[ampere]

Originally Posted by sathish81

Having seen him up close , can say with some conviction-Interest matters.PhD if done properly will test your limits (not just academic) and in end it boils down to how much you are willing to sacrifice to pursue your passion ( not interest)

Its a quite a fulfilling journey no-doubt at the personal level. But it may be quite a different story at the professional level. I dont want to compare what one achieved to its equated financial return. But many in the system do and there lies the problem. Because one's peers may have not chosen to go down the PhD path and hence may be seeing greener pastures in the industry in terms of financial well being.

But I do believe if one has done a due justice to what he achieved in his PhD, he should be able to move forward in life (not just because of PhD but because of what he gained in the journey).

As regards to Indians getting PhDs in US, there are many cases where every one is not able to crack an ivy league college but gets a PhD from a next level college. It can result in negation of one's expectations. An example being the person in question may be looking get a good option in US ( not easily forthcoming). In the end he either looks at a lower caliber job or stares at returning back to base.

The article which Samurai pointed is also not far from truth. To note: Education in US not cheap by all means. One has to make ends meet to get through college. Hence once past college most look forward to a good satisfying life. Looks like its a sign of times. Industry and acads are not face to face.

[sathish81]

Originally Posted by ampere

Its a quite a fulfilling journey no-doubt at the personal level. But it may be quite a different story at the professional level. I dont want to compare what one achieved to its equated financial return. But many in the system do and there lies the problem. Because one's peers may have not chosen to go down the PhD path and hence may be seeing greener pastures in the industry in terms of financial well being.

But I do believe if one has done a due justice to what he achieved in his PhD, he should be able to move forward in life (not just because of PhD but because of what he gained in the journey

Agree with you- "greener pastures" depends on individual and does not always equate to financial well being.

I know of 2 individuals both PHD's who choose to do what they like and take a hit on pay scale:

My cousin rejected offer from one of pharmas and now works for 50% of pay offered. But he is very happy professionally.

Another person I know quit a high paying position with Qualcomm to continue his research- again taking a hit on pay.

[ampere]

Nicely written article and real need of the hour in this part of academics.


The Ph part of PhD

Sadly today PhD is seen as an another additional degree to reach out to that higher level. What it entails as a part of personal development is largely conspicuous by its absence.

[AltoLXI]

Rampant plagiarism, fudged data, irrelevant topics, manipulative guides/students are the bane of the research field in India. Elisabeth Bik, a US-based microbiologist and a science integrity consultant has dug up dirt on one university of our country.

“This is unique as far as I know. I have seen papers in all countries possible but I have never seen a cluster so concentrated in one university. This set is unique in that it just involves not one author. It is not one bad apple. Many professors have been doing this. The list that I have compiled has papers published back in 2004,”

Link

“I hope that the Indian government and universities realise that scientific misconduct is extremely harmful for the reputation of research done in India. There need to be strict rules at each university,” said Bik. "I also hope there will be an overarching, independent organisation that can oversee research done at Indian universities, similar to the Office of Research Integrity in the USA,” she added.

Link

[Miyata]

Originally Posted by AltoLXI

Rampant plagiarism, fudged data, irrelevant topics, manipulative guides/students are the bane of the research field in India.

Not surprised at all.

Recently I was speaking with a faculty from one of the better regarded private universities in Chennai. Turns out, they get good financial incentives for publishing in international journals! I don't want to quote the numbers the faculty member mentioned, but what triggered in my mind when I heard it - "Law of unintended consequences!"

One manifestation of this law would be all that in the quoted text of what you've stated.

[ampere]

Originally Posted by Miyata

Not surprised at all.

Not sure about faking the data part. But surely, publishing anything (non-peer reviewed) for a degree is an old problem. And in order to earn it, folks do publish anything and everything.

As I remember some jokingly said, for what ever you write, there is a journal or a conference which will publish it!

I really took it to be a joke. When I realized the gravity of it's ugly truth, it was pretty alarming.

[Miyata]

Originally Posted by ampere

gravity of it's ugly truth, it was pretty alarming.

It is alarming. I have been witness to multiple data misrepresentations and "data-massaging" in my interactions with folks from quite a few Indian universities.

