This post contains excerpts of a letter sent to staff at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL, English: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne) is one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology and is located in Lausanne, Switzerland.
I wonder how many more letters like this we will see after AR5 is released. – Anthony
An Aspiring Scientist’s Frustration with Modern-Day Academia: A Resignation
Dear EPFL,
I am writing to state that, after four years of hard but enjoyable PhD work at this school, I am planning to quit my thesis in January, just a few months shy of completion. Originally, this was a letter that was intended only for my advisors. However, as I prepared to write it I realized that the message here may be pertinent to anyone involved in research across the entire EPFL, and so have extended its range just a bit.
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While I could give a multitude of reasons for leaving my studies – some more concrete, others more abstract – the essential motivation stems from my personal conclusion that I’ve lost faith in today’s academia as being something that brings a positive benefit to the world/societies we live in. Rather, I’m starting to think of it as a big money vacuum that takes in grants and spits out nebulous results, fueled by people whose main concerns are not to advance knowledge and to effect positive change, though they may talk of such things, but to build their CVs and to propel/maintain their careers.
(1) Academia: It’s Not Science, It’s Business
I’m going to start with the supposition that the goal of “science” is to search for truth, to improve our understanding of the universe around us, and to somehow use this understanding to move the world towards a better tomorrow. At least, this is the propaganda that we’ve often been fed while still young, and this is generally the propaganda that universities that do research use to put themselves on lofty moral ground, to decorate their websites, and to recruit naïve youngsters like myself.
(2) Academia: Work Hard, Young Padawan, So That One Day You Too May Manage!
I sometimes find it both funny and frightening that the majority of the world’s academic research is actually being done by people like me, who don’t even have a PhD degree. Many advisors, whom you would expect to truly be pushing science forward with their decades of experience, do surprisingly little and only appear to manage the PhD students…Rarely do I hear of advisors who actually go through their students’ work in full rigor and detail, with many apparently having adopted the “if it looks fine, we can submit it for publication” approach.
(3) Academia: The Backwards Mentality
A very saddening aspect of the whole academic system is the amount of self-deception that goes on, which is a “skill” that many new recruits are forced to master early on… or perish. As many PhD students don’t truly get to choose their research topic, they are forced to adopt what their advisors do and to do “something original” on it that could one day be turned into a thesis.
(4) Academia: Where Originality Will Hurt You
The good, healthy mentality would naturally be to work on research that we believe is important. Unfortunately, most such research is challenging and difficult to publish, and the current publish-or-perish system makes it difficult to put bread on the table while working on problems that require at least ten years of labor before you can report even the most preliminary results. Worse yet, the results may not be understood, which, in some cases, is tantamount to them being rejected by the academic community.
(5) Academia: The Black Hole of Bandwagon Research
Indeed, writing lots of papers of questionable value about a given popular topic seems to be a very good way to advance your academic career these days. The advantages are clear: there is no need to convince anyone that the topic is pertinent and you are very likely to be cited more since more people are likely to work on similar things. This will, in turn, raise your impact factor and will help to establish you as a credible researcher, regardless of whether your work is actually good/important or not.
(6) Academia: Statistics Galore!
“Professors with papers are like children,” a professor once told me. And, indeed, there seems to exist an unhealthy obsession among academics regarding their numbers of citations, impact factors, and numbers of publications. This leads to all sorts of nonsense, such as academics making “strategic citations”, writing “anonymous” peer reviews where they encourage the authors of the reviewed paper to cite their work, and gently trying to tell their colleagues about their recent work at conferences or other networking events or sometimes even trying to slip each other their papers with a “I’ll-read-yours-if-you-read-mine” wink and nod. No one, when asked if they care about their citations, will ever admit to it, and yet these same people will still know the numbers by heart. I admit that I’ve been there before, and hate myself for it.
(7) Academia: The Violent Land of Giant Egos
[He must be talking about Mannworld here -Anthony]
I often wonder if many people in academia come from insecure childhoods where they were never the strongest or the most popular among their peers, and, having studied more than their peers, are now out for revenge. I suspect that yes, since it is the only explanation I can give to explain why certain researchers attack, in the bad way, other researchers’ work. Perhaps the most common manifestation of this is via peer reviews, where these people abuse their anonymity to tell you, in no ambiguous terms, that you are an idiot and that your work isn’t worth a pile of dung. Occasionally, some have the gall to do the same during conferences, though I’ve yet to witness this latter manifestation personally.
