Speaking as someone who left tech to get a Ph.D. in a non CS field...
Broadly speaking, I agree with the author's point, that one needs to learn the rules of the game before trying to futz with them, which means one will ultimately be more effective learning the ropes in the first few years of a Ph.D. program. Then, after, one will be in a much better position to change things.
One big issue I see is that the skills that academic training engenders is almost orthogonal to management. And, unlike most of human history, we are now in an Information Age, with both private and public knowledge production economies. The private knowledge economy (i.e., tech, broadly writ) utilizes many practices that are barely heard of in Academia. Minor case in point: project management software is not the norm, at least not in my field.
For those who are interested in this topic, there's a very interesting set of proposals for how to bring "Science 2" much closer to "Science 1" in Michael Nielsen's and Kanjun Qiu's monograph / book "A Vision of Meta-Science." [1] Fair Warning: it is very, very long. But the first part is quite short and proposes a number of interesting Science 2 reforms that should interested HN readers. Tenure Insurance (proposed by none other than Patrick Collison), funding by grant-rating variance, etc.
I'm still finishing the essay, but so far it's the best thing on the state of science I've read to date.
Broadly speaking, I agree with the author's point, that one needs to learn the rules of the game before trying to futz with them, which means one will ultimately be more effective learning the ropes in the first few years of a Ph.D. program. Then, after, one will be in a much better position to change things.
One big issue I see is that the skills that academic training engenders is almost orthogonal to management. And, unlike most of human history, we are now in an Information Age, with both private and public knowledge production economies. The private knowledge economy (i.e., tech, broadly writ) utilizes many practices that are barely heard of in Academia. Minor case in point: project management software is not the norm, at least not in my field.
For those who are interested in this topic, there's a very interesting set of proposals for how to bring "Science 2" much closer to "Science 1" in Michael Nielsen's and Kanjun Qiu's monograph / book "A Vision of Meta-Science." [1] Fair Warning: it is very, very long. But the first part is quite short and proposes a number of interesting Science 2 reforms that should interested HN readers. Tenure Insurance (proposed by none other than Patrick Collison), funding by grant-rating variance, etc.
I'm still finishing the essay, but so far it's the best thing on the state of science I've read to date.
[1] https://scienceplusplus.org/metascience/