Ask Slashdot: Which Ph.D For Work In Applied Statistics / C.S.? 173
New submitter soramimo writes "I'm currently a Ph.D student in Machine Learning and Biology at a pretty good European university. As my lab is moving to the U.S., I have the chance to get my Ph.D from an Ivy League university instead of the one in Europe (without much additional work, as I'm close to finishing). However, I would be getting a Ph.D in Biological Sciences rather than Computer Science. As I'm planning to work as an applied statistician / computer-scientist / analyst in the U.S. after graduating, I'm wondering which path to take. Is a Ph.D in Biological Sciences frowned upon by technology companies, or is it out-weighed by the Ivy League tag? How big of a role does the type of Ph.D play in the hiring process in the U.S., compared to what you actually did (thesis focus, publication record, software)?"
Do you plan to work in the real world? (Score:5, Insightful)
In the world of business, what you did is much more important. Your experience and actual outputs are far more important then the kind of Ph.D you have.
Re:Do you plan to work in the real world? (Score:5, Insightful)
That might be true at the bachelor level, but at the PhD level people hire you for your specialized expertise based on your degree. For example, no brokerage house is going to hire a biology PhD to do statistical analysis research. They're going to hire someone with a PhD in math/statistics. It might be somewhat different if you are going to work for a pharmaceutical or other biology-related company. But in general, don't expect to get a degree in biology and then get job offers from companies looking for a PhD statistician. In fact, I would suggest that you view the corporate PhD hiring process as being quite similar to the faculty hiring process.
A PhD is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, employers immediately assume you are mature, intelligent, and highly-motivated. On the flip side, they are generally not willing to pay PhD salaries to someone outside their field of expertise. Put yourself in the employer's shoes. Why would an employer pay PhD rates for someone who doesn't have a PhD in the required discipline.
Re:Do you plan to work in the real world? (Score:5, Informative)
As someone who worked in High Finance, I can tell you that you are full of it. Most of the employees were science and liberal arts Ph.D's with very few of those degrees directly relating to what they were working on. My manager (I was doing fixed-income pricers) was a Chemical Engineering doctor, my partner on the project had a Ph.D. in english. There are other examples, but I'll stop there. All that matters is aptitude.
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if all that matter is "aptitude" why did you all have a PhD? You could hire a genius out of high school in that case.
Re:Do you plan to work in the real world? (Score:5, Insightful)
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if all that matter is "aptitude" why did you all have a PhD? You could hire a genius out of high school in that case.
How would companies identify HS geniuses? Grades? SAT scores? Dissertation? Oh, that's right, they don't have one of those. Generally speaking, aptitude + a PhD is a better indicator of ability and potential performance than aptitude + a HS diploma. A person with a PhD has a much longer and better documented track record on which to judge how well they would fit into a job and an organization. There's more to aptitude than being extremely bright.
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This is how something like the accountancy profession works in the UK. After a couple of years of tedious work and a lot of additional evening/weekend study on top, you're left wi
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Special cases are just that, special cases. Sure, there are lots of PhDs working outside their degree field. But the reality is that most employers hiring someone fresh out of school are going to too look at what that person did in school, both in terms of the degree field and the dissertation. Companies generally don't pay PhD salaries to new graduates for aptitude. They pay for somebody who is highly educated in the desired discipline and who can hit the ground running. If you don't believe that, just loo
Re:Do you plan to work in the real world? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Exactly. A PhD is not a vocational degree. It sounds like the OP is doing it to get a specific job. In which case they're doing it wrong.
Not that it's terribly surprising. Schools love PhDs, but if you're looking to get your money back on your investment sometime in the next 20 years then you're doing exactly the wrong thing by getting one.
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Yes, if you paid for it...
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If you're paying for your PhD, you're doing it wrong.
That depends what field you're working in. I'm sure if you did it in something that involved the more efficient slaughter of human beings you could find plenty of sponsors, perhaps less so if you're researching the influence of Dante's Vita Nuova on late Victorian Romantic painting.
