Every person I know with a PhD now in their 40s and 50s (7 people) doesn’t have a family and wished they did and didn’t have a PhD. I’d love to see a study on that.
I’m never bothered because it looked like too much effort for little money.
This is the danger of anecdotes, they can lead to bias. I have a PhD and I had my first child at 28. Almost all of my colleagues have families and children, except for the one person who was unable to attract a suitable mate (and not for lack of trying). Sometimes very bright people have trouble attracting an equivalent person. The pool is that much smaller and other factors (socioeconomic, culture) still play a role as per other relationships.
> This is the danger of anecdotes, they can lead to bias.
Your own story is also a dangerous anecdote. Without the context, it's pointless to talk about how amazing your Ph.D. experience was. Study engineering or quantitative marketing? Most likely miserable. Study humanities? Probably happier.
It's as latexr said, my counterfactual anecdote holds as much water as the OP's. That's the point. Neither forms a verifiable statement of fact.
Regarding happiness or a Ph.D. being an amazing experience, I didn't say a word about any of that. Those seem to be some very strong assumptions around marriage/kids = happiness or engineering/marketing = misery that you're making.
I don’t think the person you’re replying to is implying their anecdotes are more valid, but that all anecdotes can be contradicted by opposing anecdotes and thus aren’t enough to make sweeping statements.
It is indeed incredibly stupid if the reason why you didn't find a suitable partner is because you didn't want to lower your PhD standard (or academic requirements as if that has anything to do with stable love). Having a PhD doesn't mean you're generally bright, it just means you can do research in some narrow field.
I think it's implied that there is some fuzziness in the matching, not precision to the 7th decimal of some objective test or something. That said I agree it certainly isn't a requirement to be similar in specific attributes to get married. Perhaps somewhat common though.
I left it ambiguous on purpose, as equivalent could mean many things, someone at least as accomplished, at least as wealthy, or at least as considerate... the list it goes on. It all depends on what that person is looking for. Seems silly to judge which attributes are important for what is a deeply personal choice with serious life implications.
that makes sense but it still seems like there is an imbalance on expectations.
It reads as they're great and there's not a lot of people as great as they are when in reality it's probably more like the overlap between the set of people they desire and the set of people that desires them is impossibly narrow. This sounds like a tough personal problem that they can 100% work through by looking in the mirror and working on themselves.
I'm too great to ever find someone as great as me is frankly a piss poor attitude and outlook on life and I feel really bad for them to be stuck like that.
Statistically speaking, you're right, but it's still possible (especially in our brave new world) to have standards that can't suffer anymore compromise before losing the meaning of "standard" itself.
You could also simply have bad luck compounding the issue. Stuff any amount of effort or masquerade won't fix, like being a short man (inb4 "I know this small guy that...").
Do all seven work at the same place? The PhDs I know mostly work a M-W/9-5 schedule with the occasional late night or weekend day when it's crunch time for a conference deadline. Plenty of time left for family, and they all have families. But that's dependent on departmental culture, and there can be a lot of variance.
I suspect that this also depends on field. CS has been hot for a long time now, it's also not extremely expensive to make a dent - or particularly unlikely. In Physics, we graduate an order of magnitude more Phds than there are posts for Phds. There are few remunerative fields which hire Phd physicists.
While somewhat true, I suspect that the path for these phds was both more error prone and harder than alternative pathways to the same position. My understanding is that the use of physics Phds for this role has fallen over the years as financial engineering and quantitative finance have evolved.
You see similar patterns with Physics Phds in AI teams. You are likely to encounter one over your career, but it's not typical.
I knew a lot of physics (and other) PhD's when I worked in finance but I always wondered if they would have chosen to go into that field if they knew that's where they'd most likely end up.
Sure, but I was just giving a counterexample from my personal experience for the claim that their aren't many good paying jobs for Physics PhDs. In my career I have come across a weirdly large number of physics phds in very lucrative roles and that covers various fields, finance, in the software/tech industry (especially in data analysis type roles) and other places.
> In Physics, we graduate an order of magnitude more Phds than there are posts for Phds. There are few remunerative fields which hire Phd physicists.
IIRC, that's even worse in the humanities in both regards.
I'd kind of think doing a career change would be easier for a Phd physicist, because they could benefit from stereotypes especially if they switch into some kind of quantitative or math-y field.
My understanding is that, as you say, Physics PhDs tend to have pretty decent paths into computing or math stuff. It's hard to be a physicist these days without being able to write some code in at least a scripting language, so fields like data science can fit them well.
The challenge is probably in finding pure physics research positions in a specific specialization.