(8) Academia: The Greatest Trick It Ever Pulled was Convincing the World That It was Necessary
Perhaps the most crucial, piercing question that the people in academia should ask themselves is this: “Are we really needed?” Year after year, the system takes in tons of money via all sorts of grants.
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What’s bothersome, however, is how long a purely theoretical result can be milked for grants before the researchers decide to produce something practically useful. Worse yet, there often does not appear to be a strong urge for people in academia to go and apply their result, even when this becomes possible, which most likely stems from the fear of failure – you are morally comfortable researching your method as long as it works in theory, but nothing would hurt more than to try to apply it and to learn that it doesn’t work in reality. No one likes to publish papers which show how their method fails (although, from a scientific perspective, they’re obliged to).
read it all at Pascal Junod
My translation, as someone who has hired a few disillusioned PhD candidates, I suspect he had his path towards a degree slowed by a staff member who needed another year of academic serf labor lest he blow his approved grant budget. Not to say I didn’t enjoy the benefit of paying guys like him without the paper less, but I was always up front about it.
Dear Warrior for Truth,
Your former “managers” may have academic prestige, but you have something they do not:
your integrity.
With admiration and prayers for you in the days to come,
Janice
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Hey, D. B. Stealey! I got to see that obnoxiously persistent half-star change to FULL ON EXCELLENT with my #8 click on the stars above! #(:))
denniswingo
You beat me to the Eisenhower reference. He made some terrifically sage predictions, that’s for sure. (And he’s an enigma as he saw this coming and yet did his part in building the beast ever larger and more influential; not as bad as the “progressives”, but disappointing all the same).
The State has grown to be a huge blood sucking beast whose monetary influence has corrupted and distorted so many aspects of our economy and society. We can still see small parts of the tech sector that remains independent enough to be productive and innovative, but alas even that is slowly being tainted by the reach of the federal bureaucrat, their power and their dollars.
We’re doomed if we don’t find a way to beat back the beast.
Here is more insight into just how reactionary and resistant to data they dislike academics truly are:
http://reason.com/archives/2013/09/13/the-battle-for-humanitys-future
Finish the degree. There should be more, many more, among the degreed who possess the skepticism that lies at the foundation of such a crisis. And don’t take it all too seriously; what begins as a sincere movement, often ends as a hustle. You are wise enough to see the difference.
An interesting topic that sits close to this letter is the Decline Effect.
Just recently, testifying in support ‘for war’ before congress and high elected officials, that Elizabeth O’Bagy woman! Not even actually a PhD:
http://www.understandingwar.org/press-media/staff-bios/elizabeth-obagy
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
In California, Hien T. Tran, author of a study showing that particulate emissions from diesel engine exhaust causes premature death faked his PhD:
“April 9, 2009 CARB “Notice of Adverse Action” Against Hien T. Tran Regarding Misrepresentation of Ph.D. Degree”
Details: http://www.scientificintegrityinstitute.org/tran040909.pdf
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The ‘author’ might have commented downstream on the link.
I’m 1 year into a PhD. I too see that there is pressure to publish and be cited (in the UK at least), but this is down to our government’s measurement system for universities: papers in 3* and 4* journals count towards research excellence which will be counted in the forthcoming reports. And yes, there’s encouragement to get grants (both public and industrial) for research because government funding for universities isn’t what it was, and if they’re going to attract the best researchers they need both funding and interesting work for them,
So it’s not perfect. Academia is more commercial and results-orientated than it used to be. Since it’s part of the public sector that’s not surprising. Many people will otherwise wonder why their taxes go to fund something that doesn’t add value to their world?
But then there’s a whole lot of other things happening. Real professors and senior researchers passionate about their work, attracting funding from multiple sources because they’re good, and publishing papers because they’re worthwhile.
So my sympathies are with this PhD student, but I feel he’s tarring the whole of academia with the same brush. Some may be as he says but I’ve seen — and am working in — the “other side”. It’s not all gloomy, but perhaps it’s best where the people are best. With the massive expansion of academia not every professor can be brilliant and not every piece of research can be good. If this person can stick with it then I hope he/she will find things better elsewhere. Otherwise, he/she will just be seen as someone quitting before they fail, and that’s sad for everyone.