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That would be the only explanation for Anon's English major friend, who I sincerely doubt was hired in the firm's "English department" before clawing his way over to financial analysis. That bloke was likely hired for his degree, and the aptitude it promises.
It's interesting though that everyone says how fantastically complex and brilliant the financial products and models are, and yet someone with (presumably) only a modest mathematical education can do it as well as someone who has studied maths for an extra ten years.
The point is, I don't think the maths can be all that difficult. So why can't all the auditors and regulators work out what the banks and other financial institutions are doing?
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As someone who hires occasionally, and has been responsible for evaluating candidates for job positions, I tend to treat post-graduate degrees a bit akin to work experience. I'm not troubled by a degree that is off-theme a bit. For example, the work that we do is computer-related. I'll take degrees in computer science, computer engineering, computational biology, computational physics, mathematics. Note the math thing. In that particular case I would be looking for a lot of evidence in personal initiative w
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I think first degrees in the US must be too easy if you can't use them to measure someone's potential. In the UK, if you want the sort of clever, hard-working drone who will work well producing the latest banking magic smok
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Your Ph.D. will be the name of the department you graduate from, but that says little about the work you do. I work in a Department of Anatomy, and some of our students do purely physics work using MRI technology to quantify signal intensities based on a chemical marker. Their Ph.D. will be in Anatomy, but their work will be in Applied Physics.
Your C.V. should show your entire career trajectory, not just a single line with some name of a department on it. In fact, many people simply omit the department n
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> That might be true at the bachelor level, but at the PhD level people hire you for your specialized expertise based on your degree.
Every PhD that I have ever seen just says "Doctor of Philosophy" on it. You can claim any specialization that you want afterwords. It wont matter if he was in a bio department if he studied stats. He just says his PhD was in statistics, and his thesis will back up that claim.
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Re:Do you plan to work in the real world? (Score:5, Insightful)
I second that - you are full of it. People are going to look at what a PhD did. I've personally seen brokerage houses recruiting out of computational labs at the University of Chicago. They were looking at people doing computer simulations of large biological systems, among other things. They wanted people with experience in statistical mechanics and and computer modelling. I had a former colleague with a PhD in Physical Chemistry go through the application process for a Quant position. His experience was that the prospective employers took his computational and mathematical aptitude on faith, given his schooling, and were only interested in asking question about what he had taught himself about economic and investment models.
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I had a former colleague with a PhD in Physical Chemistry go through the application process for a Quant position. His experience was that the prospective employers took his computational and mathematical aptitude on faith, given his schooling, and were only interested in asking question about what he had taught himself about economic and investment models.
Then, at the end of the interview, he simply had to sign his soul to Satan in his own blood, like everyone else.
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Re:Do you plan to work in the real world? (Score:5, Informative)
Personally when I'm interviewing for staff (in the UK), I only look at what university they went to, not what they studied.
I'm not sure what other countries are like, but over here everyone under 30 years old has a degree, so the only interest I have in their university experience is whether they went to a "Red Brick" (Ivy league equivalent) or a "modern" university (re-branded technical college or polytechnic)
The fact you have a degree shows your ability to learn. What you learned in the past 4 years of University is of less interest to me compared to your potential to learn over the next 30 or 40 years of your career.
I personally value the fact someone even managed to get in to Oxford or Cambridge higher than someone else's 2:1 "degree" from some "university" I've never heard of in the North of England. Sadly this is what happens when governments devalue higher education with misguided targets such as 50% of the population must have a degree.
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I personally value the fact someone even managed to get in to Oxford or Cambridge higher than someone else's 2:1 "degree" from some "university" I've never heard of in the North of England.
What a load of bollocks, a lot of the people who get into Oxbridge do so because they were born to well off parents who could afford to funnel them through the public school system. Yes, there are very clever poor students from inner city comprehensives at Oxbridge, just disproportionately few.
Oh, and there are many other very good universites apart from Oxford and Cambridge, depending on the subjects you're talking about. It's not just those two or ex-polys.
Re:Do you plan to work in the real world? (Score:5, Interesting)
I have hired five PhD's over the course of my career (maybe more, but five that I remember). All of the where hired based on what they did / what they could do and not on the basis of their theses. Granted my statistical sample is tiny, but there you go.
