Cstan097's Training Log

Training Logs
525

Want to respond in a helpful way, but short on time at the moment. Standby for an edit with some thoughts, hopefully a little later today.

Edit: Okay, @cstan097, here’s that edit I promised. Sorry for the delay—have had a hectic few days here.

Disclaimer: my opinions based on my experience in my field—so grain of salt with everything.

Problems in industry as interesting as in academia? Yes. As a PhD student (and then as a faculty member), the research problem horizon was 5-10 years out, if not more in some cases. Some problems we tackle in my current position are that far out, but most demand an answer much sooner than 5 years, even—more like a year for most problems. The other aspect of industrial R&D is practicality—we need an answer that works, even if it’s not optimal, or the best, or the way it’ll be done in 2 years, in 5 years, … So, yes, I work on tough, interesting problems in industry, just like I did as an academic. I just view those problems through a different lens now.

Freedom to pursue my ideas. Not so straightforward, particularly at first. As an academic, I had to find funding for my work, which can be a significant problem. I had success, but it wasn’t easy. I left academics for a company whose problems aligned with my interests, which means I get a paycheck regardless. I do try to get external funding for my work, but my success isn’t anchored in that as directly as it was when in academia. Also, be aware that even after several successful years as a faculty member, I didn’t direct my R&D in my current position immediately. And certainly not with the level of autonomy that I have now. That took time and energy as well. You’ve just caught me at a time of life when I’m actively reaping the rewards of that investment.

Income. I didn’t leave academia because of the pay—it was more than enough to raise a family and live the kind of life my wife and I value. (I’ll note that Mrs. SvenG is still in academia and has worked full-time almost continually since she finished her dissertation work, even when the kiddos were young. That was our choice for our family, but that may not be for everyone, obviously.) Anyway, at the end of the day, I do make more in industry than I would be making as a faculty member, plain and simple.

I think that covers most of your questions, but if I missed something or you have others, I’m happy to share my experience.

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526

While Iam at it, I wanted to ask how long have you been doing 5x5 fsl? It seems to be going well for you.

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That one’s easy: since the end of June. Started with the Prep & Fat Loss Training template in Forever, which is basically 5s PRO, 5x5 FSL, and then I’ve just kept the actual 5s PRO, 5x5 FSL going since then because it’s working for me (on many levels).

Sorry I didn’t get back to your industry/academia questions last night—just ran out of steam, but I haven’t forgotten.

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Not sure if you get notified of post edits when they include a direct mention, so here’s a new post to let you know that I finally got around to responding to your questions about academics, etc. Hope you find some of the information helpful.

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Sorry to derail. I’m very interested in this academia discussion.

@SvenG i was wondering if you had any thoughts or insights about working as a researcher in a think tank

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Thanks for the reply man. That pretty much clears up what I wanted to know.

@anna_5588 feel free to ask away. I like hearing about this kind of stuff.

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No, I’m afraid not—I had some colleagues over in the fine arts school that were part of a sort of think tank at the college where I was faculty, but I honestly don’t know what they did. I think they wrote books…

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532

There was a giant spider in my garage. Almost sold my house. Workout was short today due to kids not going to bed.

Push press 155 x 3,3,3,3,2 (1 min rest)

Should have rested more.

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533

I feel like this could be a hiku

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534

Hahahah made my day

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535

Bro you should’ve let it bit you and maybe there would’ve been a chance for you to become spiderman

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Hahaha I would have died even though it was just a big ass wolf spider lol

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537

My kids have gone on a sleep strike meaning my alone time to work out is now next to non-existent. Soooo going to have to change things up again somehow.

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538

@SvenG wanted to ask some more questions if you don’t mind. ( I realize it depends on field but since you are in computer science and I am hoping to get into computational science I am hoping it is close enough.)

