note - giving them a reasonably secure terminal job was also “not how it’s done”, though it would benefit the careers of thousands of STEM professionals.
If engineers and project managers, who did not go through PhD programs, are commonly involved in research, what are we even arguing about? I bet you’d have a hard time hiring any of them at a grad student wage, which takes us back to the original point: you need H1Bs to get PhD candidates, not because people who can be successful in your program are so rare that you must go to the ends of the earth for them, but rather, I suspect, because lots of capable Americans have more attractive options they choose instead.
`All I’m saying is I have plenty of people working for me that are just as smart and capable as your grad students and could learn the same things they do. ... and that I could become competent in that without also teaching an undergrad course.'
Sure. Grant money is scarce and valuable so we often have graduate students perform rudimentary teaching, for which they are perfectly well qualified, duties to conserve it. Gives them time to work on research part time to prove themselves. If it's financially viable, very few professors would want their graduate students teaching instead of doing research.
`you need H1Bs to get PhD candidates'
No. Never had an H1B graduate student. They all come on student visas and are not able to work outside the university. Neither are their spouses.
You’re of course correct, my error on writing as H1Bs. Presumably you still agree the analogy of the student visa to the H1B holds as relevant, since you’re the one that initially brought it to the discussion here. Either way, you’re proposing that you must turn to foreign applicants as there is a dearth of domestic applicants.