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>>For example, no brokerage house is going to hire a biology PhD to do statistical analysis research. They're going to hire someone with a PhD in math/statistics.
Given that some of the best stats guys I know where biology researchers, that's a bit of a stretch. (What do you think biology research IS, mostly? You have undergrads to actually work with the test tubes and mice, and grad students to oversee them.)
Brokerage houses have been known to hire anyone, in the past, who are whizzes at math, and the
what planet are you from? (Score:2)
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A PhD is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, employers immediately assume you are mature, intelligent, and highly-motivated. On the flip side, they are generally not willing to pay PhD salaries.
Potential employers do make immediate assumptions about an applicant who has a PhD on their CV for sure; however those assumptions are not always as positive as you suggest. When I'd completed my PhD the only jobs for which I could even get an interview were junior developer positions, same as I'd have gotten if I'd just come straight from primary degree to job market. The PhD counted for nothing & was in fact a bit of a sticking point. Interviewers seemed to think that getting a PhD involves sitting o
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Applied Statistics?
Can I assume that the results of this Slashdot "survey" will appear in your dissertation?
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I concur.
But if you want personal insight (and associated ego with a PhD), I believe Computational Physics (@Columbia?) is your destination.
Prestige? (Score:2)
Foreign degrees usually get the stink eye in the U.S. -- too many shops in India and the like handing out PhD's whose recipients exhibit skills on par with one of our 2-year trade schools. A well known university (Oxford) gets respect but if the university is not known outside your country, don't hang you candidacy on the fact of having a degree.
At the U.S. Bachelor's Degree level, the main thing companies look for is whether or not you have a degree in an accredited program. It is very common for computer
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Computer Science IS NOT about number crunching. Beyond high school algebra it only crosses paths with Mathematics in some very specialized niches.
If PhD biology is heavy on the math then it surely bears no relationship with computer science.
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Re:Do you plan to work in the real world? (Score:4, Informative)
In the world of business, who you know is much more important. Your friends and parents are far more important then the kind of Ph.D you have.
Rhetorical nonsense.
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In the world of business, who you know is much more important. Your friends and parents are far more important then the kind of Ph.D you have.
Rhetorical nonsense.
I agree, with the right friends and family you don't need to waste your time getting a PhD at all, you just slide smoothly from Ivy League college to Wall Street without a hitch.
What you actually did is more important (Score:5, Informative)
Employers will care about what you did more than what your degree is named. There are lots people working in fields that don't correspond to the subject-name of their PhD degree.
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I agree it won't matter in most cases, but to be on the safe side, I would personally rather have the CS PhD.
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For BS and MS degrees, the name of the university is important, because there is generally no guarantee that you spent significant time with a faculty member. For a PhD, the name of your thesis adviser takes precedence over the name of the university, especially if the adviser has a respected name in the field. For these reasons, I would opt for the CS de
Put yourself in their shoes (Score:5, Informative)
BTW, these days it seems a lot of resumes are searched for key words. If they're hiring a computer scientist - guess what keywords they're going to look for?
Re:Put yourself in their shoes (Score:4, Insightful)
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I've applied for many university faculty jobs (that require a Ph.D.) and they routinely had several hundred applicants.
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Last few jobs I've been involved with had around 400 applicants for a single place. Jobs at the PhD level are like gold dust at the moment.
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You're hiring a someone to be a computer scientist. Would you rather see them have a CS degree or a biology degree? Ivy League degree or Pretty Good European University? I think everyone is going to look at this differently. I know *I'd* rather see the CS degree. I wouldn't be overly impressed by Ivy League but I think a lot of others would be. I work in the the tech field along with people who have degrees in unusual areas (Dance?) but are technically top notch.
BTW, these days it seems a lot of resumes are searched for key words. If they're hiring a computer scientist - guess what keywords they're going to look for?