  • firstly what is your research field if you don’t mind me asking?
  • Is it as hard to get a job as an academic or even in industry as they say if you don’t go to a great school
  • for that matter is it just hard to get a job regardless? I know some people make it sound like industry doesn’t even view Phd work as real experience. I am hoping to get into medical image processing in the future and currently do algorithm development for radar systems (and modeling and simulation). In the next few years I am hoping that I work my way into image and signal processing in my job and by the time I graduate I will have some kind of experience in the image processing world so I hope that helps a little.

edit: well computational science and applied math but computational focused.

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539

I specialize in computer graphics and scientific visualization.

In my experience, your PhD advisor matters more than the school itself. Find the best person working in your area, get them to take you on as a research assistant, and let the rest work itself out when the time comes.

For example, my advisor was one of the top two people in the world doing research in the particular focus area of my dissertation, and he was certainly top in the US. So although I went to a good school (ranked in top 30 US-based CS grad programs at the time), it wasn’t CMU, Stanford, Berkeley, or MIT… i.e., it wasn’t the best CS program in the country. But he was where he was, I wanted to study with him, and it worked out alright for me.

Again, I can only speak from my experience, but we just had a company-wide meeting yesterday in which both our President/COO and our head of recruiting emphasized the fact that we’ve had 70 new hires so far in 2021 and we still have 30+ spots we’d like to fill by year’s end, but we’re having a hard time finding qualified individuals. (These are technical positions that require specialized technical expertise—not administrative or other staff positions.)

Now that’s not academia—that’s industry. And I do believe that it’s tougher to secure a good academic position, in general. That said, I didn’t have a hard time finding my faculty position when I had finished my dissertation work way back when… But maybe I was just lucky?

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Thanks for the feedback man.

See since I am limited to a not so great area in terms of schools, it doesn’t SEEM like there are many great professors here. But that leads me to my next question. How do you really know if they are good or not without being in the field for a while and how do you know if they are even “good enough” to really work with. By that I mean that my work will even be looked at by potential industry hiring managers vs just another person on the pile. Do you just look at citations ? I mean that seems like it is kind of a bad thing to go by. The reason I ask is because I have the opportunity to go to JHU paid for and there are some pretty great people there but I am more concerned that it is an online program and that the advisors would not have time for me to do my thesis (this is only an MS program since I am out of state) but I could just do Phd locally with advisors that wouldn’t be as good but would have potentially more time for me and my work.

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Do you feel this is because your company is being really strict about the requirements or is it really because of a lack of talent. Because I feel like I see all the time that companies are asking for precise requirements in the job posting that are just really unrealistic. Like some exact combination of experience that you are unlikely to have.

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I’ll address this one first, because it’s easier. :slight_smile:

A bit of both, I suppose. Certainly we have requirements that can be niche sometimes, but the feeling I’ve had (and what was conveyed during the meeting) is a general lack of solid technical people.

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Discliamer: all the usual “IME” qualifiers apply.

Okay, so… MS program is different than PhD. I did my MS work at a top-tier school—CMU, in fact (also on scholarship). I used that thesis-based work as a launching point into the PhD work with my top-tier advisor: the fact that I was coming out of a great school with some graduate-level research work already under my belt separated me from other applicants with only 4-year undergraduate degrees and maybe a senior “thesis” project. I did pretty well in undergrad, so I might have stood out even if I hadn’t gone to CMU for my MS work, but the name and reputation there certainly didn’t hurt.

The online degree stuff is entirely new since my time, and I have absolutely zero experience with that, either as an academic or as someone who has a hand in hiring for our open positions.

That said, JHU has a great reputation, and so I’d be shocked if their online programs weren’t worth their salt. And if it’s thesis-based, which usually requires a non-trivial commitment from the program’s faculty members, then it’s likely not just a cash-cow for the university. I can’t guarantee that, obviously, but JHU is legit—seems odd to me that they’d create a crap program just for some extra tuition dollars.

Right, so… that’s my $0.02.

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:joy::joy::joy::joy:

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