It’s kind of strange. In order to be a science professor, one really needs a social, extroverted personality, completely the opposite from the introverted personality of a scientist.
Back in the Middle Ages, when the great universities such as Oxford and Paris were created, students paid their teachers directly — no middleman as there is today, and certainly no “tenure.”. If a teacher was good, he attracted students and therefore made a living. If a teacher was bad, he didn’t. Natural selection of a sort. Ah, the good old days.
“I’m going to start with the supposition that the goal of “science” is to search for truth, to improve our understanding of the universe around us, and to somehow use this understanding to move the world towards a better tomorrow”
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I think that is the problem we see in the AGW crowd. They think that science shouldn’t just search for the truth, that it should somehow move the world towards a better tomorrow. The young person who wrote this letter was lead to believe that is a goal of science. But that should not be a goal of science at all. The only goal of science should be the search for the truth. I should not matter at all to science whether F=MA or E=MC². The fact that E=MC² can be used to make nuclear bombs or used for nuclear energy should be of no importance at all to acceptance to the theory.
Today’s AGW scientists are convinced they are doing something good for mankind and therefore have let their desire to do good outway the search for the truth.
Young people going into science should not be told to expect that their research can or should be used to help mankind, they should simply be told that research is quest for the truth, for its own sake.
An interesting read…..
It reminds me of a story told to me by a friend who was a doing a PhD in plasma physics at the time and had come up with some small tidbit of insight. He knew it was small and judged it inconsequential but his advisor was appalled that he hadn’t written it up and tried to publish. Indeed, when he finally did just that, the advisor was still critical and advised that my friend’s paper could easily have been milked out to at least 2 papers instead of just the one.
Publish or perish!
I’m in 100% agreement with the theme of the “resignation letter.” The author should remember that the members of academia are first people (where money and glory trump truth) and second scientists. The author is going to find similar behavior wherever he goes.
May I echo
Ben Wilson says:
September 14, 2013 at 9:24 am
Wow.. . . .
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But I (as others above, and, I guess, below) would also suggest trying to complete the PhD. [It’s going to help your future career in the private or voluntary sectors a very good bit]. Although, as noted above multiple times, there – it’s what can you deliver . . . .
Finally – do keep close to your family and friends, plus any fellow academicians with whom you felt at ease. Human contact is essential, especially after a serious, life-changing decision.
And – all best wishes! Manifold best wishes.
Auto
Wake up to the real world.
The points Pascal Junod raises are also applicable anywhere outside academia, and they are of all times.
Life is a struggle, Pascal. Go for some martial art lessons I would say. Stop wailing and get some confidence.
g3ellis says:
September 14, 2013 at 11:37 am
Sent from my HTC smartphone on the Now Network from Sprint!
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I once sailed with a Michael Mary Mother Hastings; I guess he is now M3Hastings@ur momisugly something
Auto
Well, as disappointing as it may seem, the fellow, who ever he may be, seems to have woken up and smelled the coffee and realize that he was among the mediocre, did not with to become mediocre himself and left.
Good luck to him in his future endeavors.
Maybe he’ll wind up in a real, lab somewhere doing real work. My dad was a Member of Technical Staff at Whippany back in the golden days of the transistor – maybe such places still exist. Or, maybe he’ll create his own thing. Good luck to him.
On the other hand…
Academia is along established institution. All long established institutions share a common phenomenology – they serve to protect mediocrity and stifle genuine innovation – absolutely, 100% in all times and places throughout history. Created for some original purpose as an innovative impulse, usually of an exceptional innovator, that purpose inevitably becomes self-perpetuation, rather that innovation – the rest becomes window-dressing.
It is true that some great innovates create institutions to further their work – maybe you can think of some, I have my own list – but once that innovator leaves the scene the decline sets in. You cannot institutionalize innovation, innovation and institutionalization are contrary impulses. The best that an institution can do is get the hell out of the way of the innovators in their midst and let them try, fail, and succeed.