I think a good way to put yourself in the employer's shoes is to look at the requirements stated in job postings. If the software job calls for hard-core CS work, you might see "PhD in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering or related field or experience" [emphasis mine.] For software jobs that involve a heavy scientific component (e.g., biology) you might see "PhD in Biology or Bioinformatics preferred; PhD in Chemistry, Mathematics or Computer Science acceptable; biology experien
Re:Put yourself in their shoes (Score:4, Insightful)
>>You're hiring a someone to be a computer scientist
No, he wants to work as a statistician. A biology degree is completely appropriate, as you basically have to be a SPSS whiz to do any research in biology these days. Undergrads actually handle the test tubes and mice, overseen by grad students. PIs get everything set up and then work mainly on the data analysis level. A lot also get involved in computer science for modelling and related reasons.
That said, if I was hiring a computer science computer science position (you know, to have someone refactor code for me or whatever), I'd definitely hire a person with a CS doctorate over a biology one (or a CS person without a doctorate over a bio person), because I can basically guarantee you that no Biology single-subject major will have the necessary classes in software engineering. As someone who spent years working with the code created by biology people... well, that's why they hired me and other CS grad students to do the actual software engineering side of things for them.
So, yeah. Basically it depends on what the ultimate nature of the job is. I'd hire a PhD in biology to do stats over a computer science guy, but I'd hire a computer science guy over a bio PhD for a software engineering job.
A few suggestions (Score:4, Informative)
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From experience with the bioinformatics field...
not just sophisticated, but pretty damn fun too, once you get past the bits of manual labor involved. Or in my case, automate the hell out of many of them. I was such a lazy bastard, I automated everything I could when I worked in the group I worked in, and got done faster than most others.
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You're hired. ;-)
OK, so I don't actually have a job to offer you in bioinformatics (or any job, really) ... but on a recent project we took the opportunity to automate anything that allowed for it.
Automating reduces manual errors, cuts down on human time, and means you have more consistently reproduceable outcomes. It also means you've thought about the long-term and realiz
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LOL, nice, though mine did end up save time, usually after 2-3 data sets. And that was writing in the clusterfuck known as perl.
Many things to consider (Score:2)
Biological sciences (as you are probably well aware) involves a LOT of statistics, and a LOT of computer work. Ironically, in my experience, it is also heavily populated by computer-phobes.
Would it be possible to add a statistical or computational focus to your Ph.D so it is mentioned on it?
Then biology would probably not be a bad idea. One of the things many friends of mine noticed in undergrad, that people in the hard sciences were doing better at getting many CS jobs than people with CS degrees. You can
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Mind you, that is from the undergrad level, the Ph.D. level could be very different.
Yes. Yes, it is.
A graduate CS degree is really a degree in applied math. If you have the background to get into the program, they assume you know how to code already. It's in the graduate work that you learn to understand why you code what you code.
A Ph.D is only a foot in the door (Score:3, Informative)
Re:A Ph.D is only a foot in the door (Score:5, Insightful)
My employer historically has hired lots of PhDs; we design mixed signal chips. My own PhD has basically nothing to do with my job, but the sort of person who can make it through the PhD process in a hard (science or engineering) field has tended to do well here. That high % of PhD folks is changing a bit as we have been growing way too fast lately to not hire a larger % of MS, but when your bread and butter is to do chips that are "hard" enough to get decent margins rather than being commodity priced the ability to go figure things out that everyone doesn't already know is quite useful. Actually FINISHING the PhD is a lot better predictor than STARTING a PhD BTW.
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Actually FINISHING the PhD is a lot better predictor than STARTING a PhD BTW.
Well, yes, there aren't many jobs where an employer looks at all the stuff you've failed to complete or do properly and hires you on that basis.
Cue inevitable slashdot "except in government LOL" jokes.
I went to school for art (Score:2)
Re:I went to school for art (Score:5, Interesting)
Some of the finest people I've worked with in software have degrees distantly related to computer science, math, or software engineering. Music, religion, "interdisciplinary studies", and an accounting dropout are included in that mix. They are right to pish-posh it away. Actually, as an art person, you wouldn't happen to live near Phoenix, know Java well, and be interested in working on GIS applications for remote sensing, would you? We have a good product that probably could use a techie with an art background to improve its UI.