I've also heard quite a few people saying that their PhD was one of the best times of their life, because of how free they were to pursue things they found interesting (many of them have also settled down with a family, as well). Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
FWIW, I finished a physics PhD 15 or so years ago, and 2/3rds or so of the people in the program with me have are married, and most of those couples have children.
There are certainly challenges to having a family while pursing a PhD, but they're not prohibitive, and there are advantages as well (flexible work schedule, Universities often have a lot of programs for employees with children).
From the number of published articles, it seems your wife was in STEM? Engineering Ph.D.s publish a lot of papers but they contribute little to each, because there are often tens of co-authors. Not to downplay your wife's achievement, but pointing out #papers is not that informative.
Come on! 20 publications in STEM by age 28 is massively impressive regardless of field. Admittedly it's not the US, but I've found one study that suggests a publication rate of 0.52 article equivalents per year for women PhD students in engineering and technology: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S175115771...
This doesn't match my observations. Both when I was in academia and now in industry, I see lots and lots of PhDs with kids (often dual-PhD families). It would have been a lot more challenging if I'd stayed in academia (I live in the pricey Bay Area).
Seems like these folks are in academia or have been in academia until very recently? Academic lifestyle tends to take its toll, especially if you move every n years. But even then your sample seems a bit extreme...
Its hard to see how people who switch to industry relatively soon can be penalized so much (and there are a lot of people like that).
There is a joke among scientists that choosing the career path will cost you your firstborn. It would be nice to quantify this but it is hard to. Anecdotally, main issue is financial stability so people with wealthy backgrounds or supportive (by time investment) families have a much easier time navigating this.
I would be surprised if someone did the study and didn't find a delay till first-born child born when compared to similar people (SES background, abilities, etc) that went down the business/finance route.
Edit:typo
Most of the people with the PhD I know that have a family either abandoned the "line of work" (e.g, mathematics PhD but did computer programming) or was a teacher/professor.
I know a PhD specialising in applying ml algorithms to different markets, mostly energy-related.
Married, 3 kids, good position In a fund, same focus as his phd.
He was very, very lucky, without even realising it to this day. His wife took most of the hit, with him permanently working, or teaching, or something, and her taking care of thr rest of their life, kids included.
On the specialisation side. He never went the "pursue a dream even with no money" way. It was more about picking things he was good at, and also making sure the choice included sellable skills.
The number of these you'll find, especially in teaching, is amazingly high.
The "absent-minded professor backed by his down-to-earth wife" is a trope but a common one (and, to be fair, it's not always a man who's absent minded!).
The majority of the people I know who have PhDs have families with children by 30-35.
My experience in grad school is that there are two different classes of people pursuing PhDs:
- people whose parents have MSs or PhDs, who had guidance from a very early age, who have been advised the entire way through and are able to complete their PhDs by age 25-28
- people whose parents don't have advanced degrees, who are at a pretty severe disadvantage, who don't know how to start preparing for grad school applications during sophomore year of undergrad, who don't know how to pick a decent advisor, who don't know how to organize their own funding which provides some level of research independence and the ability to focus on completing their degree instead of worshipping their advisor, and these people are much more likely to take 6,7,8+ years to complete their PhD if they complete it at all
But that's not really relevant to this story. This is an article about a woman who dropped out of her PhD program to have kids, and was given an honorary degree decades later because the work she did complete was groundbreaking.
> who don't know how to start preparing for grad school applications during sophomore year of undergrad
That was me. I always assumed I'd go to grad school because that's just what was done; I never realized that my parents' meeting in grad school meant they worked normal people jobs for the better part of a decade before continuing their educations.
Most of the people with PhDs in that age group I know are married and often talk excitedly about what activities they recently did with their kids. Many are married to other people with PhDs, and their kids also seem to intend to go for PhDs.
The early 30s postdocs seem to mostly be single though, so maybe they'll face that in their 40s and 50s.
About half the PhDs I know have families and are happy with their career choice (challenging and rewarding work). You’re casting unfounded judgement IMHO.
I don't see how going for a PhD limits one's family life.
Sure one could earn more money for less work in the industry, but being a PhD student is still a rather cushy job earning decent money compared to a lot of physical jobs out there. Also nobody cares at which time of the day/week you do your work, which is nice in times where other jobs might prefer to have your ass in an office.
> I don't see how going for a PhD limits one's family life.
Only one way to find out! It limits your family/friends/sex/fun life because the work load is a lot, there are no official "work hours" (so you end up working on weekends, at nights, when others are sleeping, when others go to parties, etc.), you get paid less than people who work in industry even though your work is as difficult (if not more) than theirs (think about the ML stuff Ph.D.s do vs. engineers in companies), you still have to deal with shitty politics in the department, etc.
yeah, I'm on the verge of finding out. Got an offer, but damn it's a big decision to make.
