Freeman Dyson - Why I don't like the PhD system (95/157)

👆that’s were the name is coming from-there r contracts why do I waste my time with u -cyber terror

Good day. It's very interesting video-presentation. Thank you very much. Good luck!

fill in the blank but don't dare write it here on this platform! ____niversity.

The PhD system is hard these days because you get paid only $20k a year. If rent is $12k, you are left with $8k to eat and do things. If you spend $100 a week on food, that $5.2k a year. You are left with $2.8k to do things. $2800 spread out over 52 weeks is a little less than $50. So, my numbers have $50/week float. That's a small amount of float in today's economy. What does a bus pass cost? Is your car in good shape? How much gas do you use? These things will burn through your float.

I think $25-30k is more reasonable, $35k would be a fantasitic salary for a phd student. I would be happy with that. Phd students have more intellectual freedom, they enter an institution that encourages open discussions and learning. These aspects of the phd life have value.

Dyson doesnt like phd system because he is a theorist, who solves and problem and moves on. The experimentalist cannot always accomplosh this particularly particle and nuclear experimental physicists

I like doding over multiple fringe projects that last decades.

A wonderful criticism of the Ph.D. system and the accompanying vice of specialisation !! It would be much more enlightening and productive to look at a problem from different perspectives of different disciplines in a lateral way,instead of drilling down to hell using the same approach for years on end. Diversity of approach is one of the things that keep science going !
Or anything else,for that matter...🤔

I think this guy is slightly disingenuous, it seems like he couldn't care less about developing scientists. Clearly at Princeton he preferred to have just access to postdocs (who of course had to have had a PhD themselves and ahead of the curve compared to a PhD student) because he could use research labour just at slightly higher price but for testing hypotheses more quickly. Not stupid, is he? Anyway, if I had my time back I probably wouldn't have bothered with a PhD. It set me back a huge deal (even if I had funding) because I couldn't get a good salary and get a foot on the property ladder.

Wonderful man.

But the caveat here is that postdocs are better trained and have better background than the PhD students. As a physics PhD myself I don’t like the system either. But not sure what would be the optimal solution. We have been always told that our undergrad training is insufficient for graduate school. Even the graduate coursework doesn’t prepare us for research in many respect. I guess it is up to the individual to start preparing as early as possible. Question then how early? Let me be cryptic about it by borrowing from Einstein: “preparation should be started as early as possible, but not earlier”.

I have to disagree with Dyson, but then he had no sense of what a PhD program is meant to accomplish in terms of career success. A PhD candidate goes from a pure novice to total expert in a field of study. There is no way this can be done in one year, but it is possible in 4 to 6 years of intensive study. Furthermore, a single PhD project often takes one year of data collection alone, and one year to analyze the data and write the dissertation. The initial 3 years are intended to learn multiple research skills and study the literature thoroughly. No one comes with this kind of background as a candidate.

We all have to work with what IS, a universal Quantum Operator Logic Oscillation holography. Do the best you can with what is, how logarithmic condensation modulation works and why there's no alternative to understanding what, how and why inside-outside flash-fractal resonance bonding structures are all there is.

I wasted many years with some ridiculous professors on two goes at a PhD and am sorry I wasted so may years of my life doing so. I am very similar to Dyson in that I get bored after a couple years working on the same thing—especially after the basic problem has been solved or addressed. Further, a PhD does not automatically confer great thinkin or problem solving ability. Far from it, in fact. It's a piece of paper; nothing more, nothing less.

Experimental activity (in many scientific and biomedical disciplines) is hifjkty unlikely to be completed in just one year.

I'm so glad we have videos of true geniuses like this just speaking his mind.

Wonderful to see that one of my heroes was such a charming guy.

Eight thousand dollars....a YEAR???!!! That's awful!

I was never a fan of not being able to work for a living while you’re earning a degree. Which clearly shows school is for underage kids while they are still under their parents wing and don’t have any other adult responsibilities.

EXTREMELY BEYOND SUPER GENIUS🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

Guy is such a contrarian, he even contradicts himself in one interview.

Cornell and its many professors have become something evil and toxic. It’s obstructive to higher education, detrimental to student‘s mental health. It’s a shame to call itself an Ivy.

Very interesting and worthwhile video.

Dyson was a poly math that didn't need a Ph.D. degree to certify his ability, he just simply started cranking out significant research on his own. He's smarter than most Ph.Ds and that's all there is to it. The average Ph.D. student struggles to get out in 4+ years and work on one problem/topic......that's kinda what average means. If they could finish one problem in one year, they would.....but very few have the ability to do that. The struggle is real!!