Spengler has a new essay at AsiaTimesOnLine here: where he discusses, in the light of his recent death, economist Ronald Coase’s notion of the Firm in regards to innovation.
Its supposed to be all about lowering everyone’s transaction costs. Spengler later corrects, or extends, Coase’s theory of the Firm.
Most people don’t like disruption. They want to acquire a skill, work reasonable hours, secure reasonable pay, watch television in the evening and play golf or whatever on the weekends. They don’t look deeply into the matters that concern them and are content to do what other people in their position do. If they are diligent, reliable, well-mannered and polite, they are just the sort of folk that the human relations types at corporations prefer.
From a personal view point I can understand the disillusionment that comes with academia but he shouldn’t have quit his thesis. He’ll regret that in years to come.
The whole point of a PhD is that is a process. The level of detail and scrutiny is much more than a masters or an undergraduate. And it is your first professional work. You have to grind through it. That’s the way it is.
Now if you don’t believe in it or your subject then deal with that AFTER you get the PhD. You may go onto industry instead of academia. But if you give up beforehand then you won’t have that choice and you’ll have let the challenge beat you. I know friends who gave up and now they wish they had stuck with it.
It’s meant to be hard. It’s meant to drive you crazy. And some of the people in academia are institutionalised but you still have to honour your own commitment to finishing it. Once you get that “Dr” that’s you for life. Unless you blatantly lied and plagurised no-one can take it away from you.
I’m glad I got mine (condensed matter physics) even though I did actually go mad for a month at the end. I’m glad because without it I never would have built space engines and got them flying over the Earth. Or had the courage of my convictions to always question the science.
Basically it’s what made me a scientist.
RE: Toto at 10:00 am
Young Luther nails it.
Yes, I too was thinking of another set of objections nailed on the portal to a religious institution some 486 years ago.
Maybe we can spawn a 21st century Scientific Reformation from such acts of Courage.
While all of the points raised in this letter can be supported by evidence, they do not apply to all academics, and where they apply, they do so in different degrees. Most of my academic colleagues I know try to cope with these pressures while still also trying to produce something of genuine value, and quite a few succeed at that. There are some that have adopted the entire set of absurd rules wholesale and wholeheartedly, out of either naivete or cynicism, but I’d say they are in the minority.
If you want to be true to yourself and your ideals, you will pay a price. The author of the letter will find that this is not limited to academia, and I suggest he might as well finish his degree before finding out for certain.
What a tremendous command of the English language he has. He may be better suited to writing than research anyway. Hopefully he will read this thread and develop a desire to apply his cynicism to the (linked) AGW taxation fraud.
An accurate portrayal
Sad but true….I have a nearly identical letter written in my mind for my university. On the one hand, doctoral-student burnout is very common, and attrition is very high. However, this young person really nailed it – the university systems, like carnivorous plants, are a business dependent upon a never-ending stream of new flesh. Tuition dollars and fees are all that matter, and employment after graduation isn’t even an afterthought. A sick system.
I expect that applications to “climate science positions” will dwindle in the near future. Hopefully, future students will be drawn back into “real” disciplines, including advanced engineering of all kinds, energy & material sciences, etc.
Right now, the Asian student influx into the US system guarantees that we will subsidize their education and enrich their home countries. T’aint fair. I teach and mentor these students & love ’em, but our domestic education priorities are all fricked up.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-u-of-i-enrollment-20130912,0,162195.story
@MishaBurnett
…I work for a university, in a non-academic job, and it seems to me that goal of the academic community is to preserve the academic community–that is, the huge network of government and corporate grants that provide the money to pay salaries and keep the lights on….
I have some news for you from the outside world.
Everybody has the primary goal of preserving their job. People in companies making consumer products aren’t doing it because it helps society. They are doing it because it pays them. And if another product looks as if it will supersede theirs they will try anything (legal, and occasionally illegal) to stop it.
Under a market system, this is generally useful. But look at government work. There they will often try to maintain a particular policy because many people earn their living through it. Climate change is an example – it is now such big business that even if the scientists all agreed that it was rubbish and published the fact carbon trading would not stop.
My particular ‘bete noire’ is the military and intelligence community. They are still operating as if the Cold War is in existence, and a lot of people around the world are dying just to keep the military and intelligence community doing what they like to do – finding threats….