Having supporting parents around to help with childcare (no kids yet, but 4 years is a long time) and financials is a big plus. Also being in Europe where the job market looks dire and industry only pay like 20% more is a major draw towards the PhD.
As someone who's almost done with his Ph.D., I wouldn't recommend it. Although I did mine in the US. European universities are different in some ways (e.g., I've heard they don't require Ph.D.s to do TA work, which is nice).
I wouldn't say TA work is not required. It all depends where the funding for the position is coming from. If the university is funding it without any extra grants or cooperations, TA work is definitely a huge part of being a PhD-student.
You can fly for not a lot of money on Ryanair, their fee structure, website, and app are similar to all other budget airlines. Those extra fees are for handling your luggage (extra manpower and fuel). If you want to complain about Ryanair's fees, get hold of the Fees Schedule for the airport you fly from and to. You will learn how much airports charge for landing, parking, hangarage, handling, fuel, etc. It's an eye-opening read.
Ryanair's claim was that Booking.com etc was reselling its seats, adding its own charges on top, and providing false passenger details. It's in Ryanair's interest to portray this as basically a screen scraping case (because Ryanair don't like screen scraping in general), but there does seem to be more to it than just that.
Ryanair relies on dark patterns and brainwashing as part of the checkout process to sell you hotels, insurance, car hire, etc. Those feed into their income stream.
If you bypass that process they don't make their profit.
I still don't understand, I flew with them last year, and just now I dry-ran booking a flight from Prague to Bologna. The entire thing feels quite streamlined and straightforward. Pick two dates, you're offered flights on or around the dates, you pick the flights, then you pick the "package" (basic, regular, plus, flexi plus) and it shows a HUGE matrix with big fat check marks for stuff you get and no check marks for stuff you DON'T GET (reserved seats, cabin luggage, checked luggage, free check-in at the airport). Honestly, if someone can't navigate the process as it is today, I'd be worried about them traveling to a foreign country. Any additional offers (hotels, insurance, cars) you can safely ignore.
Yes, in their defense, that matrix is an improvement. Though it's not perfect and still intended to fool people: you would expect as you go up the tiers that everything from the previous tier is included but that's not the case: "Plus" doesn't include a carry-on/priority boarding from the "Regular" fare. And the most expensive option "Flexi Plus" doesn't include a checked bag (easy to miss when all other options are included)
I am not sure what "dark patterns and brainwashing" are you referring to, I booked flights through Norwegian- a calm scandinavian low cost company, and had to say no many times to car and hotel offers. The same when renting cars from big companies.
Lets say 20% of people booking through ryanair and paying £30 for a flight go for their "upselling" (which is deliberatly designed to get more people to add it). That makes ryanair £50 each. That pushes the revenue per customer upto £40.
Lets say the cost is £35, and thus ryanair makes £5 profit per passenger.
Now lets say someone else comes along as sells the ryanair flight for £30 and has their own "upselling": "Click here to not avoid missing out on our great protection package" etc. Ryanair now is making a £5 loss on each ticket sold, and the reseller is making it instead.
The warning in this case is hire security people who actually have a clue and include vendor software in their risk assessment.
Literally every time I see stuff like this go down, the security software had exactly zero engineering research put into it whereas everything else did.
If people did this, CrowdStrike would either not exist or look completely different.
I would never buy an AMD machine again after my last Ryzen 3600X. So many issues. It had to be power cycled 2-3 times to get it to boot. Memory corruption issues and stability issues galore. Not overclocked. Stock configuration. Decent quality board and power supply. Just hell.
Swapped board out assuming it was that. Same problem. Turned out to be the CPU which was a pain in the ass getting a warranty replacement for.
Ended up buying a new open box Intel 12400 Lenovo lump off eBay and using that.
I had similar issues with Zen of a few different generations, and with various boards. As a result, I built a new machine around an Intel 12400 as well. I did have to buy a thermaltake socket reinforcement bracket to mitigate the bending issue.
Oddly, this Intel build somewhat restored my faith in humans to build hardware and software as the thing seems to work quite well.
An issue with these parts was that the OOB config wasn’t very good - even if you knew to turn on the XMP profiles it still threw a ridiculous amount of voltage at the chip in pursuit of a few percent performance increase.
I don't think there's a lot in it to be honest between vendors. They are all cheap garbage with lurid ass chunks of metal and artwork designed by a 5 year old stuck all over them.