This is where India stands in the retraction ranking -

While some of the retractions could be genuine oversight, many of them are a consequence of misconduct (fraud/non-repeatable/fudging/...). Over the last few years, there have been good education efforts from many top journals on mis-representation and mis-understanding of statistical principles being thrust onto the community (hypothesis testing being the most common).

In some other aspects, I've also seen folks using FFTs/DFTs and any other fourier transforms, for instance, more as black box and end up messing up analysis and interpretation that tend to percolate its way through - apparently the senior scientists/professors do not have time to train the junior researchers!

Recently, in one of our office related tasks a report had to be compiled on something technical. When I checked for plagiarism and scientific consistency, much of the document was lifted off verbatim! Even the scientific consistency was fundamentally flawed - simple things like appropriate use of significant figures highly misplaced. While the science is easily addressed, plagiarism is deeper rooted issue.

Spoke to the person that created the document, he seemed to be totally at ease with the concept of plagiarism!

Overall, many aspects of our education/research system is in the gutter. However, there are quite a few exemplary researchers too. Unfortunately, only a few will benefit from interacting with such fewer awesome folks.

[sgiitk]

Yes, plagiarizing, and data misrepresentation is increasingly a way of life. One must say, often it is inadvertent, or done without knowledge.

[itisravi]

Originally Posted by Miyata

Turns out, they get good financial incentives for publishing in international journals!

It is not just the money. There might also be pressure from the 'management' of these private universities forcing faculty to push out papers for the sake of marketing and publicity of the uni.

Not that it justifies plagiarism but the publish or perish mentality is many a times a threat to producing original research. Defending your thesis and getting a PhD is only half the story. After that, if you go the academic route and become a professor, there is quite a lot of pressure (depending on the uni) to come up with proposals to attract funding from corporations for research projects so that they can admit new masters/ doctoral candidates to work on them. If you go the corporate route and join a research lab, you are basically a cost center for the company and unless your research has near term practical implications you might end up stagnant in your career. All this is hearsay and applies only if you are in the rat race, so please take what I said with a pinch of salt.

[Samurai]

I think we are all familiar with the fad of Universities presenting honorary doctorate to celebrities and political figures. And it is a bit funny when they start using the doctor title even though it is an honorary title.

Couple years ago I was giving a ride to my mom and couple aunts. And they started discussing the fact that 1970s actress turned Karnataka state minister Jayamala was using the title doctor. All the ladies were quite vocal about it. It went something like this:

"What doctor is she? Has she even passed highschool? She was doing acting since her teens, and suddenly she is a doctor! Even if some silly University gave her honorary doctorate, she shouldn't be using it like a title."

I finally butted in saying none of them had any problem when Kannada superstar Rajkumar used his honorary doctorate as a title. They all went... HE is different! Well, they were all his lifelong fans, and could not think any thing was wrong with it. But Jayamala who played his leading lady many times should not.

Today something else happened. My mom said... "I watched an interview with Jayamala recently. Turned out she did a real Phd. She completed BA and MA after retiring for acting. Eventually she took up PhD and did real research travelling all over Karnataka talking to rural women. I would have never guessed..."

I quickly googled and discovered she was right. In fact, Jayamala wrote a thesis on Rehabilitation of Rural Women who were displaced after the construction of Almatti Dam. When I told mom, she said Jayamala was similarly displaced in her youth when her village was acquired for the construction of New Manglore Port at Panambur. So this displaced rural lady from Panambur went on to write a doctorate thesis on the subject in her 50s.

She received her Phd degree from none other than Dr.Abdul Kalam in 2008.

https://www.filmibeat.com/kannada/ne...ee-220108.html

[ampere]

Originally Posted by Samurai

She received her Phd degree from none other than Dr.Abdul Kalam in 2008.

Very-very inspiring indeed! There are some notable folks I have seen to be a real PhD.

Brian May (From Queen) has a PhD in Astro Physics from Imperial college London.

Another one I can recollect is the famous kid from Wonder years; Danica McKellar. She finished out from Chicago in Maths.

[Cessna182]

As a PhD grad myself (recent one) I have to say that no matter where you are and what field you do the degree in, your initial salary won't justify spending 5 years at an university. You will be recruited into jobs that mostly require a master's degree.