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Actually, that is *my* background. But having had my head stuffed full of perception, human factors, ergonomics, and cognitive psychology has not conferred good graphic design skills to me.
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We have a good product that probably could use a techie with an art background to improve its UI.
Use Vincent van Gogh's "Sunflowers" as the background image. Works every time, as everyone loves his stuff.
Are you sure you have a choice? (Score:5, Informative)
In my experience when the lab moves the students either (1) get a degree from old university or (2) apply to new university and go through the qualification process over. I would check again, before assuming it is your decision. I even know a case, where a 3rd year grad student at Yale was turned down acceptance into Berkeley grad school
Market Your Skills Appropriately (Score:4, Insightful)
Most of the Biopharmaceutical companies in the Boston area are going to look at your Ph.D. to determine whether it is relevant to the work they do. But it won't be the only thing they look for.
Many biopharms are leaning very heavily on computer simulations to model various molecules they are pursuing as potential drug candidates. Having a an advanced degree in biology and the ability to prove strong computer skills might open vastly more doors for you than just having a Ph.D. in a relevant field. Having a programmer who can also intimately understand what the scientists are trying to accomplish is desperately needed by many companies.
But don't sell yourself as a programmer with a doctorate in biology. Rather, sell yourself as a biology doctorate with advanced computer skills. If they think you are a programmer, they'll treat--and pay--you like one. Sadly, there are still WAY too many CEOs (and CIOs, CFOs, and COOs) who are still under the 1980's notion that "high school kids could do this work," and treat computer engineers like they are unskilled labor. As a "respected scientist" you'll be treated far more appropriately by management/business types.
Depends on what you want to do (Score:2)
If you want to do research/find a job in the biocomputing field (such as programming clusters or designing data analysis) either will work very well. PhD's in business, I don't know, not really a good idea as you'd be overqualified and the perception would be not practical enough to work outside of academia or the (again) medical/biology fields.
If possible, get your degree from both places. If you're in a 'pretty good' EU University (such as Geneva, Italy, Paris or other well-known institutions) I wouldn't
The intuitive approach... (Score:2)
If you went-in working toward a PhD in CS/applied statistics...shouldn't you finish with a PhD in CS/applied statistics? There would need to be a compelling reason to make a drastic change at the last possible second.
(Of course, if the program you'd graduate under is closing...then the quality of it's name is uncertain. That might decide the matter in itself.)
In industry, what you actually did probably matters more.
It's the same thing in academia, only names of universities and where you've been published m
It depends who you know and where you're applying (Score:2)
1) Is a Ph.D in Biological Sciences frowned upon by technology companies, or is it out-weighed by the Ivy League tag?
If you're applying for a job at a company where you don't know anyone, your CV will end up in the hands on an HR person. I'm not in your field, but I think there's a considerable chance this person won't be able to see how a PhD in biological sciences connects to a CS/applied math job. The Ivy League tag will (on average) give you an edge, I suspect that to the uninformed eye, it might still
Technology companies need a variety of knowledge (Score:4, Informative)
From my experience in semiconductor manufacturing, technology companies frequently hire individuals with degrees and areas of research that deviate from the core function of the business. Be prepared to discuss the details of your research and work while pursuing your degree and you will do fine.
Many of the skills utilized in your education are common across job fields and in some cases they are not utilized as often as they should in the work place. Some examples include...
- The scientific process itself. A sound decision process is key to problem solving within technology businesses and all too often mistakes are made by "gut feeling" or "common sense" decisions that are followed far too quickly without proper critical thinking.
- Understanding statistical significance and proper reading or presentation of statistical data. This is a hugely critical field to technology companies and at the same time a massive weak point in U.S. businesses. In my opinion there should be some basic statistics courses in K-12 education.
- Working in groups. U.S. corporations spend millions in consultant and training fees trying to instil some group working skills into employees but from what I have seen it is very difficult, and in some cases impossible, to teach people to set aside their individualistic wild west cowboy mentality.