And there's one thing you can NEVER trust and that is objectivity from gamers when looking at failure and reliability statistics. It's one huge cargo cult.
Notably my kids both have Ryzen 5600G + MSI B550 boards with no problems.
I have been using Gigabyte for a very long time and had no problems. ASUS was OK for me too, but MSI boards were the worst due to stability, driver and cooling curve problems. Don’t buy MSI.
The B550 series is a power reduced cost cutting version of the x570 boards. They are only meant for the 6 core version of chips, and the 65W versions. You need to pick your components carefully.
VRM is the component that you need to be looking at regarding the power delivery for the CPU. There are many motherboards that combine a lower-tier chipset and a high-end VRM.
B550 was that limited initially. Even the Ryzen 9 5950X runs on B550 series motherboards today. B550 is a bit scaled down, e.g. no PCIe 4.x lines, just 3.x, but that's OK with me.
My motherboard is an ASUS ROG Strix variety with 4x32GB ECC RAM and the Ryzen 9 5950X works just fine.
I hear a lot of anecdotes and noise from YouTubers around this but little to no actual data or analysis. I am a skeptic until I see concrete data. That covers both the mobile and desktop issues.
Observations so far are limited to:
I have seen actual evidence that some W680 boards have been shipping with an unlimited power profile which will toast a CPU fairly quickly. As to who’s fault that is and if this correlates or is casual to the rest of the reports I don’t know.
My own Asus B760M board shipped with an unlimited power profile. I had to switch it to “Intel Default”. This machine has been under heavy load with no issues so far.
When I have done research I have only found people reporting this on custom build systems or low balling “servers”. I haven’t found any viable big brand system failure reports yet (Dell/HP/Lenovo etc). While some of this might be statistical failures I’d like to see configuration eliminated from the data as a cause first.
I think it would be rather nice at this point if Intel produced their own desktop boards again with their own tested BIOS. So we have something viable to compare against a reference system rather than the usual ugly junk shifter outfits or big brands. A fully vertically integrated component PC would be a nice thing to have again. They just worked!
Not fully confirmed yet, but that sounds really bad. It seems like it also hits low power models like the 13900T, which would imply this isn't just a voltage issue from auto overclocking.
They were boring in every single way: They weren't flashy, they weren't expensive, they didn't have weird features, and they were ridiculously stable.
I didn't ever buy any of them for myself because I like to tinker with stuff, but I sold a bunch of them to people who simply wanted a computer that just worked.
If the target market is overclockers. They want to be able to override everything for a high score if they want to. My board (ASUS TRX50) has all kinds of override settings for fan speeds, voltages, TDP (whatever that does!) and a warning not to mess with them if you don't know what you're doing.
Yes unfortunately. When you buy "enthusiast boards" which is everything that Dell and HP etc don't ship these days then you have literally no idea what crappy BIOS and software configuration you are inheriting.
that is part of the problem, W680 is not the same thing as C266 (and even C266 might be able to do it, wendell is sounding concerned about E-2400 platform too). W680 is still a consumer-socket product, it's just one that supports ECC. Like yes, people run those in a datacenter and that's fine and normal and supported - some customers want high single-threaded performance, and the big server chips just aren't as good at that. One of the affected customers is Citadel, which is unsurprising if you think about it (HFT).
this also means you get fun stuff like 13700T sometimes being run without power limits... but even within power limits they've seen 13700T degrading too, which is kind of a point against the whole "their hubris and power consumption angered the gods" thesis. If 35W is too much power, we're all cooked.
But it's hard to say, since nothing is being run within-spec and you have to bend over backwards to get "stock" behavior etc. Which buildzoid has elaborated and clarified on (after a couple initial videos that were working from incomplete info). And like yeah, that's a whole shitshow too... not only were partners severely breaking the spec in a whole bunch of places, both in the sense of departing further from the spec in ways that could cause problems, and also performing a factory undervolt out-of-the-box that isn't necessarily stable, and this has gotten more and more out-of-spec over time too (both the undervolting and loadline). Also, the "intel baseline profile" and "intel failsafe profile" apparently did not come from Intel, those were made up by gigabyte and msi, while the Intel Default profile did. Great stuff, you love to see it. /s
But there just has to be a reason that only 10-25% of samples are affected and if it's just generically power or current you should see it everywhere. Hence why board config is/was a concern, and why GN is now kinda pointing the finger at this "contamination/oxidation of the vias" fab problem theory.
Looking at how this whole thing is pasted together, there's probably a regex engine in one of those sys files somewhere that was doing the "parsing"...