However, I did an MBA earlier and I know that the amount of substance that a PhD grad can produce, and the resilience, emotional maturity they most often display, cannot be replaced easily. My MBA was a cakewalk in comparison, and the most important thing that we worried about was the choice of words to use to appear diplomatic while analyzing a business plan, or what format the slides should be in. This was in a top 3 college.

A PhD is a different game altogether. It teaches you how to learn how to create knowledge and how to leverage what exists today to create what would be the future. Almost all developments we take for granted today emerged in research labs at least a decade or two back. You don't have to be a PhD to be good at research, but it is definitely an exposure that's very valuable. Personally, I find it very sad that even PhD graduates from IITs in India work at salaries that are less than those of tier 3 college MBAs- it's shocking because these people would easily have earned thrice as much even in Malaysia or some other SE Asian country. India does not respect research or original thinking at all- that explains where most industries in India, except a very few, are with regards to innovation. Getting a few hundred people into Google or Facebook every year won't build the nation. PhDs and the research culture has to diffuse into the broader industry and HRs have to make an effort to understand what the Ph in the degree means, as a moderator rightly mentioned above.

My batchmates from China were all recruited by the state enterprises there before graduation. We all say China steals, but it also invests in the talent and gets folks who are technically capable into good positions early on.

My experience of job hunting in India in a booming engineering field globally was abysmal. Companies would rather see you just with a 1 year 50 lakh Rupee MBA (which I have) than a PhD, even if the position was a tech one. Research makes the HR folks angry, and most of them have never worked abroad or got acquainted with innovations in their field in the last 10 years. The funniest part was when I saw that the HR head of a top consulting firm in India, which recruits PhDs internationally on a large scale, was from an university that was declared illegal earlier in the last decade.

If you do a PhD, go abroad. Indian companies except those allied to Govt. funded scientific establishments have no interest in R&D. The govt. institutes are great, but the pay is low and you have to deal with the bureaucracy after a while. Great place to spend the beginning of your career though. The tragedy is that instead of scientists or engineers, most Govt. research wings end up being headed by IAS officers of questionable expertise. Nowhere in the world will you see a decorated engineering professor answering to a bureaucrat who never studied science even in high school. But in India, sadly, IAS is more respected than an ISRO scientist.

Good luck to all folks planning for a PhD.

[ampere]

What I have realised is with basic issues plaguing our country, an ecosystem for strong satisfying research work esp. in the industry, is still a long way off.

The more prospering industrial scene, beneficial for the populace at large, is more conducive for a good masters degree at best. Leaving engineering for now, see how many pure science PhDs we produce. And how many of them get back into industry, which actually requires their PhD. Pharmaceuticals at best I can argue.

Coming to engineering, cutting edge engineering work is quite possible in the country with solid masters I can argue. But yes, there is definitely scope for that good PhD person who can come in to such ecosystem. But I do see from skill/talent point of view, the incremental delta which a PhD will bring in is not that easy to justify.

Also leaving a few streams in engineering (say CS/EE), where are bulk of the rest ending-up? (That tells the reality of the situation)

Yes its grim, but I still think there is value in pursuing a PhD. Please do it for fun and not for differentiation of a skill to get a better job. If the idea is go back to academics the answer is obvious.

[Nimz]

Hi All.

Awakening an old thread.

Am an MBA and worked for like 16+ years in various corporate roles across commercial functions (nothing technical).

I now wish to switch from corporate life to academia. Options are to join an MBA college as a visiting faculty or do a PhD and join as full time faculty.

Now a PhD is a 5 year commitment which am willing to put in but I don't see too many PhD students on the other side of 40. Hence want to make sure am not missing something important. Would a PhD in management be worth it for someone with 16+ years of experience. Or are there any other avenues / courses I could look at to get into academia.
Thanks in advance.

[GreyNomad]

If the sole purpose of PhD is to pursue an academic career, you wouldn’t need it. Per UGC’s draft educational policy, they’re introducing something called as ‘practising professor’ or somesuch. These would be professionals with years of corporate experience switching to faculty positions concurrent with Associate Professors.