- Communication and presentation skills. Meetings are frowned upon, partly due to the lack of group work skills, yet they are also necessary. You will quickly lose an audience that already doesn't want to be there so you need good communication skills to both keep the attention of individuals but also to transfer the information and knowledge effectively.
There are many more, of course, but these are just a few that come to mind.
what you do (Score:3)
Bioinformatics seems to have an especially even spread of people over the continuum from comp sci to biology, so (from what I have seen) readers of C.V.s tend to focus on work and publications to figure out where you fall.
Having / Getting a Ph.D. (Score:2)
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The same reason being a secretary requires having a Bachelors Degree, degree requirement inflation.
easy answer (Score:4, Informative)
Biological Science. Any scientist these days is going to have to be proficient with computers and analyzing data. In fact, you'll probably be doing much more statistics and number crunching in biological science than in PhD level computer science, which tends to be in some theoretical study less focused on crunching of numbers. And biologist just commands respect. There's just no similar honorary title for computer scientist, and although PhD is different, it's hard to not associate CS with a factory-like undergraduate program, churning out low-skilled CS majors.
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No. I have degrees in biology and cs and work in a quant group at a major pharma. No one respects or cares about my background in bio. Large companies will look closely at your degree title. We probably would not even phone interview a bio major for a quant position. A bioinformaticist or biostatician would fare better. A computer scientist, computational biologist, mathematician, or any engineer is preferred.
You may want to odentify your degree on your resume differently than it reads on your diploma
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Speaking as another bioinformaticist who comes from a mostly CS and math background: math is hard, CS is hard, and biology is hard. There is a good reason why people earn separate PhD's in each of these fields. All are rigorous intellectual disciplines demanding years of study to master, and none is any easier than the others. Anyone in any of them who thinks that any of the others is easy to pick up on the fly is in for a nasty shock at some point.
Focus on machine learning (Score:2)
It depends on who you work for! (Score:2)
And, if they don't know a
You should read this (Score:2)
Just so you're fully informed:
Biology-specific [phd-survey.org] General [phd-survey.org]
In short, the advice from grad students is, "if there is anything else in life that you would be happy doing, do that instead of getting a PhD."
Which PhD for Applied Statistics? (Score:4, Funny)
Just choose one at random.
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Oh, well played!
Hiring Scientists for Financial Services (Score:2, Informative)
I have been actively hiring PhDs to do analytics work for financial services for the last two years. We primarily use machine learning techniques to develop risk management tools. We prefer the applicants to have a PhD, although industry experience can make up for the lack. In general, however, we do not specify that the PhD come from a specific field. Indeed, we have a bio-informatics PhD in our group, and we have interviewed several others. I myself come from a physics background, and others came from eng
Asking in the wrong place - epic fail. (Score:2)
You should be asking in Academia circles, not slashdot.
Your Ph.D will be worth exactly dick the instant you get your first job afterwords. PhDs matter to schools, in the real world, no one gives a shit.
So, if you intend to stay in or around Academia, then your question is valid, but you should be asking around in the academic world, not slashdot.
If you aren't staying in Academia, then drop out of your silly Ph D program and get a real job, the experience will be far more profitable for you in every way.
Eit
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You're an idiot who apparently has some very limited real life experience.
I talked with a company a week back who does various machine learning/data analysis consulting for companies. They've got 100+ PhDs and without one you're not getting hired.
Finance companies, which pay $$$$$, want a PhD if you're doing any sort of financial analysis work for them.
Big tech companies love PhDs and will pay for them. If you're doing science at such a company (ie: algorithmic product improvements, machine learning, etc.)
You might not be able to do it (Score:2)
10. If I already have a PhD, can I apply for another PhD in EECS?
No, we will not admit an applicant who already holds a PhD degree (even if it is in a different area such as Physics or Math)
Seriously.... (Score:2)
I depends on whom you are (Score:2)
Disclaimer, as I am not a PhD. Most of the comments here are very good. But to add my two cents, no matter what is printed on the piece of paper, you are what you are. Either you are comfortable in your own skin or you are not. A PhD won't change that. A PhD is a sign of experience and hopefully maturity, but it won't make you any smarter, or wiser and it won't make your penis grow. You can either solve technical problems, or you cannot. Almost all PhD candidates already solve problems before starting on th
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Good decision (Score:2)
Honestly this was a good decision to ask slashdot about anything in education. Especially about a Ph.D. Beside that, if you are a real Ph.D. student you know that it does not matter what's written on your degree document, as long as you can show what you really did and if it matches your next position. In the industry this is even less important. More important are contacts in the right places. And a nice resumee.