I never pursued a PHD because well... I'm just not smart enough.

I talked with Mr. Dyson (now more than 25 years ago) when he was at the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton). During our conversation, he asked me why I was pursuing my PhD (knowing that he didn't complete his under Hans Bethe at Cornell). I said, "Well, for me it's like a carrot before me and I want to bite it and then eat it." To which he replied, "Okay." Then we talked about other things. May he RIP.

PhD is legalized slavery. Would not recommend this for most folks unless you want to get into academics and are really sharp to make a difference. Most professors are mediocre and basically do useless research

PhD is an award for the bullwork of the student .Many a PhD dissertations end up a futile exercise in statistical jugglary.
High time that the system dumped the PHD .

What I understand to what sir freeman want to emphasize is that don't slave yourself to solve problems that hard for you,beacuse all he want to say is to solve the problem you found in natural way ,maybe days/weeks not by years not to torture your day 365days a year, toyep, if you feel not for you ,therefore accept the fact and find another field

Yep I agree with sir free man, I have those teacher who has non of those PhD but they can teach well in their subject with just a month or weeks rather those PhD professor I met where their point of view of teacher and their talent can't say that not good,but all I can say is less accurate as I expey. Those individual whom are non PhD teach me well and I knew they are deserve to have to recognize more rather that those with phd

I did my Ph.D. in Management for 6 years but I do not like my Supervisor. After thought for one year I decided drop out from University. I do not like the Ph.D. system.

Well if we're talking about solvable in one year problems, there's M.Phil.! But it's being phased out.

I can tell interviewer sufferr from noisy breathing and phd is bad

A PhD, like a Nobel Prize, just doesn't mean what it used to.

What a name dropper.

Didn't Capt. Picard find one of this guy's spheres in the 24th century?

As much esteem as I hold him in, I feel I must disagree with Professor Dyson here. I am a physicist and did my PhD in condensed matter physics; contrary to public perception I do not believe being a scientist requires above-average intelligence -- I believe basically anybody can learn to do science, it is a skill that is acquired with experience and practice like any other. Very exceptional people, like Dyson, can teach themselves this skill, and for them the requirement to do a PhD is entirely superfluous, just put them in a lab and their curiosity will guide them to discovery. But most scientists are just "normal people" (I include myself in this group as well) and do benefit from the guidance and structured, explicit instruction the PhD provides to be able to learn this skill

did he create Dyson vacuums?

Amazing how many years of misery watching this could save a person. I'm finishing my Masters, and for the most part enjoy it, but that'll be enough. If I want more formal education, I'll get a second Masters in a different field.

We say so much about politicians and for good reason, but the advancements in our society made by these key players, scientists, go very much unheralded!

What Dyson is saying is a) he doesn't want the responsibility that comes with training a PhD student, b) he was a very bad advisor (good advisors spend a lot of time with their students), and c) HE didn't need the kind of training that most PhD students DO need.

You can like the three or not...but over the cause of the last 27 years we grew into some sort of mentally retarded brotherhood.

Boring 😴

The debonair deadline neurobiologically mend because hot substantially squeeze aboard a poised unshielded. squalid, doubtful guide

PhD Push Here Dummy. Like MBA. Much below average

What's all this about 2-3 years? lol it can take up to 6-7

Kind of a weird complaint given how common it is for PhD students to work on several different projects during their tenure. Maybe that wasn't the case 50 years ago

I feel that. I know that higher education is hard work since you can't shortcut knowledge, but not all of us are high in conscientiousness. I have pretty severe ADHD which is fairly debilitating when it comes to fitting into society. However, when I'm into something, I can put insane amounts of effort towards it in just the span of a couple weeks and accomplish a lot. But then I move onto something else. I have core focuses I always come back to but you cant really get a PhD only working a handful of months out of the year.

This is really only a problem in the context of fitting into society. If I'm on my own, there's no issue. If I need to renew my registration or do my taxes, there's a huge issue.

Oh my favourite subject.... ROFL toupee cult... ROFL you please me...I give you toupee... Otherwise I don't.... You can't refute my knowledge .. ROFL

They are funny... ROFL

I like Freeman Dyson and PhD.

The PhD system is designed to encourage advancements in Scientific inquiry. They say, 'Here you do all this free work for Us and we will give you a nice fancy title w/ some letters after your name.'