One of the few biases I recognize in myself... (Score:2)
...(although there are doubtlessly many others) is my predisposition towards people with a P.h.D. in Computer Science.
I didn't use to have this bias until I worked with some of them. I have worked in 3 different corporations/companies that have had Comp Sci. P.h.D. personnel. Only one of them was in any sort of management position and he was seriously useless. The other interactions were with corporate research teams, which tended to have a large number of Comp. Sci. P.h.D.s attached, and some computer v
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A: #include <list>
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Good luck with that resonse in an interview ;).
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Why would you think that a PhD in Biological Sciences would be closely related (or even related) to one in Computer Science? Really?
The intelligence of PhDs really are Piled Higher and Deeper.
Biological Sciences have a lot of need for Computer Sciences right now. Everything from Genetics to Molecular Biology spends on staggering amounts of Statistics and CS work. I have a few friends of mine working for the National Health Institute and at Medical Schools and they all need CS and Stats background. So there is a pretty deep connect between Biology and CS right now. So yes, there is a very close relationship.
Obviously, a software firm may ask you why you got a Biological Sciences Ph.D. as oppos
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Biological student need high level programming and stat skills to be effective Biological Scientists in day to day life. So yes Biological Sciences needs Biological Sciences.
If you get a chance watch this
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We have a bioinformatics PhD where I am, which is half biology, half CS. Maybe you didn't read the part where he mentions machine learning which is decidedly computer science.
The Lead systems guy on WoW (Greg "Ghostcrawler" street) is a PhD in marine biology, so it's clear you can move around easily enough. You can simply omit the Biology part and say "PhD from Ivy league school, thesis: Machine Learning for ....".
My PhD is decidedly CS, but it steals a lot of stuff from strategic studies and economics,
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You should add statistics to bioinformatics.
40% bio, 40% comp sci, 20% statistics that isn't highly overlapping with the generic needs of the other two fields.
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so it's clear you can move around easily enough
Yup. Ten years after you graduate your specific subject is irrelevant, unless you're trapped in academia. My PhD is in pure physics, and I've worked in pure physics, applied physics, imaging, robotics and pathology (genetic data analysis) and run my own software and scientific consulting company. Any good PhD in a hard subject from a decent school is an adequate stepping stone to a diversity of futures, so it doesn't pay to be too focused on the details. Do what you love, work hard, always keep learning
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With (admittedly, only a BS, not Ph.D.) in both fields, I have to say...
Which field are you lacking knowledge in? Is it both? Given this is slashdot, I'm inclined to guess the biological sciences, but you never can be certain.
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So...with that logic, if you have a Ph.D. in Fish Hatcheries, you would save people's lives using Fish Mating?
No, if you have any PhD, obviously you should be a philosopher. Doh!
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Meh, you can say the same thing about engineering... could be anywhere from a train conductor or someone who controls the thermostat for a building to someone who sits at a desk and writes papers about splitting atoms in deep space and everything in between.
I think if subby can get their work accepted in the "Quantitative Biology" section of arXiv, they'll probably do all right.
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Anyone tired of these tired Ph. D. posts yet? Unbelievably boring and lame. I guess several of the editors are "working on their Ph D's."
Agreed, the whole "I'm a highly intelligent nerd and as long as I keep getting good grades and qualifications and learning new programming languages I am entitled to a fabulous salary" thing is pretty tedious.
If you're that fucking clever and want to get rich, just go and do it, it's really not that interesting. Plenty of people with average intelligence and a winning smile earn fortunes as recruitment consultants, estate agents or investment bankers.
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I have experience because I have a PhD in one of this fields
Not English, presumably.